Which idea was considered bold, insane, and at the same time genius?
In 1951 Salvador Dalí prepares the work "Voluptas Mors" ("Pleasure of death", also known as "The skull").
![1655059791075.jpeg 1655059791075.jpeg](https://on3static.com/xf/data/attachments/201/201934-8b1263f9f9eadbbcb28993c101d561f2.jpg)
Conceived in partnership with Salvador Dalí, who appears with a slanted gaze in the corner, the final photographic composition highlights a surreal skull mounted with naked women.
![1655059902254.jpeg 1655059902254.jpeg](https://on3static.com/xf/data/attachments/201/201935-cb6c13fb6dfa68fbfee99a274a8156a9.jpg)
In Voluptas Mors, something like “in the pleasure of death”, is part of a series of “tableaux vivants”, living paintings, that Halsman made with Dalí in the late 40s and early 50s.
![1655059992081.jpeg 1655059992081.jpeg](https://on3static.com/xf/data/attachments/201/201936-b3f937ad9fc9f13107ddb4b6fc08ee38.jpg)
These “tableaux vivants” required a lot of work. , rolls of films and hours of editing to transpose surrealist imagery into photographs.
![1655060218507.jpeg 1655060218507.jpeg](https://on3static.com/xf/data/attachments/201/201939-757b4b40070a977706ad5920e17657e4.jpg)
The scene of the skulls of naked women, for example, would have required more than three hours of composition and photographic attempts to sharpen Dalí’s impatience and Philippe Halsman’s obsession, as well as the deep pains in the contorted models “in the pleasure of death”, In Voluptas Mors.
When you look at the moth covering Jodie Foster’s mouth on the Slience of the Lambs poster, Dali’s painting is on its back