The Swallow's Tail — Series on Catastrophes (French: La queue d'aronde — Série des catastrophes) was the last painting of Salvador Dalí, done in May 1983. It is the final work in a series based on René Thom's catastrophe theory.
Thom suggested that in four-dimensional phenomena, there are seven possible equilibrium surfaces and therefore seven possible discontinuities, or "elementary catastrophes": fold, cusp, swallowtail, butterfly, hyperbolic u...
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The Swallow's Tail — Series on Catastrophes (French: La queue d'aronde — Série des catastrophes) was the last painting of Salvador Dalí, done in May 1983. It is the final work in a series based on René Thom's catastrophe theory.
Thom suggested that in four-dimensional phenomena, there are seven possible equilibrium surfaces and therefore seven possible discontinuities, or "elementary catastrophes": fold, cusp, swallowtail, butterfly, hyperbolic umbilic, elliptic umbilic, and parabolic umbilic. "The shape of Dalí’s Swallow’s Tail is taken directly from Thom’s four-dimensional graph of the same title, combined with a second catastrophe graph, the s-curve that Thom dubbed, "the cusp". Thom’s model is presented alongside the elegant curves of a cello and the instrument’s f-holes, which, especially as they lack the small pointed side-cuts of a traditional f-hole, equally connote the mathematical symbol for an integral in calculus: ."
In his 1979 speech, "Gala, Velázquez and the Golden...
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