The Prelude, The Impaling

The devil will take your soul with an escargot fork, as one would scrape the snail from the shell.

Digital painting made with AI and post-processing, 4928 x 3712 pixels JPG, 6.5 MB

Collection info - Surreal Continuum. My work is inspired by the 2014 documentary, "Dali's Greatest Secret" which tells the story of his painting 'The Vision of Hell.' Three schoolgirls were witness to a vision from Mary wherein they were shown what hell is like, and they were instructed to go and tell their families, who then tried to silence the girls. Dali was commissioned by a Catholic group to paint those girls' vision of hell. Dali had remarked that he would use escargot forks in his painting because a sinner's soul curls up in the shell like the snail, so the soul can only be retracted with an escargot fork. He finished over a year too late, and since the need for it had disappeared, the painting was hidden under a nun's bed for about three decades.