“Two Pieces of Bread Expressing the Sentiment of Love” is an oil on canvas artwork created by Salvador Dalí in 1940, measuring 81.3 x 100.3 cm. The artwork is a representation within the Surrealist movement and is part of the landscape genre. It is exhibited at the Dalí Theatre and Museum located in Figueres, Spain.
The artwork portrays a stark, barren landscape rendered with a vast expanse of smooth, brownish surface that occupies most of the canvas, evoking the texture of a table or a plain. Poignantly situated at the center of this landscape are two pieces of bread. The bread appears crusty, detailed with realistic textures and shadows that give them a tactile quality. Despite the title’s reference to the expression of love, the bread is not anthropomorphized; there are no facial features or limbs that explicitly suggest human emotion or interaction.
In the background, the terrain transitions into what seems to be a craggy mountainous area under a light sky. Interestingly, despite the lack of typical romantic symbols, Dalí uses the bread—a mundane, yet essential, element of human sustenance—to symbolically convey emotion and connection. This choice reflects the essence of the Surrealist movement, which sought to connect the everyday with the extraordinary, and to explore complex human emotions through unexpected juxtapositions and dream-like imagery. Far in the distance, there is a diminutive figure, potentially a human, adding a sense of scale and isolation within the vastness of the scene. This exploration of scale and emptiness is characteristic of Dalí’s landscapes and plays into the surreal atmosphere of the work.
