How Art Responded to the Atomic Bomb: From Dali to Baj

The article by Marcello Faletra on Artribune explores the artistic and political responses to the atomic bomb, from Hiroshima to the present. It references Japanese doctor Michihiko Hachiya's diary of August 6, 1945, and historian Daniel J. Goldhagen's characterization of Harry Truman as a mass murderer. Philosopher Günther Anders' 1961 observation that humanity's central question shifted from 'how should we live?' to 'will we still live?' is cited. The text argues that nuclear weapons are not a matter of controversy, unlike fascism, and criticizes the logic of Karl Jaspers and Leo Strauss that totalitarian threats require total destruction. It notes that after WWII, political thinking about nuclear catastrophe was delegated to fiction. In art, Salvador Dalí painted 'Atomic and Uranic Idyll' in 1945, and Fortunato Depero issued a 'Manifesto of Plastic and Nuclear Painting' in 1950. In 1951, Enrico Baj and Sergio Dangelo founded the Nuclear Movement, with Baj later stating that human heads resemble wandering bombs ready to explode. The article concludes that resignation is the last ideology, and dreams in art are like an opiate before the end.