Stultae et prudentes filiae – Biblia Sacra series

Description of Art: Stultae et prudentes filiae (“The Foolish and Wise Virgins”) is Salvador Dalí’s surrealist interpretation of the biblical Parable of the Ten Virgins from the Gospel of Matthew (25:1–13). This work explores the contrast between spiritual readiness and negligence, a theme that resonated deeply with Dalí during his late-career mystical phase.

The composition presents two distinct groups of elongated, ethereal figures, divided between light and shadow. The wise virgins, rendered in soft, luminous tones, hold upright oil lamps glowing with radiant color—a metaphor for vigilance and faith. Opposite them, the foolish virgins appear in muted, almost ghostly hues, their extinguished lamps drooping, evoking spiritual emptiness and despair.

Dalí’s background is characteristically sparse yet vast, with a receding horizon and a sky painted in subtle gradations of gold and rose, suggesting the approaching dawn of judgment. Symbolic elements—such as fractured columns, shadowy pathways, and distant gates—reinforce the sense of an impending moment of reckoning.

Executed with Dalí’s refined draftsmanship and dreamlike precision, the work reflects his ability to merge Christian allegory with the unsettling tension of Surrealism. The painting invites viewers to contemplate themes of preparedness, divine justice, and the human condition, all within Dalí’s distinctive universe where the spiritual and the psychological coexist.