Shakespearean Equation: Hamlet

From the museum

Man Ray’s painting belongs to a series of works inspired by three-dimensional mathematical models he encountered at a scientific institute in Paris. With a desire to create surreal and cryptic juxtapositions, he titled these paintings after plays by William Shakespeare. Although their literary associations appear random, May Ray explained that, in the case of Hamlet, the mathematical form reminded him of a skull and breast, respectively referencing the characters of Yorick, whose skull Hamlet encounters in a cemetery, and Ophelia. Man Ray's tombstone is inscribed, "Unconcerned but not indifferent."

The museum’s own description, in English. Licence: CC0