Salvador Dalí’s 1936 painting Couple Aux Têtes Pleines de Nuages makes you do a double take.

At first it appears as an oddly shaped pair of paintings. Upon closer inspection this fact remains true, but the strange shape reveals itself to be two human figures: Dalí and his wife Gala.

Interestingly, Dalí was inspired by Jean-François Millet’s L'Angélus - a painting of a man and woman reciting their midday prayers in a field. This was not Dalí’s style. As a Surrealist, he was bored by this kind of pastoral work. However, he nonetheless borrowed the shape, and used it to create something new: an homage to his relationship with his wife. The title of the piece means “A Couple with Their Heads Full of Clouds.” This title, plus the way the two figures lean into one another, makes this a very romantic artwork. Though Dalí is known for strange melting clocks and his love of rhinoceroses (thank you, Midnight in Paris), this painting seems to expand his thematic range. There is a barrenness in the bodies of the two figures, but their heads are brightly colored - as if Dalí is playing with the idea of “the life of the mind,” or commenting in some way on how love makes you a little crazy.

Like many other art history couples (think Diego Rivera and Frida Khalo, or Lee Krasner and Jackson Pollock), this one features a strong woman who helped make her man. The idea of “behind every great man is a great woman” is super annoying and outdated, but it exists for a reason - couples like Gala and Salvador.

Gala was a decade Salvador’s senior, and rather an art groupie. At the time they met she was dating a poet, and was having an affair with Max Ernst. As she and Dalí became closer, he signed paintings with both of their names, because he believed that “it is mostly with your blood, Gala, that I paint my pictures.” Awww or ew? She was getting him sales and boosting his career to the max. He owed her this painting!

Their life wasn’t perfect, however. After marriage they both had many affairs, and as Dalí aged he began to hate Gala’s interactions with young male artists. Eventually he beat her, and so she began drugging him to sedate him. Despite this volatility, when Gala died Dalí became frenetic - crying, hurting himself, and refusing to eat. He lived another seven years without her.

Knowing this story, Couple Aux Têtes Pleines de Nuages becomes even more intense. The far-off town perhaps alludes to other people (ahem, affairs) that each of them knew, but the piece is a deep connection between two people: no bodily distractions like sex or food lie within the frame. There is just the intense gravity of each head leaning toward the other, and the shared clouds moving across the lovers’ brains.