What type of tree is depicted in the painting?

The tree depicted in the painting is an olive tree.

Salvador Dalí’s 1931 painting places a stark, leafless olive tree on the left side of the composition. Its thin, cut branches support one of the famous soft watches, turning a familiar Mediterranean tree into part of the painting’s dreamlike distortion. The dead-looking tree also contrasts with the rigid geometric block beneath it and the barren coastal setting beyond.

The olive tree connects the scene to Dalí’s native Catalonia. The landscape is associated with the Portlligat and Cap de Creus area, where rocky shores, dry vegetation, and olive trees were familiar features. This regional setting helped anchor an otherwise impossible scene in a recognizable Mediterranean environment.

A common mix-up is to identify the tree as a cypress because cypresses are strongly associated with Mediterranean landscapes and appear frequently in European art. In this painting, however, the sparse, gnarled form is identified as an olive tree. The work was painted in 1931 and is held by the Museum of Modern Art in New York.