The Elephants
The Elephants | |
---|---|
Artist | Salvador Dalí |
Year | 1948 |
Medium | Oil on canvas |
Movement | Surrealism |
Dimensions | 49 cm × 60 cm (19 in × 24 in) |
Location | Private collection |
The Elephants (Catalan: Els Elefants) is a 1948 painting by the Catalan surrealist artist Salvador Dalí.[1]
Background
The elephant is a recurring theme in the works of Dalí, first appearing in his 1944 work Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee Around a Pomegranate a Second Before Awakening, and also in The Temptation of Saint Anthony and Swans Reflecting Elephants. The Elephants differs from the other paintings in that the animals are the primary focus of the work, with a barren graduated background and lack of other content, where most of Dalí's paintings contain much detail and points of interest (for example Swans Reflecting Elephants which is somewhat better known within Dalí's repertoire than The Elephants[2]). The stork-legged elephant is one of the best-known icons of Dalí's work. Other examples are The space elephant (made of gold and gemstones) that Salvador Dalí designed in 1961[3] and the homonymous sculpture created in 1980.[4]
Symbolism
There are various cultural depictions of elephants, where they are often viewed as symbols of strength, dominance and power due to their bulk and weight.[5] Dalí contrasts these typical associations by giving the elephants long, spindly, almost arachnid-like legs, once described as "multijointed, almost invisible legs of desire".[6] Dalí enhances the appearance of strength and weight by depicting the elephants carrying massive obelisks on their backs, however, on close inspection it can be seen that these weights are floating. The obelisks on the backs of the elephants are believed to be inspired by Gian Lorenzo Bernini's sculpture base in Rome of an elephant carrying an ancient obelisk,[7] and was mentioned in several communications of the artist, so can be considered a reliable claim.[2]
The Elephants is a good example of a surrealist work, creating a sense of phantom reality. "The elephant is a distortion in space", one critic[who?] explains, "its spindly legs contrasting the idea of weightlessness with structure";[6] "contrasting weight and space".[2]
See also
References
- ^ Robert Descharnes, Gilles Néret (1 August 2007). Salvador Dalí: 1904-1989. The paintings. Taschen. ISBN 978-3822838228.
- ^ a b c "Salvador Dali Elephants". Archived from the original on 2013-03-08. Retrieved 2013-07-26. pene art.com Retrieved on July 26, 2013
- ^ The Space Elephant. Dalí Theatre-Museum. Dalí Foundation.
- ^ Space Elephant - Monumental Sculpture. Dalí universe.
- ^ Lewis, Naomi. "Les Elephants – Salvador Dali". Archived from the original on August 25, 2012. Retrieved 8 May 2023.
- ^ a b Dalí Universe Collection Archived 2008-12-01 at the Wayback Machine. County Hall Gallery. Retrieved on July 28, 2006.
- ^ Michael Taylor in Dawn Adès (ed.), Dalí (Milan: Bompiani, 2004), p. 342
- v
- t
- e
- List of works
- Landscape Near Figueras (1910)
- Vilabertran (1913)
- Cabaret Scene (1922)
- Portrait of My Father (1925)
- Young Woman at a Window (1925)
- The Basket of Bread (1926)
- Apparatus and Hand (1927)
- The Lugubrious Game (1929)
- The First Days of Spring (1929)
- The Accommodations of Desire (1929)
- The Great Masturbator (1929)
- The Invisible Man (1929–1932)
- The Persistence of Memory (1931)
- The Ghost of Vermeer of Delft Which Can Be Used as a Table (1934)
- Morphological Echo (1934–1936)
- A Chemist Lifting with Extreme Precaution the Cuticle of a Grand Piano (1936)
- Couple with Their Heads Full of Clouds (1936, 1937)
- Soft Construction with Boiled Beans (Premonition of Civil War) (1936)
- The Burning Giraffe (1937)
- Metamorphosis of Narcissus (1937)
- Swans Reflecting Elephants (1937)
- Apparition of Face and Fruit Dish on a Beach (1938)
- The Enigma of Hitler (1939)
- Shirley Temple, The Youngest, Most Sacred Monster of the Cinema in Her Time (1939)
- The Face of War (1940)
- Slave Market with the Disappearing Bust of Voltaire (1940)
- Geopoliticus Child Watching the Birth of the New Man (1943)
- The Seven Lively Arts (1944)
- Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee Around a Pomegranate a Second Before Awakening (1944)
- Basket of Bread (1945)
- The Apotheosis of Homer (1945)
- The Temptation of St. Anthony (1946)
- The Elephants (1948)
- Cartel de Don Juan Tenorio (1949)
- Leda Atomica (1949)
- The Madonna of Port Lligat (1949)
- Christ of Saint John of the Cross (1951)
- Galatea of the Spheres (1952)
- The Disintegration of the Persistence of Memory (1952–1954)
- The Colossus of Rhodes (1954)
- Crucifixion (Corpus Hypercubus) (1954)
- Young Virgin Auto-Sodomized by the Horns of Her Own Chastity (1954)
- The Sacrament of the Last Supper (1955)
- Living Still Life (1956)
- The Seven Lively Arts (1957)
- The Discovery of America by Christopher Columbus (1958–59)
- The Ecumenical Council (1959–60)
- Galacidalacidesoxyribonucleicacid (1963)
- La Gare de Perpignan (1965)
- Tuna Fishing (1966–67)
- The Hallucinogenic Toreador (1968–1970)
- La Toile Daligram (1972)
- Dalí Seen from the Back Painting Gala from the Back Eternalised by Six Virtual Corneas Provisionally Reflected by Six Real Mirrors (1972–1973)
- Lincoln in Dalivision (1977)
- The Swallow's Tail (1983)
- Lobster Telephone (1936)
- Lobster dress (1937)
- Mae West Lips Sofa (1937)
- Champagne Standard Lamps (1938)
- Rainy Taxi (1938)
- A Logician Devil (1951)
- Giraffes on Horseback Salad (1937)
- The Secret Life of Salvador Dalí (1942)
- Dali's Mustache (1954) (with Philippe Halsman)
- Être Dieu (1985)
- Un Chien Andalou (1929)
- L'Age d'Or (1930)
- Spellbound (1945, dream sequence)
- Destino (1946, completed 2003)
and costumes
- Mariana Pineda (1927 production)
- Gala Dalí (wife)
- Gala-Salvador Dalí Foundation
- Paranoiac-critical method
- Salvador Dalí and dance
- Chupa Chups
- Dalí Atomicus (1948 photograph)
- Salvador Dalí (1966 film)
- The Death of Salvador Dali (2005 film)
- Little Ashes (2008 film)
- Midnight in Paris (2011 film)
- Dalíland (2022 film)
- "Salvador Dalí" (song)
- 2919 Dali (asteroid)
- Dali crater
- Salvador Dalí Desert
- Dalí cross