29. Swans Reflecting Elephants

Salvador Dali, one of the most avid promoters of the surrealist movement in art, was deeply influenced by Sigmund Freud's theories about the latent manifestations of dreams. He incorporated these concepts into many of his works and gradually translated them into paintings, sculptures, or films. Completed in 1937, the oil work is found in a private collection. We note, again, the concern for illustrating the double through the reflection of the swans on the water's surface, but this time the painter's boundless imaginative capacity comes into play: the bare trees contribute to the formation of illusion, thus the heads of the swans become, in the water's reflection, the heads of elephants; and there, the bodies of elephants replace the trunks of the trees. Therefore, major permutations happen, through subtle games, which give new meanings to the elements chosen by the artist. The Catalan landscape, depicted in splendid autumn colors; the brush waves in the composition of the background and of the characters that contrast with the static surface of the water are based on Dali's essay recorded in 1935, "The Conquest of the Irrational". We will now see that hallucinatory shapes, double images, or even visual illusions predominate in his creation around the 1930s. We now observe spontaneity, but also the critical and at the same time delirious interpretation of the subjects taken from daily life. Similar to "The Metamorphosis of Narcissus", in which the water also takes on fascinating connotations, this opera stands out through the plethora of meanings that the elements rendered take on.

Dimensions

width 40 cm, height 26 cm

Description

cromolitografie, signed bottom right, under the frame, in pencil, "Dali"; numbered bottom left, under the frame, in pencil, "MXVIII/MM"

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