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In Metamorphosis, the reflection of Narcissus is used to mirror the shape of the hand on the right of the picture. Here, the three swans in front of bleak, leafless trees are reflected in the lake so that the swans' necks become the elephants' trunks, the swans' bodies become the elephants' ears, and the trees become the legs of 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 is a 1948 painting by the Catalan surrealist artist Salvador Dalí. 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 ...
Dali's Metamorphosis of Narcissus, Smarthistory Metamorphosis of Narcissus is an oil-on-canvas painting by the Spanish surrealist Salvador Dalí , from 1937. Originally titled Métamorphose de Narcisse, [ 1 ] This painting is from Dalí's paranoiac-critical period and depicts his interpretation of the Greek myth of Narcissus.
The elephant is a distorted version of the Piazza della Minerva sculpture Elephant and Obelisk by Gian Lorenzo Bernini facing the church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva in Rome. [7] The smaller pomegranate floating between two droplets of water may symbolize Venus, especially because of the heart-shaped shadow it casts. [7]
The male figure seen only from the waist down has bleeding fresh cuts on his knees. Below the central profile head, on its mouth, is a grasshopper, an insect Dali referred to several times in his writings. Unlike real-life grasshoppers, the grasshopper seems to be gigantic and has 4 legs instead of 6 legs.
A parade of elephants led by a horse approach St. Anthony. The horse is a depiction of Satan (note the reverse of the hooves); many artists of the Middle Ages depicted anything other than Christian as upside down or reverse, and Dalí did the same here, but the horse as Satan was described by Dalí as beautiful, terrible and impossible.
The picture depicts Leda, the mythological queen of Sparta, with the swan. Leda is a nude frontal portrait of Dalí's wife, Gala, who is seated on a pedestal with a swan suspended behind and to her left. Different objects such as a book, a set square, two stepping stools and an egg float around the main figure.
The hands of the watches float above their dials, with several conical objects floating in parallel formations encircling the watches. A fourth melting watch has been added. The distorted human visage from the original painting is beginning to morph into another of the strange fish floating above it. To Dalí, however, the fish was a symbol of ...