The Burning Giraffe

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The Burning Giraffe

Salvador Dalí, 1937

Oil on panel

35 × 27 cm, 13.78 × 10.63 in

Kunstmuseum Basel, Basel

The Burning Giraffe (1937) is a painting by the Spanish surrealist Salvador Dalí.

The image is set in a twilight atmosphere with deep blue sky. There are two female figures, one with drawers opening from her side like a chest. They both have undefined phallic shapes protruding from their backs which are supported by crutch-like objects. The hands, forearms and face of the nearest figure are striped down to the muscular tissue beneath the skin. One figure is holding a strip of meat. Both human figures that double as a chest of drawers as well as the crutch like shapes are common archetypes in Dalí’s work.

In the distance is a giraffe with its back on fire. Dalí first used the burning giraffe image in his 1930 film L'Âge d'Or (The Golden Age). It appears again in 1937 in the painting The Invention of Monsters. Dalí described this image as “the masculine cosmic apocalyptic monster.” He believed it to be a premonition of war.

[edit] Source

• dali-gallery.com

v • d • e Salvador Dalí List of works Selected Paintings Landscape Near Figueras (1910) • Vilabertrin (1913) • Fiesta in Figueres (1914-16) • Port of Cadaqués (Night) (1918-19) • The Artist's Father at Llane Beach (1920) • The Garden of Llaner (Cadaqués) (1920-21) • Cabaret Scene (1922) • Cubist Self-Portrait with "La Publicitat" (1923) • Self-portrait with L'Humanitie (1923) • Portrait of Luis Bunuel (1924) • Siphon and Small Bottle of Rum (1924) • The Basket of Bread (1926) • Honey Is Sweeter Than Blood (1927) • The Lugubrious Game (1929) • The First Days of Spring (1929) • The Great Masturbator (1929) • The Persistence of Memory (1931) • The Ghost of Vermeer of Delft Which Can Be Used As a Table (1934) • Morphological Echo (1934-36) • Archaeological Reminiscence of Millet's Angelus (1935) • Autumn Cannibalism (1936) • Lobster Telephone (1936) • 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 Sublime Moment (1938) • 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) • Honey is Sweeter than Blood (1941) • Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee around a Pomegranate a Second Before Awakening (1944) • Galarina (1944-45) • Basket of Bread (1945) • 'The Temptation of Saint Anthony (1946) • The Elephants (1948) • 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(1952-54) • Crucifixion (Corpus Hypercubus) (1954) • Young Virgin Auto-Sodomized by the Horns of Her Own Chastity (1954)  • The Sacrament of the Last Supper (1955) • Still Life Moving Fast (1956) • The Discovery of America by Christopher Columbus (1958-59) • Tuna Fishing (1966-1967) • The Hallucinogenic Toreador (1968-1970) • La Toile Daligram (1972) • The Swallowtail (1983) • Other works Writings: L'Âge d'or • Libretto for Bacchanale • Giraffes on Horseback Salad Films: Un chien andalou Animated Films:Destino Logos:Chupa Chups Opera:Être Dieu Sculpture:Lobster Telephone • Mae West Lips Sofa Costumes:Costumes for Mariana Pineda Related articles Castle of Púbol • Dalí Universe • Espace Dalí • Dalí Theatre and Museum • Salvador Dalí Museum • Salvador Dalí (film) • Paranoiac-critical method

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The Burning Giraffe (1937) is a painting by the Spanish surrealist Salvador Dalí.

The image is set in a twilight atmosphere with deep blue sky. There are two female figures, one with drawers opening from her side like a chest. They both have undefined phallic shapes protruding from their backs which are supported crutch-like objects. The hands, forearms and face of the nearest figure are stripped down to the muscular tissue beneath the skin. One figure is holding a strip of meat. Both human figures that double as a chest of drawers as well as the crutch like shapes are common archetypes in Dalí’s work.

In the distance is a giraffe with its back on fire. Dalí first used the burning giraffe image in his 1930 film L'Âge d'Or (The Golden Age). It appears again in 1937 in the painting The Invention of Monsters. Dalí described this image as “the masculine cosmic apocalyptic monster.” He believed it to be a premonition of war.