The Burning Giraffe

Infobox Painting|

backcolor=#FBF5DF
painting_alignment=right
image_size=300px
title=The Burning Giraffe
artist=Salvador Dalí
year=1937
type=Oil on panel
height=35
width=27
height_inch=13.78
width_inch = 10.63
diameter_cm =
diameter_inch =
city=Basel
museum=Kunstmuseum 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 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.

ource

* [http://www.dali-gallery.com/html/galleries/painting13.htm dali-gallery.com]