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Dali painted "Burning Giraffe" during his exile in the United States. Although Dalí declared himself apolitical, "I am Dalí, and only that.", this painting shows his personal struggle with the battle in his home country. Characteristic are the opened draws in the blue female figure, which Dalí on a later date described as "Femme-coccyx" (tail bone woman). This phenomenon can be traced back to Freud's psychoanalytical method, much admired by Dalí. He regarded him as an enormous step forward for civilization, witness his remark. "The only difference between immortal Greece and our era is Sigmund Freud who discovered that the human body, which in Greek times was merely neoplatonic, is now filled with secret drawers only to be opened through psychoanalysis." The opened drawers in this expressive, propped up female figure thus refer to the inner, subconscious within man. In Dalí's own words his paintings form "a kind of allegory which serves to illustrate a certain insight, to follow the numerous narcissistic smells which ascend from each of our drawers.
ABOUT THE ART PERIOD: DalĚ sublimated his life in his art of
painting. Relying on great craftsmanship, acquired in all sorts of art
experiments, he lifted surrealism, in an inimitable self-willed manner,
to exceptional heights. He photographed, as it were, associatively what
was enacted in his mind. Incited by, at the time, new psychological
insights he tried to fix his subconscious with images, and to visualise
his dreams in all their inscrutable symbolism. It was for this purpose
that he developed his famous "paranoid-critical" method. To us, one
dimensional mortal souls, only the paintings and other expressions
remain as fascinating witnesses to a literally unbelievably intense and
active life. Perhaps we are so drawn to them because not only do they
allow us to have a look inside Dali's subconscious, but they also are
a mirror reflecting our own souls.
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Janus Jewelry
