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| Dali painted "Burning Giraffe" during his exile in the United States. Although Dali declared himself apolitical, "I am Dali , 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 Dali 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 Dali. 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 Dali'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: Dali 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 visualize 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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