Swans Reflecting Elephants

E43740

Swans Reflecting Elephants is a 1937 surrealist painting by Salvador Dalí that uses a double-image illusion to transform swans and their reflections into elephants.

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Statements (44)

Predicate Object
instanceOf painting
surrealist painting
artStyle double-image technique
illusionism
background rocky cliffs
colorPalette blues
earth tones
copyrightStatus copyrighted
countryOfOrigin Spain
creator Salvador Dalí
depicts double image illusion
landscape
reflection in water
describedAs iconic surrealist image
foreground lake with swans
genre Surrealism
hasPart clouds
elephants
lake
mountains
swans
trees
hasPerspective landscape perspective
hasVisualEffect figure-ground reversal
optical illusion
inception 1937
influencedBy Freudian psychoanalysis
dream imagery
languageOfWork none
location private collection
mainSubject elephants
swans
medium oil paint
movement Surrealism
notableWorkOf Salvador Dalí
partOfSeries Dalí double-image paintings
periodInArtistCareer Dalí’s late 1930s period
support canvas
theme ambiguity of perception
illusion and reality
metamorphosis
usesTechnique paranoiac-critical method
visualMotif mirrored forms
shape transformation

Referenced by (3)

Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.

paranoiac-critical method notableExampleIn Swans Reflecting Elephants
Salvador Dalí notableWork Swans Reflecting Elephants
Salvador notableWork Swans Reflecting Elephants
subject surface form: Salvador Dalí