Salvador Dali (Spanish, 1904-1989)
“Dragon Swan Elephant” (1969)
Prestige Edition #PE 1 of 19 in bronze.
31cm x 47cm x 44cm.
Literature: Catalogue Raisonne “Le Dur et le Mou” by Robert & Nicolas Descharnes, pg. 171, Ref #434-436.
The double image that made Salvador Dali famous during his surrealist period via the “paranoc-critical” method is here surpassed by a triple image. Dali has succeeded in modelling three animals in one single composition.
The swan directly evokes the myth of Leda and the Swan, parents to the hermaphrodites Castor and Pollux and Helen and Clymestra, with whom Dali liked to compare himself and Gala. The elephant is recognized as a symbol for the victorious struggle of chastity against lustfulness and the dragon represents the evil that must be defeated in order to obtain any kind of good, whether it be physical, psychic or spiritual.