The Burning Giraffe Salvador Dali Analysis

“Wow, there is a giraffe on fire. Crazy.” That was my initial thought when I saw the painting The Burning Giraffe by Salvador Dali. Salvador Dali is a surrealist artist born on May 11, 1904 from Figures, Spain. Dali painted images that might seem odd at first until you get to know more about the painting and learn about the deep and dark meanings as to why he would create the image. Salvador Dali did not just paint though. Salvador Dali also liked to make and design objects that do not seem like they would go together, but still have some kind of meaning to them. Dali also made short films that would bring his paintings to life. But I am here to talk about The Burning Giraffe by Salvador Dali, not give a biography on him. The whole painting as a whole seemed a bit odd to me, not much more than other paintings by Dali, but the giraffe that was in flames just seemed to stick out the most to me. The giraffe, although seems a bit goofy, does have a greater meaning to it though. Just like most art. Salvador Dali painted The Burning Giraffe in 1937 to show the struggles from the Spanish Civil War and the decline of values. The painting is in the category of surrealism art. “Surrealist art- with its

“After witnessing the horrendous consequences of this war, surrealists strove to depict the world from the inside out, from the vantage point of an “inner reality, the surreal” (p.4, Harmon) Dali used specifically the giraffe on fire to symbolize the Spanish Civil War. When the war was going on, Dali had decided to flee Spain and go to America because of how bad the war had been getting and controversy in the political system. The giraffe is also supposed to symbolize more war to come. Which Dali was not wrong as for World War I and World War II had