• Invention of Monsters, 1937 •

• I do not remember ever seeing this Salvadore Dali before. His explanation of the painting seems surprisingly straight forward. The placement of the figures is so overbalanced to one side, the world in the painting must eventually be tipped toward the monsters.

"…According to Nostradamus, the apparition of monsters is a presage of war. This canvas was painted in the mountains of Semmering* a few months before the Anschluss** and it has a prophetic character. The women-horses represent the maternal river-monsters, the flaming giraffe the male cosmic apocalyptic monster. The angel-cat is the divine heterosexual monster, the hour-glass the metaphysical monster. Gala and Dal? together the sentimental monster. The little lonely blue dog is not a true monster."* [South of Vienna] * *[Annexation of Austria into the German Reich]