Salvador Dalí, Swans Reflecting Elephants, 1937
This illusory image features a double-image, with the reflections of swans transforming to look like elephants. It’s a very detailed transformation and really causes you to do a double-take. The swan’s necks and wings seem like trunks and ears when reflected, and the tree-covered shore supplies the elephants’ legs and bodies. On the left is a self-portrait of Dalí facing away from the image. Some scholars say that the direction of his image is an expression of Dalí’s dissatisfaction with the audience that surrealism was attracting at that time, those only with an appreciation for “weirdness,” and not artistic merit.
