Editing Salvador Dalí (section)

=== Animals ===
The [[rhinoceros]] and rhinoceros horn shapes began to proliferate in Dalí's work from the mid-1950s. According to Dalí, the rhinoceros horn signifies divine geometry because it grows in a [[logarithmic spiral]]. He linked the rhinoceros to themes of chastity and to the [[Virgin Mary]].<ref name=":6" /> However, he also used it as an obvious phallic symbol as in ''[[Young Virgin Auto-Sodomized by the Horns of Her Own Chastity]].''<ref name=":0">Gibson, Ian (1997) p. 478</ref>

Various other animals appear throughout Dalí's work: rotting donkeys and ants have been interpreted as pointing to death, decay, and sexual desire; the [[snail]] as connected to the human head (he saw a snail on a bicycle outside Freud's house when he first met him); and locusts as a symbol of waste and fear.<ref name="symb" /> The elephant is also a recurring image in his work; for example, ''[[Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee Around a Pomegranate a Second Before Awakening]]''. The elephants are inspired by [[Gian Lorenzo Bernini]]'s sculpture base in Rome of an [[Santa Maria Sopra Minerva#Minerva's Pulcino|elephant carrying an ancient obelisk]].<ref>Michael Taylor in [[Dawn Adès]] (ed.), ''Dalí'' (Milan: Bompiani, 2004), p. 342</ref>