Convincingly composed, Salvador Dali’s disquieting yet mesmerizing “The Elephants” is one of Dali’s classic phantom realities, blurring the distinction between hallucination and reality. Dali, a groundbreaking 20th century artist who redefined Surrealism, symbolically utilizes emaciated elephants with spidery legs in his work, as the elephants’ apparent frailty defies the heavy burden they bear. Inspired by Gian Lorenzo Bernini’s sculpture base of an elephant carrying an ancient obelisk, Dali’s elephants’ brittle legs are thought to represent desire, and the objects on their backs represent power and domination.

Dali’s elephants are usually depicted with long, multi-jointed, almost invisible legs of desire, and carrying objects on their backs, which are also full of symbolism. These elephants represent the future and are also a symbol of strength. They are often shown carrying obelisks, which are symbols of power and domination, and not without phallic overtones. The weight supported by the animals spindly legs shows weightlessness, only made more significant by the burden on their backs.

The elephant is also a recurring image in Dalí's works. It first appeared in his 1944 work Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee around a Pomegranate a Second Before Awakening. The elephants, inspired by Gian Lorenzo Bernini's sculpture base in Rome of an elephant carrying an ancient obelisk, are portrayed 'with long, multi-jointed, almost invisible legs of desire' along with obelisks on their backs. Coupled with the image of their brittle legs, these encumbrances, noted for their phallic overtones, create a sense of phantom reality.