BURNING GIRAFFE - T-SHIRT - WHITE

T-SHIRT: BURNING GIRAFFE – Tribute to Salvador Dalí

This t-shirt captures one of the most enigmatic and powerful moments in surrealist painting: a selected detail from Burning Giraffe (1937) by Salvador Dalí, featuring in the foreground a female figure with open drawers in her body.
For Dalí, these drawers are not decorations but Freudian metaphors: they represent the hidden corners of the psyche, of memory and desire, the interior “compartments” of the human unconscious that can be opened only through art or dreams. The act of opening them—just as viewers do with their gaze—is an exploration of the unconscious.

The figure, static and twisted in an impossible pose, is supported by thin crutches, further symbols of inner fragility, psychological dependence, and the precariousness of mental balance. The ambiguity between eros and anxiety, between allure and unease, is central to this visual fragment full of oneiric tension.

The burning giraffe: apocalyptic vision of a world in flames

Behind the female figure, one glimpses a giraffe engulfed in flames, a recurring icon in Dalí’s works from the 1930s onward. For the artist, this animal—normally a symbol of grace and calm—transforms here into an incendiary omen, a premonitory vision of destruction and war. The painting was in fact created during Dalí’s Spanish period, just before World War II, and reflects the deep fears of a turbulent era. Dalí himself declared that the burning giraffe represented “the destructive masculinity of modern man.” Together with the figure of the drawers, it creates a visual contrast between the female body as an interior archive and the male presence as an external incendiary force. In this t-shirt, the combination of these two elements makes the fragment not only aesthetically powerful but also dense with psychoanalytic meaning.

Dalí’s painting technique here is typical of his mature style: visionary hyperrealism, detailed rendering of anatomical forms, artificial lighting, and atmospheres suspended in time.

T-Shirt Quality

100% cotton, 180 g/m², double-stitched neckline for durability.
Soft, breathable fabric with long-lasting quality print.
Recommended wash at 30 °C to preserve shape and colors.

Washing Instructions

Wash inside out by machine or by hand at 30 °C.
Hang dry from under the sleeves and air-dry, avoiding tumble drying.
Iron carefully, avoiding direct contact with the print to maintain its integrity.