Paranoiac-Critical Solitude, 1935 by Salvador Dali

In Paranoiac-Critical Solitude, 1935, Dali transposes real objects to conjure up impossible relationships as part of his self-proclaimed crusade 'to discredit reality'. Mysteriously abandoned, a car has become overgrown with flowers and plants. It appears to be integrated into the rock behind it, and the missing parts of the windscreen and body correspond with the large hole above it; yet the car is solid and separate enough to cast a shadow on the ground. To the left, the shape of the car is impressed into the rock face, and above it a plug of rock projects which corresponds to the hole on the right. It is as if a single rock has split and opened up, revealing a 'fossil' automobile which has been imprisoned in it for ages of geological time, an attractive explanation that does not, however, account for all the visual contradictions that Dali has incorporated into the scene.