Giger's Anima Mia references Max Ernst's Celebes

Anima Mia and Celebes




Anima Mia (1980-81)


a) Initial connection with Celebes
On the 28th February 2016, I made a connection between Dali's "Debris of an automobile giving birth to a blind horse biting a telephone" and Max Ernst's Celebes because they were both Surrealist paintings displaying curious biomechanoids. The gnome with the leaf blower in this instance appears to be inspired by the structure of the cactus like structures at which the headless torso stands at the bottom

headless woman in Celebes and faceless woman in Anima Mia


gnome holding leaf blower supported by faceless woman and headless woman before tall plant


b) Finding connections between Anima Mia and Celebes
On the 29th February 2016, I looked at Celebes once again and then took a look at Anima Mia and noticed an arm from a woman's body with a head not seen, helping to support a leaf blower held by a dwarf at the side of the painting. Then I thought how it resembled the headless woman's standing body in Celebes and realised that Giger must have been connecting with that painting too, and then I took another look at Mia's divided face with bull horns that had been divided in two in a way as if the two halves would not fit together properly because they are both from different heads, but the head is connected to a ribbed trunk running down the centre connecting with other body parts and the idea of a bull head on the end of a long ribbed trunk originates in Ernst Fuchs vacuum cleaner like Celebes painting. The conical frill in this case beneath the divided Mia face as the praying mantis like arms.

Bull head trunk in Celebes and torso connected to trunk in Anima Mia

c) Bull head in Celebes and the Anima Mia lower torso with horns
A tentacle from a boat like shape at the bottom of the painting would intersect with the ribbed trunk like form in Anima Mia suggesting the raised arm of the headless body in Celebes with the hand intersecting with the trunk form. The trunk with the strange bull head in Celebes would turn into the lower part of the trunk in Anima Mia with the conical frill turning into a ribbed torso and the head would become the buttocks with handles. The horn on the left in Celebes would turn into a serpent's head.
 
Torso with ribs connected to trunk and bull head with conical collar in Celebes



Max Ernst's Celebes (1921)

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