Salvador Dali was a 19th century artist who was associated with the surrealist movement during his career. Dali was born on May 11, 1904 in Figueres, Spain and died on January 23, 1989 in the same town. Dali is best known for his contributions to realism including his “Paranoiac-Critical method” which he used to access the subconscious part of his mind in order to gain inspiration for his art. He is also known for being a versatile artist being involved in several fields like sculpture, printmaking, fashion, advertising, writing, and filmmaking; for which he famously collaborated with Alfred Hitchcock. Dali was nonetheless flamboyant in nature and was perceived by many to have been crazy.
“The Persistence of Memory” is a landscape painting with surrealistic and cubism attributes. The painting consists of a deformed face on the seemingly desert ground, ants on a gold watch, and three melting clocks resembling pizza dough on top of the face, a tree branch, and next to the gold watch. The painting also has realistic cliffs in the background that are similar to those found in Spain near Dali’s home and which, along with the sea, are perhaps the only realistic features in the painting.
This painting strongly portrays the aesthetic preferences of modernism because of its imaginative qualities of surrealism. The disfigured face on the ground naturally appears confusing to the average person. Aspects of the face are thought-provoking or even repulsive like the unusually long eye-lashes, the giant nose, and what appears to be a tongue just under the nose; many still question this “tongue” and believe it to be other things including saliva. The painting also shows some cubism aesthetics like the edges surrounding the sea and the ground under the tree. The juxtaposition of the tree, clocks, face, watch, and ants with the background are another indicator of surrealism in the painting.
“The Persistence of Memory” in the MoMa was among other apparently Modernistic paintings. What drew me to this piece outright was the bizarre appearance of the grey figure and the pizza-like clocks slouching on objects. It was not until I read about the painting that I realized that the grey figure was a face; I thought it had been a lying elephant or a simple blanket on the ground. I also love seeing and traveling to beautiful landscapes, like the one portrayed in the painting, in real life and so that also drew me to the painting. One question I would have for Dali is what the ants on the golden watch symbolized. Also, why is “time” in the painting apparently rotting? The ants and the fly on the clocks are puzzling. Another question I would have is on how Dali managed to get inspiration for this painting.
Resources:
http://www.theartstory.org/artist-dali-salvador.htm
http://www.dalipaintings.net/
Lewis, You may think that you were drawn to this painting because of the beautiful, exotic landscape, but Freud would say that something else was attracting you. I agree that this is a mysterious and complex work. First of all, note that Dali is a 20th Century artist (not 19th), associated with Surrealism, not realism. Dali is representing something here that has a dreamlike quality or that expresses something about the unconscious. What do you think the relationship is between the title of the work and the melting clocks? What relationship to time seems to be described or imagined here? I also had a hard time detecting the face on the ground. For me, that makes the painting seem more nightmarish. What is happening to that figure that almost seems to be decaying or disintegrating (perhaps as a result of the passage of time?) Mysterious…
I have always loved this piece ever since I was first introduced to it. I have interpreted it many times and have created an interpretation that focuses on the theme of time. The clocks seem to be the main focus of the painting as they are placed in such an unusual landscape. The paranoiac clinical method is so interesting when you look into it because Dalí basically flooded himself with drugs that would make him hallucinate so he can create dream-like and unique images just like this one. Undoubtedly one of my favorites, thanks for choosing it.
I love this piece, and I have seen it very often, but I never knew exactly what it was called or who it was by. I enjoyed reading what attracted you to it. It’s strangeness definitely caught my eye also.
This piece is interesting! I think you did a good job at describing the piece and it was nice to learn what you thought about it. I have to admit, when I saw it my attention was drawn straight to the clocks. They reminded me of some of the work we read in class like “The Love Song of Alfred Prufrock”. The clocks made me think of how it is easy to think that time is everlasting because accepting that it is not means that we are accepting death and that can be challenging. In this work, having those three melted clocks is thought provoking.