Perceptions of Persistence of Memory

Perceptions of "Persistence of Memory"

Although visual art is looked upon differently by all, everyone has a either a favorite piece or at least something that catches their eye. Personally, I don’t have a piece of art that I would label my absolute favorite, but during a Spanish research project found that Salvador Dali’s work really stood out. “The Persistence of Memory” painted in 1931 by Dali, a highly renowned surrealist painter, is among the most interesting works I have ever seen. Even though the painting itself is rather simple in quality at first glance, what Dali’s must have been thinking about while creating this work is strikingly complex. The painting is attractive to me because it deals with the concept of time, something that everyone in the universe is continually worried about. Time is evident in the painting because four gold, old fashioned, pocket watches are shown melting away, which is a rather depressing concept to think about. Although it may be hard to think about for most people, Dali gives and accurately describes how he perceived time as able to decay or melt. The ants crawling on the overturned watch symbolizes that time decay is analogous to insects eating cheese. The painting reminds viewers of the fleeting aspect of time, and that we may not be here tomorrow or the next day. In order to maintain a somber attitude, Dali composed the painting of darker colors with the exception of the largest watch having a bluish hue, and the picturesque mountain landscape being reflected into the sea. The mountain scene strikes me as being a representation of something else that flees away with time; the ability to benefit from what nature has created for its onlookers.

Though the conscious and subconscious are...

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...ing such cheese throughout his life. It would also make sense because if the clocks represented melting cheese, this is probably why Dali chooses ants to be eating one of the clocks. Similarly, Dali may have seen ants eating cheese on a picnic which created the idea for them to also eat away time or the clocks. Dali’s subconscious appears again with the elongated face in the middle of the painting that also appeared in Dali’s earlier painting, “The Great Masturbator.” The face is his own, and it originates from the sexual thoughts of his previous painting and the fact that his father made him look at pictures of people with venereal diseases that left him mentally scarred for the rest of his adult life. These impressions made him believe that sex led to putrefaction and/or decay which may also be significant with the decay of the clocks in “The Persistence of Memory.”