Interesting Art Stories: 10. The Persistence of Memory, Salvador Dalí, ACJ Art Academy

How are you?

On every Thursday, I am introducing the stories about various artists and their paintings with the title “Interesting Art Stories”.

The 10th story for this week is "The Persistence of Memory" by a Spanish artist Salvador Dalí.

“The Persistence of Memory” is a painting by a Spanish artist Salvador Dalí in 1931, and one of his most famous works as well as the most recognizable works of Surrealism. This painting is sometimes referred to as the title, such as “The Melting Watches” or “The Soft Watches”.

Salvador Dalí (1939)

Like many of his other works, it is a deeply personal painting of Dali. Around the time he drew this painting, he tried self-induced hypnosis to get into the state of psychotic hallucinations, and then painted what was seen in that state. Many people claimed that the melting watches signify Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, symbolizing the relationship between time and space, but Dali stated that the melting watches were only inspired by a piece of cheese that had melted in the sun.

When drawing this painting, Dali was deeply influenced by Freud, and the unshapely form with long eyelashes in the foreground of this painting represents Dali himself who is in his dream state. The melting watches depict that in this state the time loses its meaning.

In this painting, the orange clock at the bottom left is covered with ants, and Dali often used ants as a symbol of decay in his paintings. The craggy rocks depicted on the right background represent the hills of Cap de Creus in his hometown of Catalonia, and many of Dali's paintings were inspired by Catalonia's landscapes.

After drawing this painting, Dali returned to the theme of this painting in 1954 with the variation of this painting called “The Disintegration of the Persistence of Memory”. This variation shows a series of systematically divided rectangular blocks, suggesting something beneath the surface of the original version "The Persistence of Memory".

The Disintegration of the Persistence of Memory (1954)

The variation is now in the Salvador Dalí Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida, and the original version has been held by the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City since 1934, after first showing at the Julien Levy Gallery in 1932. 

Salvador Dalí Museum, St. Petersburg, Florida

In the late period of his career, Dali also made various sculptures on the theme of the soft watches, such as “Nobility of Time” and “Profile of Time.”

Nobility of Time, Salvador Dalí

Profile of Time, Salvador Dalí

Thank you.

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