Plot
Dali, like a true surrealist, immerses us in the world of dreams with his painting. Fussy, chaotic, mystical and at the same time seeming understandable and real.
On the one hand, a familiar clock, the sea, a rocky landscape, a dried tree. On the other hand, their appearance and proximity to other, poorly identifiable objects leaves one perplexed.
There are three clocks in the picture: past, present and future. The artist followed the ideas of Heraclitus, who believed that time is measured by the flow of thought. A soft clock is a symbol of nonlinear, subjective time, flowing arbitrarily and unevenly filling space.
Dali came up with the molten watch while thinking about Camembert.
A solid clock infested with ants is linear time that eats itself. The image of insects as a symbol of rot and decomposition haunted Dali since childhood, when he saw insects swarming on a carcass bat.
But Dali called flies the fairies of the Mediterranean: “They brought inspiration to the Greek philosophers who spent their lives under the sun, covered in flies.”
The artist depicted himself sleeping in the form of a blurred object with eyelashes. “A dream is death, or at least it is an exception from reality, or, even better, it is the death of reality itself, which dies in the same way during the act of love.”
Salvador Dali
The tree is depicted dry because, as Dali believed, ancient wisdom (of which this tree is a symbol) had sunk into oblivion.
The deserted shore is the cry of the artist’s soul, who through this image speaks of his emptiness, loneliness and melancholy. “Here (at Cape Creus in Catalonia - editor's note),” he wrote, “the most important principle of my theory of paranoid metamorphoses is embodied in rocky granite... These are frozen clouds, reared by an explosion in all their countless guises, more and more new - only change your perspective a little."
Moreover, the sea is a symbol of immortality and eternity. According to Dali, the sea is ideal for travel, where time flows in accordance with the internal rhythms of consciousness.
Dali took the image of the egg as a symbol of life from ancient mystics. The latter believed that the first bisexual deity Phanes, who created people, was born from the World Egg, and heaven and earth were formed from the two halves of his shell.
On the left there is a mirror lying horizontally. It reflects everything you want: both the real world and dreams. For Dali, a mirror is a symbol of impermanence.
Context
According to the legend invented by Dali himself, he created the image of a flowing clock in just two hours: “We were supposed to go to the cinema with friends, but at the last moment I decided to stay at home. Gala will go with them, and I will go to bed early. We ate some very tasty cheese, then I was left alone, sitting with my elbows on the table, thinking about how “super soft” the processed cheese was. I got up and went into the workshop to take a look at my work as usual. The picture that I was going to paint represented the landscape of the outskirts of Port Lligat, the rocks, as if illuminated by dim evening light. In the foreground I sketched the chopped off trunk of a leafless olive tree. This landscape is the basis for a canvas with some idea, but what? I needed a wonderful image, but I couldn’t find it. I went to turn off the light, and when I came out, I literally “saw” the solution: two pairs of soft watches, one hanging pitifully from an olive branch. Despite the migraine, I prepared my palette and got to work. Two hours later, when Gala returned from the cinema, the film, which was to become one of the most famous, was finished.”
Gala: no one will be able to forget this soft watch after seeing it at least once
After 20 years, the picture was integrated into a new concept - “Disintegration of the Persistence of Memory.” The iconic image is surrounded by nuclear mysticism. Soft dials quietly disintegrate, the world is divided into clear blocks, space is under water. The 1950s, with post-war reflection and technological progress, obviously plowed Dali.
"Disintegration of the Persistence of Memory"
Dali is buried in such a way that anyone can walk over his grave
By creating all this diversity, Dali also invented himself - from his mustache to his hysterical behavior. He saw how much talented people, which were not noticed. Therefore, the artist regularly reminded himself of himself in the most eccentric manner possible.
Dali on the roof of his house in Spain
Dali even turned his death into a performance: according to his will, he was to be buried so that people could walk on the grave. Which was done after his death in 1989. Today Dali's body is walled up in the floor in one of the rooms of his house in Figueres.
Without exaggeration, Salvador Dali can be called the most famous surrealist of the 20th century, because his name is familiar even to those who are completely far from painting. Some people consider him the greatest genius, others - a madman. But both the first and second unconditionally recognize the artist’s unique talent. His paintings are an irrational combination of real objects deformed in a paradoxical way. Dali was a hero of his time: the master’s work was discussed both in the highest circles of society and among the proletarians. He became a true embodiment of surrealism with the freedom of spirit, inconsistency and shockingness inherent in this painting movement. Today, anyone can access masterpieces created by Salvador Dali. The paintings, photos of which can be seen in this article, are capable of impressing every fan of surrealism.
The role of Gala in Dali's work
Huge creative heritage left behind by Salvador Dali. Paintings with titles that evoke mixed feelings among many today attract art lovers so much that they deserve detailed consideration and description. The artist’s inspiration, model, support and main fan was his wife Gala (an emigrant from Russia). All his most famous paintings were written during the period of marriage with this woman.
The Hidden Meaning of "The Persistence of Memory"
When considering Salvador Dali, it is worth starting with his most recognizable work - “The Persistence of Memory” (sometimes called “Time”). The canvas was created in 1931. The artist was inspired to paint the masterpiece by his wife Gala. According to Dali himself, the idea for the painting arose from the sight of something melting under the sun's rays. What did the master want to say by depicting a soft clock on canvas against the backdrop of a landscape?
The three soft dials decorating the foreground of the picture are identified with subjective time, which flows freely and unevenly fills all available space. The number of hours is also symbolic, because the number 3 on this canvas indicates the past, present and future. The soft state of the objects indicates the relationship between space and time, which was always obvious to the artist. There is also a solid clock in the picture, depicted with the dial down. They symbolize objective time, the course of which goes against humanity.
Salvador Dali also depicted his self-portrait on this canvas. The painting “Time” contains in the foreground an incomprehensible spread object framed by eyelashes. It was in this image that the author painted himself sleeping. In a dream, a person releases his thoughts, which while awake he carefully hides from others. Everything that can be seen in the picture is Dali’s dream - the result of the triumph of the unconscious and the death of reality.
Ants crawling on the body of a solid watch symbolize decay and rotting. In the painting, insects are arranged in the form of a dial with arrows and indicate that objective time destroys itself. A fly sitting on a soft watch was a symbol of inspiration for the painter. Ancient Greek philosophers spent a lot of time surrounded by these “Mediterranean fairies” (this is what Dali called flies). The mirror visible in the picture on the left is evidence of the impermanence of time; it reflects both objective and subjective worlds. The egg in the background symbolizes life, the dry olive symbolizes forgotten ancient wisdom, and eternity.
“Giraffe on Fire”: interpretation of images
By studying the paintings of Salvador Dali with descriptions, you can study the artist’s work more deeply and better understand the subtext of his paintings. In 1937, the artist’s brush produced the work “Giraffe on Fire.” It was difficult period for Spain, since it began a little earlier. In addition, Europe found itself on the threshold of World War II, and Salvador Dali, like many progressive people of that time, felt its approach. Despite the fact that the master claimed that his “Giraffe on Fire” has nothing to do with the political events shaking the continent, the picture is thoroughly saturated with horror and anxiety.
In the foreground, Dali painted a woman standing in a pose of despair. Her hands and face are bloody, and it looks like their skin has been torn off. The woman looks helpless, she is unable to resist the impending danger. Behind her is a lady with a piece of meat in her hands (it is a symbol of self-destruction and death). Both figures stand on the ground thanks to thin supports. Dali often depicted them in his works to emphasize human weakness. The giraffe, after which the painting is named, is painted in the background. He is much smaller than the women, his upper body is on fire. Despite his small size, he is the main character of the canvas, embodying the monster bringing the apocalypse.
Analysis of "Premonitions of Civil War"
It was not only in this work that Salvador Dali expressed his premonition of war. Paintings with titles indicating its approach appeared by the artist more than once. A year before “Giraffe,” the artist painted “Soft Construction with Boiled Beans” (otherwise known as “Premonition” civil war"). The structure of human body parts, depicted in the center of the canvas, resembles the outlines of Spain on a map. The structure on top is too bulky, it hangs over the ground and can collapse at any moment. Beans are scattered below the building, which look completely out of place here, which only emphasizes the absurdity of the political events taking place in Spain in the second half of the 30s.
Description of "Faces of War"
“The Face of War” is another work left by the surrealist to his fans. The painting dates from 1940 - a time when Europe was engulfed in hostilities. The canvas depicts a human head with a face frozen in agony. She is surrounded on all sides by snakes, and instead of eyes and mouth she has countless skulls. It seems that the head is literally stuffed with death. The painting symbolizes the concentration camps that took the lives of millions of people.
Interpretation of "Dream"
“The Dream” is a painting by Salvador Dali, created by him in 1937. It depicts a huge sleeping head supported by eleven thin supports (exactly the same as those of the women in the painting “Giraffe on Fire”). Crutches are everywhere, they support the eyes, forehead, nose, lips. The person has no body, but has an unnaturally stretched back thin neck. The head represents sleep, and the crutches indicate support. As soon as each part of the face finds its support, the person collapses into the world of dreams. It's not just people who need support. If you look closely, in the left corner of the canvas you can see a small dog, whose body is also leaning on a crutch. You can also think of supports as threads that allow your head to float freely during sleep, but do not allow it to completely lift off the ground. The blue background of the canvas further emphasizes the detachment of what is happening on it from the rational world. The artist was sure that this is exactly what a dream looks like. The painting by Salvador Dali was included in his series of works “Paranoia and War”.
Images of Gala
Salvador Dali also painted his beloved wife. Paintings with the names “Angelus Gala”, “Madonna of Port Ligata” and many others directly or indirectly indicate the presence of Dyakonova in the plots of the works of the genius. For example, in “Galatea with the Spheres” (1952), he depicted his life partner as a divine woman, whose face shines through large number balls. The wife of a genius hovers above real world in the upper ethereal layers. Became his muse the main character such paintings as “Galarina”, where she is depicted with her left breast exposed, “ Atomic Leda", in which Dali presented his naked wife in the form of the ruler of Sparta. Almost everything female images, present on the canvases, inspired the painter by his faithful wife.
Impression of the artist's work
Photos depicting paintings by Salvador Dali, high resolution allow you to study his work down to the smallest detail. The artist lived long life and left behind several hundred works. Each of them is unique and incomparable inner world, depicted by a genius named Salvador Dali. Pictures with names known to everyone since childhood can inspire, cause delight, bewilderment or even disgust, but not a single person will remain indifferent after viewing them.
S. Dali. The constancy of memory, 1931.
The most famous and most discussed painting by Salvador Dali among artists. The painting is in the Museum contemporary art V New York since 1934.
This painting depicts a clock as a symbol of the human experience of time and memory. Here they are shown in great distortions, as our memories sometimes are. Dali did not forget himself, he is also present in the form of a sleeping head, which appears in his other paintings. During this period, Dali constantly displayed the image deserted shore, with this he expressed the emptiness within himself.
This emptiness was filled when he saw a piece of Camember cheese. "... Having decided to write the hours, I painted them soft. It was one evening, I was tired, I had a migraine - an extremely rare ailment for me. We were supposed to go to the cinema with friends, but at the last moment I decided to stay at home.
Gala will go with them, and I will go to bed early. We ate some very tasty cheese, then I was left alone, sitting with my elbows on the table, thinking about how “super soft” the processed cheese was.
I got up and went into the workshop to take a look at my work as usual. The picture that I was going to paint represented the landscape of the outskirts of Port Lligat, the rocks, as if illuminated by dim evening light.
In the foreground I sketched the chopped off trunk of a leafless olive tree. This landscape is the basis for a canvas with some idea, but what? I needed a wonderful image, but I couldn’t find it.
I went to turn off the light, and when I came out, I literally “saw” the solution: two pairs of soft watches, one hanging pitifully from an olive branch. Despite the migraine, I prepared my palette and got to work.
Two hours later, when Gala returned from the cinema, the film, which was to become one of the most famous, was finished.
The painting has become a symbol of the modern concept of the relativity of time. A year after its exhibition in the Pierre Colet Gallery in Paris, the painting was purchased by the New York Museum of Modern Art.
In the painting, the artist expressed the relativity of time and emphasized the amazing property of human memory, which allows us to be transported again to those days that are long in the past.
HIDDEN SYMBOLS
Soft clock on the table
A symbol of nonlinear, subjective time, flowing arbitrarily and unevenly filling space. The three clocks in the picture are the past, present and future.
Blurry object with eyelashes.
This is a self-portrait of Dali sleeping. The world in the picture is his dream, the death of the objective world, the triumph of the unconscious. “The relationship between sleep, love and death is obvious,” the artist wrote in his autobiography. “A dream is death, or at least it is an exception from reality, or, even better, it is the death of reality itself, which dies in the same way during the act of love.” According to Dali, sleep frees the subconscious, so the artist’s head blurs like a mollusk - this is evidence of his defenselessness.
A solid watch lies on the left with the dial facing down. Symbol of objective time.
Ants are a symbol of rotting and decomposition. According to Nina Getashvili, professor Russian Academy painting, sculpture and architecture, “a child’s impression of a wounded bat infested with ants.
Fly. According to Nina Getashvili, “the artist called them fairies of the Mediterranean. In “The Diary of a Genius,” Dali wrote: “They brought inspiration to the Greek philosophers who spent their lives under the sun, covered with flies.”
Olive.
For the artist, this is a symbol of ancient wisdom, which, unfortunately, has already sunk into oblivion (which is why the tree is depicted dry).
Cape Creus.
This cape is on the Catalan coast of the Mediterranean Sea, near the city of Figueres, where Dali was born. The artist often depicted him in paintings. “Here,” he wrote, “the most important principle of my theory of paranoid metamorphoses (the flow of one delusional image into another. - Ed.) is embodied in rocky granite... These are frozen clouds, reared by an explosion in all their countless forms, ever new and new ones - you just need to change your point of view a little.”
For Dali, the sea symbolized immortality and eternity. The artist considered it an ideal space for travel, where time flows not at an objective speed, but in accordance with the internal rhythms of the traveler’s consciousness.
Egg.
According to Nina Getashvili, the World Egg in Dali’s work symbolizes life. The artist borrowed his image from the Orphics - ancient Greek mystics. According to Orphic mythology, the first bisexual deity Phanes, who created people, was born from the World Egg, and heaven and earth were formed from the two halves of his shell.
Mirror lying horizontally on the left. This is a symbol of changeability and impermanence, obediently reflecting both the subjective and objective world.
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Reviews
We have to regret that Salvador Dali did not paint, but only painted objects to look like photographs, although he gives this explanation why he did just that in his “Diary of a Genius,” but this work It can hardly be considered successful; it costs exactly as much as the mental effort spent on it. A large, dark, simply painted field creates an undesirable effect of being unoccupied, and even a lying head does not give an impetus to comprehend the essence of the idea. Using dreams in your work, as he did, is a good thing, but it does not always lead to brilliant results.
I have an ambiguous attitude towards creativity. At one time I visited his homeland in the city of Figueres in Spain. There is a large museum there that he created himself, with many of his works. It made an impression on me. Later I read his biography, reviewed his works and wrote several articles about his work.
This kind of painting is not to my liking, but it is interesting. So I simply perceive his work as a special phenomenon in painting.
We must assume that he, like any artist, has various works: those that are flagship and just ordinary. If by the first we judge the pinnacle of mastery, then the others are essentially routine work and you can’t do without it. There are probably a dozen works by Dali that can be included in the top ten best works in the world in the section of surrealism. For many, he is an example and inspiration in this direction.
What amazes me in his works is not his skill, but his imagination. Some of the paintings are simply repulsive, but it’s interesting to understand what he wanted to say. In the museum there is one composition with lips, something similar to theatrical scenery. You can also look at the museum at this link and some work. By the way, he is buried in this museum.
Painting "The Persistence of Memory" 1931.
The most famous and most discussed painting by Salvador Dali among artists. The painting has been in the Museum of Modern Art in New York since 1934.
This painting depicts a clock as a symbol of the human experience of time and memory. Here they are shown in great distortions, as our memories sometimes are. Dali did not forget himself, he is also present in the form of a sleeping head, which appears in his other paintings. During this period, Dali constantly depicted the image of a deserted shore, thereby expressing the emptiness within himself.
This emptiness was filled when he saw a piece of Camember cheese. “...When I decided to write a watch, I painted it soft.
It was one evening, I was tired, I had a migraine - an extremely rare ailment for me. We were supposed to go to the cinema with friends, but at the last moment I decided to stay at home.
Gala will go with them, and I will go to bed early. We ate some very tasty cheese, then I was left alone, sitting with my elbows on the table, thinking about how “super soft” the processed cheese was.
I got up and went into the workshop to take a look at my work as usual. The picture that I was going to paint represented the landscape of the outskirts of Port Lligat, the rocks, as if illuminated by dim evening light.
In the foreground I sketched the chopped off trunk of a leafless olive tree. This landscape is the basis for a canvas with some idea, but what? I needed a wonderful image, but I couldn’t find it.
I went to turn off the light, and when I came out, I literally “saw” the solution: two pairs of soft watches, one hanging pitifully from an olive branch. Despite the migraine, I prepared my palette and got to work.
Two hours later, when Gala returned from the cinema, the film, which was to become one of the most famous, was finished.
The painting has become a symbol of the modern concept of the relativity of time. A year after its exhibition in the Pierre Colet Gallery in Paris, the painting was purchased by the New York Museum of Modern Art.
In the painting, the artist expressed the relativity of time and emphasized the amazing property of human memory, which allows us to be transported again to those days that are long in the past.
HIDDEN SYMBOLS
Soft clock on the table
A symbol of nonlinear, subjective time, flowing arbitrarily and unevenly filling space. The three clocks in the picture are the past, present and future.
Blurry object with eyelashes.
This is a self-portrait of Dali sleeping. The world in the picture is his dream, the death of the objective world, the triumph of the unconscious. “The relationship between sleep, love and death is obvious,” the artist wrote in his autobiography. “A dream is death, or at least it is an exception from reality, or, even better, it is the death of reality itself, which dies in the same way during the act of love.” According to Dali, sleep frees the subconscious, so the artist’s head blurs like a clam - this is evidence of his defenselessness.
A solid watch lies on the left with the dial facing down. Symbol of objective time.
Ants are a symbol of rotting and decomposition. According to Nina Getashvili, a professor at the Russian Academy of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, “a child’s impression of a wounded bat infested with ants.
Fly. According to Nina Getashvili, “the artist called them fairies of the Mediterranean. In “The Diary of a Genius,” Dali wrote: “They brought inspiration to the Greek philosophers who spent their lives under the sun, covered with flies.”
Olive.
For the artist, this is a symbol of ancient wisdom, which, unfortunately, has already sunk into oblivion (which is why the tree is depicted dry).
Cape Creus.
This cape is on the Catalan coast of the Mediterranean Sea, near the city of Figueres, where Dali was born. The artist often depicted him in paintings. “Here,” he wrote, “the most important principle of my theory of paranoid metamorphoses (the flow of one delusional image into another. - Ed.) is embodied in rocky granite... These are frozen clouds, reared by an explosion in all their countless guises, ever new and new ones – you just need to change your perspective a little.”
For Dali, the sea symbolized immortality and eternity. The artist considered it an ideal space for travel, where time flows not at an objective speed, but in accordance with the internal rhythms of the traveler’s consciousness.
Egg.
According to Nina Getashvili, the World Egg in Dali’s work symbolizes life. The artist borrowed his image from the Orphics - ancient Greek mystics. According to Orphic mythology, the first bisexual deity Phanes, who created people, was born from the World Egg, and heaven and earth were formed from the two halves of his shell.
Mirror lying horizontally on the left. This is a symbol of changeability and impermanence, obediently reflecting both the subjective and objective world.
Even if you don't know who painted The Persistence of Memory, you've definitely seen it. Soft watches, dry wood, sandy brown colors are recognizable attributes of the surrealist Salvador Dali’s painting. Date of creation - 1931, painted in oil on canvas self made. Small size - 24x33 cm. Storage location - Museum of Modern Art, New York.
Dali's work is imbued with a challenge to conventional logic and the natural order of things. The artist suffered from borderline mental disorders and attacks of paranoid delusions, which was reflected in all of his works. “The Persistence of Memory” is no exception. The painting has become a symbol of changeability, the fragility of time, contains hidden meaning, which letters, notes, and the surrealist’s autobiography help to interpret.
Dali treated the canvas with special reverence and invested personal meaning. This attitude towards a miniature work completed in literally two hours - important factor, which contributed to its popularity. The laconic Dali, after creating his “Soft Clocks,” spoke about them quite often, recalled the history of their creation in his autobiography, and explained the meaning of the elements in correspondence and notes. Thanks to this painting, art historians who collected references were able to conduct a more in-depth analysis of the remaining works of the famous surrealist.
Description of the painting
The image of melting dials is familiar to everyone, but detailed description Not everyone will remember Salvador Dali’s painting “The Persistence of Memory”, and they won’t even take a closer look at some important elements. In this composition, every element, color scheme, and general atmosphere matter.
Painted picture brown paints with the addition of blue. Transports you to the hot coast - a solid rocky cape is located in the background, by the sea. Near the cape you can see an egg. Closer to the middle ground there is a mirror turned upside down with its smooth surface facing up.
In the middle ground is a withered olive tree, from a broken branch of which hangs a flexible watch dial. Nearby is the image of the author - a creature blurred like a mollusk with with one eye closed and eyelashes. On top of the element is another flexible clock.
The third soft dial hangs from the corner of the surface on which the dry tree grows. In front of him is the only solid clock in the entire composition. They are turned with the dial down, on the surface of the back there are numerous ants forming the shape of a chronometer. The painting leaves a lot of empty spaces that do not require filling with additional artistic details.
The same image was taken as the basis for the painting “The Decay of the Persistence of Memory,” painted in 1952-54. The surrealist supplemented it with other elements - another flexible dial, fish, branches, a lot of water. This picture continues, complements, and contrasts with the first.
History of creation
The history of the creation of Salvador Dali’s painting “The Persistence of Memory” is as non-trivial as the entire biography of the surrealist. In the summer of 1931, Dali was in Paris, preparing to open a personal exhibition of his works. While waiting for Gala, his common-law wife, who had a huge influence on his work, to return from the cinema, the artist at the table was thinking about melting cheese. That evening, part of their dinner was Camembert cheese, which melted under the heat. The surrealist, suffering from a headache, visited his studio before going to bed, where he worked on a beach landscape bathed in sunset light. In the foreground of the canvas the skeleton of a dry olive tree was already depicted.
The atmosphere of the painting in Dali’s mind turned out to be in tune with others important images. That evening he imagined a soft clock hanging from a broken tree branch. Work on the painting continued immediately, despite the evening migraine. It took two hours. When Gala returned, the Spanish artist's most famous work was completely completed.
The artist’s wife argued that once you see the canvas, you won’t be able to forget the image. Its creation was inspired by the variable shape of the cheese and the theory of creating paranoid symbols, which Dali associated with the view of Cape Creus. This cape wandered from one surrealist work to another, symbolizing the inviolability of personal theory.
Later, the artist reworked the idea into a new canvas, called “Disintegration of the Persistence of Memory.” There is water hanging on a branch here, and the elements are disintegrating. Even dials that are constant in their flexibility slowly melt, and the world around us is divided into mathematically clear, precise blocks.
Secret meaning
To understand the secret meaning of the painting “The Persistence of Memory”, you will need to take a closer look at each attribute of the image separately.
They symbolize nonlinear time, filling space with a contradictory flow. For Dali, the connection between time and space was obvious; he did not consider this idea revolutionary. Soft dials are also associated with the ideas of the ancient philosopher Heraclitus about measuring time by the flow of thought. Dali thought about the Greek thinker and his ideas when creating the picture, as he admitted in a letter to physicist Ilya Prigogine.
There are three fluid dials shown. This is a symbol of the past, present and future, mixed into a single space, indicating an obvious relationship.
Solid watch
A symbol of the constancy of the passage of time, contrasted with soft watches. Covered with ants, which the artist associates with decay, death, and decay. Ants create the shape of a chronometer, obey the structure, without ceasing to symbolize decay. The artist was haunted by ants from his childhood memories and delusional fantasies; they were obsessively present everywhere. Dali argued that linear time devours itself; he could not do without ants in this concept.
Blurry face with eyelashes
A surreal self-portrait of the author, immersed in the viscous world of dreams and the human unconscious. The blurry eye with eyelashes is closed - the artist is sleeping. He is defenseless, in the unconscious nothing fetters him. The shape resembles a mollusk without a hard skeleton. Salvador said that he himself was defenseless, like an oyster without a shell. His protective shell was Gala, who had died earlier. The artist called the dream the death of reality, so the world of the picture becomes more pessimistic from this.
Olive tree
A dry tree with a broken branch is an olive tree. A symbol of antiquity, also again reminiscent of the ideas of Heraclitus. The dryness of the tree, the absence of foliage and olives, suggests that the age of ancient wisdom has passed and been forgotten, sunk into oblivion.
Other elements
The painting also contains the World Egg, symbolizing life. The image is borrowed from ancient Greek mystics and Orphic mythology. The sea is immortality, eternity, the best space for any travel in the real and imaginary worlds. Cape Creus on the Catalan coast, not far from the author’s home, is the embodiment of Dali’s theory about the flow of delusional images into other delusional images. The fly on the nearest dial is a Mediterranean fairy who inspired ancient philosophers. The horizontal mirror behind is the impermanence of the subjective and objective worlds.
Color range
Brown sand tones prevail, creating a hot atmosphere. They are contrasted with cold blue shades, softening the pessimistic mood of the composition. The color scheme sets you in a melancholy mood and becomes the basis for the feeling of sadness that remains after viewing the picture.
General composition
The analysis of the painting “The Persistence of Memory” should be completed by considering the overall composition. Dali is precise in detail, leaving a sufficient amount of empty space not filled with objects. This allows you to concentrate on the mood of the canvas, find your own meaning, and interpret it personally, without “dissecting” every smallest element.
The size of the canvas is small, which indicates the personal meaning of the composition for the artist. The entire composition allows you to immerse yourself in the author’s inner world and better understand his experiences. The Persistence of Memory, also known as the Soft Clock, does not require logical analysis. Analyzing this masterpiece of world art in the genre of surrealism, you need to include associative thinking and stream of consciousness.
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