Salvador Dali

Salvador Dali

"Persistence of Memory"

Painted Canvas

Two Dimensional

1931

 

Salvador Dali was born in Spain and after forming part of several other 20^th century artistic movements, he joined the emerging Surrealists in the late 1920’s. His art is typically associated with grotesque images imitating the notion of death as well as unrealistic images of distorted objects such as melting watches. His work was centered on the idea of escape from reality and creating an alternate world within one’s dreams, much like making a personal fantasy. Dali came to describe his art pieces as “hand-painted dream photographs” to emphasize the remoteness they have to reality.

 

 

Just like any of his art pieces, Dali worked towards illuminating the unconscious realm of the human mind and finding ways to reflect that through the distortion of common place images. Forms of artwork as “Persistence of Memory” were very common in the Surrealism era and prolonged the effect on society and encouraging people to express their personal connection to their own subconscious thoughts.

This piece of artwork clearly reflects the idea of fantasy and imagined thought. Art pieces such as this one are a clear representation on how distortions from realistic thought began to emerge in the artistic realm of the early 20^th century. “Persistence of Memory” was chosen duet to the different objects in the work and the thought that an individual has to put in order to better understand the artists main message of his clocks which seem melted and broken down.