Salvador Dalí ,The Persistence of Memory Oil on canvas, 24 cm × 33 cm (9.5 in × 13 in) ,Location Museum of Modern Art, New York City
The Persistence of Memory is the most famous painting of Dali. Throughout this presentation I will discuss the historical/personal context and the vague meaning of the painting.
Salvador Dali was born in 1904 in a town of Catalonia, Spain and died in 1989.He was a man in a hurry, an artist of tremendous energy and prodigious output. His works includes painting, film, sculpture, and photography, in collaboration with a range of artists in a variety of media. He experiences the Cubism, Dada and Surrealism, and was best known for the striking and bizarre images in his surrealist work. The persistence of memory is one of them and completed in 1931. Dali has recorded his process of this painting a few years later.
It was on an evening when I felt tired, and had a slight head-ache, which is extremely rare with me. We were to go to a moving picture with some friends, and at the last moment I decided not to go. Gala would go with them, and I would stay home and go to bed early. We had topped off our meal with a very strong camembert, and after everyone had gone I remained for a long time seated at the table meditating on the philosophic problems of the “super-soft” which the cheese presented to my mind. I got up and went into mu studio, where I lit the light in order to cast a final glance, as is my habit, at the picture I was in the midst of painting. This picture represented a landscape near port Lligat, whose rocks were lighted by a transparent and melancholy twilight; in the foreground an olive tree with its branches cut, and without leaves. I knew that the atmosphere which I had succeeded in creating with this landscape was to serve as a setting for some idea, for some surprising image, but I did not in the least know what it was going to be, I was about to turn out the light, when instantaneously I “saw” the solution, I saw two soft matches, one of them hanging lamentably on the branch of the olive tree, in spite of the fact that my head-ache had increased to the point of becoming very from the theatre two hours later the picture which was to be one of my most famous, was completed.[1]
He said it was on an evening when he felt tired, and had a slight head-ache. Gala and his friends went out and he planned to go to bed early. After everyone had gone Dali remained for a long time seated at the table meditating on the philosophic problems of the “super-soft” which the cheese presented to his mind. Then he got up and went into his studio. There was a landscape in the midst of painting. Its rocks were lighted by a transparent and melancholy twilight; in the foreground an olive tree with its branches cut, and without leaves. He said, “I knew that the atmosphere which I had succeeded in creating with this landscape was to serve as a setting for some idea, for some surprising image, but I did not in the least know what it was going to be.” He was about to turn out the light, when instantaneously ‘saw’ the solution, he saw two soft watches, one of them hanging lamentably on the branch of the olive tree. He began to finish his work and two hours later the picture which was to be one of his most famous, was completed.
People who have seen this painting will never forget it. Because the painting is so strong, and there is something wrong here. This is the main character of surrealism. It is an irrational dreamlike image and also super-reality. It is a landscape about nature, but who put the desk here? Why all the clocks are melting? What is the animal on the ground? How can the branch grow out of the desk? In order to show the different from a painting, he hide all the brush to make it similar to a photograph. In order to different from a photograph, Dali putted things in the wrong place and changed some character of the objects to create an uncanny atmosphere. All the things are realist but all the things are imaged. In this way, he created a new world.
His process of this painting is also a typical surrealism way. He showed his ideas on the painting without conscious control, and the full significance of the work he was only to perceive later. Just think about his process of the persistence of memory, there is no draft or the so called execution of the whole painting. The way he created the whole painting is more similar to novels of steam-of-consciousness. When he saw a clock, he painted a clock. When he saw some ants, he painted some ants. As there is no plan before his painting, he also used these poetic techniques of free association to reduce conscious control of irrational mind. In this way, he is the same with Miro’s auto writing even he used the realist image.
Other researches try to answer the question from Dali’s painting. Dali has some unique elements and he likes to use them in his painting again and again. They think these are Dali’s codes and try to unravel these Dali’s code to understand the meaning of the whole painting. For example, the uncertain animal in the desert is similar to some lady’s silhouette in Dali’s early painting. But the problem is still unanswered, what do those codes mean?
Class question:
What is the meaning of a painting? Is it neccsary to the audience to get what an artist want to say in a painting?
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