2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25
Legendary Spanish painter Salvador Dali became famous all over the world thanks to his inimitable surreal style of painting. The most famous works of the author include his personal self-portrait, where he depicted himself with a neck in the style of Raphael, “Flesh on the Stones”, “Enlightened Pleasures”, “Invisible Man”. However, Salvador Dali wrote The Persistence of Memory, adding this work to one of his most profound theories. This happened at the junction of his stylistic rethinking, when the artist joined the current of surrealism.
"The Persistence of Memory". Salvador Dali and his Freudian theory
The famous canvas was created in 1931, when the artist is in a state of heightened excitement from the theories of his idol, the Austrian psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud. In general terms, the idea of the painting was to convey the artist's attitude to softness and hardness.
Being a very egocentric person, prone to outbursts of uncontrollable inspiration and at the same time carefullyunderstanding from the point of view of psychoanalysis, Salvador Dali, like all creative personalities, created his masterpiece under the influence of a hot summer day. As the artist himself recalls, he was puzzled by the contemplation of how Camembert cheese melts from the heat. He was previously attracted by the theme of transforming objects into different states, which he tried to convey on the canvas. The painting “The Persistence of Memory” by Salvador Dali is a symbiosis of melted cheese with an olive tree standing alone against the backdrop of mountains. By the way, it was this image that became the prototype of soft watches.
Description of the picture
Almost all the works of that period are filled with abstract images of human faces hidden behind the forms of foreign objects. They seem to be hidden from view, but at the same time they are the main acting characters. So the surrealist tried to depict the subconscious in his works. The central figure of the painting "The Persistence of Memory" by Salvador Dali made the face of a sleeping man, which is similar to his self-portrait.
The picture seems to have absorbed all the significant stages in the life of the artist, and also displayed the inevitable future. You can see that in the lower left corner of the canvas you can see a closed orange clock, completely dotted with ants. Dali often resorted to the image of these insects, which for him were associated with death. The shape and color of the clock was based on the artist's memories of one in his childhood home that was broken. By the way, the mountains visible in the background are nothing more than a piece from the landscape of the Spaniard's homeland.
"The Persistence of Memory" Salvador Dali portrayed somewhat devastated. Good visibility,that all objects are separated by a desert and are not self-sufficient. Art critics believe that by doing this the author tried to convey his spiritual emptiness, which weighed on him at that time. In fact, the idea was to convey human anguish about the passage of time and changes in memory. Time, according to Dali, is infinite, relative and in constant motion. Memory, on the other hand, is short-lived, but its stability should not be underestimated.
Secret images in the picture
"The Persistence of Memory" Salvador Dali wrote in a couple of hours and did not bother to explain to anyone what he wanted to say with this canvas. Many art critics are still building hypotheses around this iconic work of the master, noticing in it only individual symbols that the artist resorted to throughout his creative activity.
Upon closer inspection, you can see that the clock hanging from the branch on the left is shaped like a tongue. The tree on the canvas is depicted withered, indicating the destructive aspect of time. This work is small in size, but is considered the most powerful of all that Salvador Dali wrote. "The Persistence of Memory" is certainly the most psychologically deep picture that reveals the inner world of the author to the maximum. Perhaps that is why he did not want to comment on it, leaving his admirers to guess.
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