Caroline Duffy

Matthew Gonzales, Friday 2-3

Salvador Dali and the Persistence of Memory

            In our readings, we have seen how the novels created by modernist authors were formed by and made commentary on, the world around them. In a similar way, modernist artists like Salvador Dali, used art to communicate their unconventional ideas. In the Persistence of Memory, perhaps Dali’s most famous work, he translates complex beliefs into his painting by creating symbolic images.  In such a succinct way, abstract ideas like relativity and impermanence were brought to the public’s attention. And all this through the image of melting clocks deserted in a desert.

            Created in 1933, the Persistence of Memory was formed the same year as the theory of relativity. It has been held by some art critiques that Dali’s surrealist masterpiece was a commentary on the notions discussed in Einstein’s work. Similar to Einstein’s concept that time is relative, Dali’s clocks seem to suggest that time, as we know it, is melting away. Instead of following the linear timeline that had always been previously stated as true, Dali is suggesting that perhaps time does not always point in a one-way direction. Although it is open to interpretation, this analysis of Dali’s painting shows just how intersectional the art and scientific world can be. Both branches helping the other’s thoughts to become more popularized and well known.

            The painting has also been said to be a commentary on the impermanence of our world. Many modernists did not believe that the world was ruled by absolutes and that instead it was full of indefinites and uncertainties. If this analysis is to be taken into account, then it can be seen that Dali’s melting clocks are making fun of our supposed understanding of time. Although we may think of them as timeless, clocks are in fact human productions that provide our only source of surety of what “time” is. As Dali put it, he was working, “to systematize confusion and thus to help discredit completely the world of reality.” The modernist concepts explored in Dali’s art give it the depth that make it a cultural phenomena today.

            Salvador Dali used the world to his full advantage when making his artwork. By involving contemporary cultural aspects and intellectual notions into the threadwork of his painting’s design, he was able to form great pieces with powerful meanings. Modernist writers also used this technique to make their own art more substantial. Whether it was Dos Passos critiquing big business or Zora Neale Hurston examining race in the United States, both used this dynamic combination to make their novels timeless. As Salvador Dali once said, “intelligence without ambition is a bird without wings”. So the modernist writers used their common-held (amongst the movement’s) beliefs and personal experiences that they were passionate about to compose novels we still care and learn from today.

Questions for class: What other interpretations do you have of the painting?

Which fields were some of the most important in influencing Modernist thought?

Works Cited

"The Persistence of Memory by Salvador Dali Facts & History." Totally History The Persistence of Memory Comments. N.p., n.d. Web. 30 Sept. 2016.

"MOST POPULAR PAINTINGS." Persistence of Memory, 1931 by Salvador Dali. N.p., n.d. Web. 30 Sept. 2016.