In his famous painting, The Persistence of Memory, Dali portrays the landscape of his native land, Figueras, Spain, in a realistic fashion. The objects in the foreground have the technical precision of real watches, yet they are limp and lifeless, suggesting a lack of energy, of ability to function as a watch should. Or perhaps this is a conceptual effort to stop time. The scale of all the forms is greatly distored -- the watches are huge compared to the branches. The unnatural color of the watch faces adds to the feeling of unreality.
Some suggest the amorphous figure that looks like a rock is a self-portrait. Notice the shape of the nose and the long lashes. The object seems unconscious under the weight of the limp watch on top of it. Another watch is crawling with ants, still another is harassed by a solitary fly. Could these objects suggest Dali's fear of his own mortality?
What does the title of this piece suggest? Even though technical function of these watches is no longer apparent, do they continue to keep time? Perhaps Dali is telling us that time relentlessly continues despite the mechanical failure of an object or being.
http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Salvador+Dali%3a+images+of+the+surreal.-a012157557
Monday, 28 February 2011
The Disintegration of the Persistence of Memory
1954
by Salvador Dalí
Original Dimensions: 10 x 13 inch
In the Disintegration of the Persistence of Memory from 1954, Dalí disintegrated the scene from his popular 1931 painting The Persistence of Memory, located in New York's Museum of Modern Art. This disintegration is an acknowledgment of the developments of modern science.
The disquieting landscape of his earlier work has here been shattered by the effects of the atomic bomb. All of the elements in the painting are separating from each other.
The rectangular blocks in the foreground and the rhinoceros horns floating through space metaphorically suggest that the world is formed of atomic particles that are constantly in motion.
Forms disintegrating as a result of the bomb populate the barren landscape. The soft skin of the face to the right is fluid, and the soft watch from the 1931 canvas is not just draped over a branch in the dead olive tree, it is ripping apart.
By locating this work in the barren region of the Bay of Cullero, Dalí revealed that the atomic bomb has disturbed even the serenity of the artist's isolated Port Lligat.
Yet in spite of this painting's bleak implications, Dalí presents the atomic disintegration in a harmonious pattern, indicating the persistence of an underlying order in nature. Buy Salvador Dalí Prints
1954
by Salvador Dalí
Original Dimensions: 10 x 13 inch
In the Disintegration of the Persistence of Memory from 1954, Dalí disintegrated the scene from his popular 1931 painting The Persistence of Memory, located in New York's Museum of Modern Art. This disintegration is an acknowledgment of the developments of modern science.
The disquieting landscape of his earlier work has here been shattered by the effects of the atomic bomb. All of the elements in the painting are separating from each other.
The rectangular blocks in the foreground and the rhinoceros horns floating through space metaphorically suggest that the world is formed of atomic particles that are constantly in motion.
Forms disintegrating as a result of the bomb populate the barren landscape. The soft skin of the face to the right is fluid, and the soft watch from the 1931 canvas is not just draped over a branch in the dead olive tree, it is ripping apart.
By locating this work in the barren region of the Bay of Cullero, Dalí revealed that the atomic bomb has disturbed even the serenity of the artist's isolated Port Lligat.
Yet in spite of this painting's bleak implications, Dalí presents the atomic disintegration in a harmonious pattern, indicating the persistence of an underlying order in nature. Buy Salvador Dalí Prints
http://www.artinthepicture.com/paintings/Salvador_Dali/The-Disintegration-of-the-Persistence-of-Memory/
Thought this was interesting
Technically exquisite, The Persistence of Memory is one of what Dalí called his “handpainted
dream photographs” and can simultaneously be read as a landscape, a still-life,
and a self-portrait. The effect of such a tour de force was not lost on Dalí, and from the
1930’s forward, melting watches appear regularly in his artwork—most significantly,
perhaps, in a “revision” of the original painting completed in 1954 and titled The
Disintegration of the Persistence of Memory. Using many of the same elements as the
original, The Disintegration of the Persistence of Memory represents the significant
changes that Dalí’s life and art underwent after World War II. Considering the succcess
of the 1931 painting, it’s not surprising that Dalí should express his “new self” in terms
of the old. This is the first time that MOMA has agreed to loan The Persistence of
Memory; side by side for the first time in history, the two paintings link not only the two
halves of Dalí’s career, but the two halves of a century as well.
http://thedali.org/education/documents/clocking_in.pdf
dream photographs” and can simultaneously be read as a landscape, a still-life,
and a self-portrait. The effect of such a tour de force was not lost on Dalí, and from the
1930’s forward, melting watches appear regularly in his artwork—most significantly,
perhaps, in a “revision” of the original painting completed in 1954 and titled The
Disintegration of the Persistence of Memory. Using many of the same elements as the
original, The Disintegration of the Persistence of Memory represents the significant
changes that Dalí’s life and art underwent after World War II. Considering the succcess
of the 1931 painting, it’s not surprising that Dalí should express his “new self” in terms
of the old. This is the first time that MOMA has agreed to loan The Persistence of
Memory; side by side for the first time in history, the two paintings link not only the two
halves of Dalí’s career, but the two halves of a century as well.
http://thedali.org/education/documents/clocking_in.pdf
And...
http://www.moma.org/collection/browse_results.php?object_id=79018
Dalí: Painting and Film
June 29–September 15, 2008
Time is the theme here, from the melting watches to the decay implied by the swarming ants. The monstrous fleshy creature draped across the paintings center is an approximation of Dalís own face in profile. Mastering what he called "the usual paralyzing tricks of eye-fooling," Dalí painted this work with "the most imperialist fury of precision," but only, he said, "to systematize confusion and thus to help discredit completely the world of reality." There is, however, a nod to the real: The distant golden cliffs are those on the coast of Catalonia, Dalís home.
2006
Dalí rendered his fantastic visions with meticulous verisimilitude, giving the representations of dreams a tangible and credible appearance. In what he called "hand painted dream photographs," hard objects become inexplicably limp, time bends, and metal attracts ants like rotting flesh. The monstrous creature draped across the painting's center resembles the artist's own face in profile; its long eyelashes seem insectlike or even sexual, as does what may or may not be a tongue oozing from its nose like a fat snail.
Dalí: Painting and Film
June 29–September 15, 2008
Time is the theme here, from the melting watches to the decay implied by the swarming ants. The monstrous fleshy creature draped across the paintings center is an approximation of Dalís own face in profile. Mastering what he called "the usual paralyzing tricks of eye-fooling," Dalí painted this work with "the most imperialist fury of precision," but only, he said, "to systematize confusion and thus to help discredit completely the world of reality." There is, however, a nod to the real: The distant golden cliffs are those on the coast of Catalonia, Dalís home.
2006
Dalí rendered his fantastic visions with meticulous verisimilitude, giving the representations of dreams a tangible and credible appearance. In what he called "hand painted dream photographs," hard objects become inexplicably limp, time bends, and metal attracts ants like rotting flesh. The monstrous creature draped across the painting's center resembles the artist's own face in profile; its long eyelashes seem insectlike or even sexual, as does what may or may not be a tongue oozing from its nose like a fat snail.
Interpretation
Direct transcript from: www suite101.com
In the work, clocks appears to melt over branches and rigid surfaces, and ants devour a pocket watch while a vague face hovers in the background. The background itself show the rocky landscape of Port Lligat in Dali's native Catalonia, Spain.
... The face beyond if said to be Dali himself, the ants may represent destruction or decay, the rocks can be veiwed as eternity or reality, and the melting clocks perhaps show that regimented time is an artificial concept that cannot withstand the true power of the universe beyond.
In the work, clocks appears to melt over branches and rigid surfaces, and ants devour a pocket watch while a vague face hovers in the background. The background itself show the rocky landscape of Port Lligat in Dali's native Catalonia, Spain.
... The face beyond if said to be Dali himself, the ants may represent destruction or decay, the rocks can be veiwed as eternity or reality, and the melting clocks perhaps show that regimented time is an artificial concept that cannot withstand the true power of the universe beyond.
Saturday, 26 February 2011
the moustache
Dali shaped his moustache to look like butterfly anteni because he believed they were receptors to creative energy. (Travel Channel TV sky 252, Globe Trekker, 8.00 Sunday, 2/2/11. I have saved a photo, will try to get it onto the blog!
Wednesday, 23 February 2011
Dali describing Persistence of Memory
Dali is quoted by Descharnes and Neret as saying
...Just as I am astonished that a bank clerk never eats a cheque, so too an I astonished that no particular painter before me ever thought of painting a soft watch.
Descharnes, R. and Neret, G. (2006) DALI. Los Angeles: Taschen
...Just as I am astonished that a bank clerk never eats a cheque, so too an I astonished that no particular painter before me ever thought of painting a soft watch.
Descharnes, R. and Neret, G. (2006) DALI. Los Angeles: Taschen
Bits and pieces
"His (Dali) most prolonged and inspired period of creativity was in the 1920's and 1930's when, under the influence of Surrealism, he painted many of his best-known and most original works. Later in his career he seemed more concerned with living the life of a celebrity and cultivating his reputation for outrageousness than with furthering his art"
Hodge, J. (1994) Salvador Dali. London: Grange Books (p6)
Hodge, J. (1994) Salvador Dali. London: Grange Books (p6)
facts about persistence of memory
The Persistence of Memory: Facts & Interpretation
- It was completed in 1931 and is considered one of Dali's most famous works.
- The painting is only 9 1/2 by 13" inch (24.1 x 33cm).
- It possibly derives its meaning from Sigmund Freud's work on psychoanalysis because Dali painted it during his psychoanalytical era of painting.
- Interpretation 1: The persistence of memory meaning theme: the drooping pocketwatches possibly suggest the irrelevance of time during sleep. In other words, when we are asleep, or not conscious, the time does not persist, but memories do.
- Interpretation 2: Yet another interpretation of this painting may, through the use of symbolism, suggest Einstein's theory that time is relative and is not fixed.
- Dali called his paintings hand-painted dream photographs
this was found at http://www.authenticsociety.com/about/ThePersistenceOfMemory_Dali
Sunday, 20 February 2011
info on Dali
This info was taken from a book titled 'DALI', 2004, published by Grange Books, no author's name.
Salvador Dali, born in Spain on May 11th, 1904. Died in 1989.
His student days were in Madrid. The early years of his fame were in Paris, up to his leaving to go to the USA in 1940, when Dali was 37.
Dali received his first lessons in painting and drawing at a private catholic school of the French 'La Salle' order when he was eight years old. (page 10).
Dali's oldest existing works date from 1914. They are small-format watercolours, landscape studies of the area around Figueras. (page 10).
Oil paintings by the eleven-year-ol Dali also exist. Mostly as copies of masterpieces which he found in his father's well-stocked collection of art books. (page 14).
We all recognise that Dali was eccentric, I wonder if the following insight into his childhood might explain a few things? These are quotes from Dali's autobiography taken from above book.
'Dali's life is overshadowed by the death of his brother. On August 1st, 1903, the first born child of the family, scarcely two years old, died from gasrtoenteritis.' (page 5).
'Throughout the whole of my childhood and youth I lived with the perception that I was a part of my dead brother. That is, in my body and my soul, I carried the clinging carcass of this dead brother because my parents were constantly speaking about the other Salvador' (page 10).
As a child Dali liked to dress up, as a king, and in other costumes too.
"I started to test myself and to observe; as I performed hilarious eye-winking antics accompanied by a subliminal spiteful smile, at the edge of my mind, I knew, vague as it was, that I was in the process of playing the role of a genius. Ah Salvador Dali! You know it now; if you play the role of a genius, you will also become one!" (page 14).
- Later Dali analysed his behaviour:
"In order to wrest myself from my dead brother, I had to play the genius so as to ensure that at every moment I was not in fact him, that I was not dead; as such, I was forced to put on all sorts of eccentric poses". (page 14).
Salvador Dali, born in Spain on May 11th, 1904. Died in 1989.
His student days were in Madrid. The early years of his fame were in Paris, up to his leaving to go to the USA in 1940, when Dali was 37.
Dali received his first lessons in painting and drawing at a private catholic school of the French 'La Salle' order when he was eight years old. (page 10).
Dali's oldest existing works date from 1914. They are small-format watercolours, landscape studies of the area around Figueras. (page 10).
Oil paintings by the eleven-year-ol Dali also exist. Mostly as copies of masterpieces which he found in his father's well-stocked collection of art books. (page 14).
We all recognise that Dali was eccentric, I wonder if the following insight into his childhood might explain a few things? These are quotes from Dali's autobiography taken from above book.
'Dali's life is overshadowed by the death of his brother. On August 1st, 1903, the first born child of the family, scarcely two years old, died from gasrtoenteritis.' (page 5).
'Throughout the whole of my childhood and youth I lived with the perception that I was a part of my dead brother. That is, in my body and my soul, I carried the clinging carcass of this dead brother because my parents were constantly speaking about the other Salvador' (page 10).
As a child Dali liked to dress up, as a king, and in other costumes too.
"I started to test myself and to observe; as I performed hilarious eye-winking antics accompanied by a subliminal spiteful smile, at the edge of my mind, I knew, vague as it was, that I was in the process of playing the role of a genius. Ah Salvador Dali! You know it now; if you play the role of a genius, you will also become one!" (page 14).
- Later Dali analysed his behaviour:
"In order to wrest myself from my dead brother, I had to play the genius so as to ensure that at every moment I was not in fact him, that I was not dead; as such, I was forced to put on all sorts of eccentric poses". (page 14).
Wednesday, 16 February 2011
Thursday, 10 February 2011
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