Some Famous Paintings

The Persistence of Memory by Salvador Dali is a very renown, unforgettable piece of art. It depicts floppy, limp like watches and clocks. There is a golden clock that is covered with ants which represents the decadence or decay of time. In the center of the painting is a strange looking creature that sort of resembles a human face with long eyelashes, a big nose and an eyebrow and a lifeless clock on top. The images in the foreground seem like they have appeared out of a bad dream and everything has gone wrong. The only thing that appears to be real are the golden cliffs that are in background. The cliffs symbolize the coast of Catalonia-where he lives.

Salvador Dali was Born on May 11, 1904 in Figueres, Spain. In 1929, he joined the Surrealists. Dali became widely known and got his fame through self publicity. He took over surrealistic theory automatism and turned it into what he called "Critical Paranoia". This is the reason why most of his paintings deal with delusions and hallucinations.

Salvador Dali concocts paintings by combining weird cartoon like objects with realistic objects. His paintings always involve surrealism and things he experienced in his childhood. His paintings are meant to intrigue or confuse the onlooker and make the person think.

I found this painting very interesting and its images of frail bendable clocks and a creature in the foreground and cliffs in the back caught my attention. I like the way he uses repetition with the clocks, continuation, and contrast. He varies the textures of each object to create a sense of the clocks looking floppy. It looks as if you could easily touch them and it would feel rubbery and be lightweight. He emphasizes the cliffs very well by using a lot of detail to accentuate the jagged rough curves of the cliffs and making them a vibrant warm yellow so it is striking to my eye.

I think this painting is important today because it has many meanings and themes. It represents how reality and the imaginary world sometimes get mixed up or become inseparable. It represents dreams people have wishing for something extraordinary to happen. When people watch a fictional movie, the movie has some unreal aspects that capture your attention and could become real through constant thought and manipulation. Some people take the dreams they have and turn it into reality by making a cartoon or writing a story. Persistence of Memory causes viewers to think creatively and beyond and above, and influences them to make other works like it and take action.