The Persistence of Memory

Painting information
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The Persistence of Memory (1931) is one of the most famous paintings by artist Salvador Dalí. The painting has also been known as Soft Watches or Melting Clocks. It is currently displayed in the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City.

The well-known surrealistic piece introduced the image of the soft melting pocket watch.

Dalí began the painting with one of his favorite themes, a landscape of the seashore of Catalonia at Cape Creus. He was moved to include the famous melting-clock imagery after a vision he had following a snack of Camembert cheese — the clocks, therefore, have the texture of the soft cheese. The painting shows four soft watches, one of which has a fly showing that time flies and another is being devoured by ants that shows decay. This is widely seen as a commentary that time is less rigid than people usually assume.

In the center of the picture, under one of the watches, is a distorted human face in profile. This face also appears in Dalí's earlier work The Great Masturbator.

The painting was first publicly exhibited in New York in 1932, and Dalí sold it for $250.

The painting soon became the best-known of Dalí's works, and has frequently been reproduced in postcards, posters, and other media. By 1938 it was so much a part of popular culture that versions of Persistence appear in the background of the animated cartoon Porky in Wackyland.

Dalí returned to the theme of this painting with the variation The Disintegration of the Persistence of Memory (1954), showing his earlier famous work falling apart into component parts and a series of rectangles; this work is now in the Dalí Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida, while the original Peristence of Memory remains at the Museum of Modern Art in NYC. Dalí also produced various lithographs and sculptures on the theme of soft watches late in his career.

Trivia

In the popular SNES RPG EarthBound, one of the enemies seen briefly in the game is a "Dali's Clock". The image of the enemy is a melting clock with eyes, and somewhat of a sad look. The enemy's main attack is freezing time, allowing itself to repeatedly strike his enemy. Additionally, the enemy sometimes appears together with another enemy, "Abstract Art".

Also in the 75th issue of the X-Men spin-off Comic Wolverine when Jean Grey and Professor Xavier enter Wolverine's mind, melting clocks can be seen in the background.

In the third episode of Futurama, Bender folds an alarm clock and places it on the table much in the fashion of the painting.