
Salvador Dali, a Spanish surrealist artist, painted one of his most popular paintings in 1931, The Persistence of Memory. It is an example of surrealist art, which suggests that reality itself is a dream. This painting is unique because Dali never interpreted this painting himself and never truly explained it to the public. My research states that people from around the world interpret it in various ways. Dali had a dream that he would droop clocks in a desert and he achieved that dream successfully. Dali was a man that was so inspired by his dreams that he would place a metal plate on the floor of his bedroom and put a key in one of his hands when he went to sleep. When he finally fell asleep, his hand would completely relax making the key hit the plate which would wake him from his deep sleep. The purpose of this essay is to explain and understand the interpretation and analysis of Dali’s “unsolved” painting. 

He based the landscape in the painting, on the cliffs in his home region of Catalonia, Spain. We can interpret the fact that sometimes things that are portrayed as bulky and meaningful, come to a point where they just fade away and somehow become unusable. The ants and several melting pocket clocks are recognizable images that Dalí placed in different sections of the paintings. The clocks seem to be melting like overcooked cheese or wax from a lit candle. There is a part of the painting that is fulfilled with sunlight, while the other part is concealed in the darkness. We also have a thoroughly painted ocean for the backdrop. We can notice the ants finding a structured home in the middle of orange pocket watch in the lower left-hand corner. This could represent death or disappearance in Dali’s past life. You may also notice the deformed object composed of a nose and eye which was drawn from Dalí’s imagination. By the looks of it from my research, some people assume it is Dali’s face in profile. Dali could be watching over himself from the painting and seeing all the work he has achieved. Some people also believe to see a female like structure which could represent some sort of female sexuality or an important female figure in Dali’s life. 

The clocks are the main focus in this painting, and with knowing that we relate to theme being portrayed in this painting which is time. Time is also the central theme in everyday life and is a time frame for people to accomplish events and/or goals. The origin of our stress and anxiety specifically comes from time. Are you done your homework? Are you late for school? Did you turn in your paper? We never know if we have enough time to finish the work we are given in order to be successful. Maybe it comes from the fact of us not knowing when or if we will ever get married, or die, or have a child. Whether we believe it or not, it is reasonable to believe that we all will die someday. Understanding the reality of death may change our attitudes and could’ve been the reason Dali painted these slowly melted clocks hanging off of several objects. Some interpretations are more immense than the others, who just remain elusive. 

The colors are so vibrant and the brush marks from the paint brush are barely noticeable. To the left of the painting we notice a shadow from the branch and the pocket watches underneath the branch. The shadows grow larger and larger in the painting. The branch is resting on a dark brown object which eventually goes off of the canvas. The ground in The Persistence of Memory progressively grows from dark brown to black when scanning your eyes left to right. The source of light could either be from a sunset or sunrise in the midst of the painting. The light hits the cliffs in the background so perfectly that it bounces off and reflects in the water directly below it at an angle. When you fix your eyes to look directly in the center of the painting, you notice that there is nothing ahead of you except for more and more water. On the left of the painting, right above the water, Dali placed a rectangular platform that is painted with light blue colors and dark brown edges. Placed in front of the painting and towards the back of the painting are two pebbles that are placed on the ground.

We will never understand what the true meaning behind this painting is but we do know that creative interpretation is all it takes. If you can discover the historical background and artistic background of Dali himself, it can lead you into a way of discovering his own paintings. The Persistence of Memory is probably a combination of all the meanings you can truly imagine and condense together. Dali wanted someone to finally understand and work to understand the true meaning of what this painting underlies. Every time I look at this painting, I develop a whole new meaning for time. 