The atomic blast sent shockwaves through the city, leveling everything in the blast radius in sheer seconds. All life in the area was extinguished, and further away from the immediate blast zone, fires ran rampant, burning entire buildings to the ground. Salvador Dalí had quite the fascination with such an event that he incorporated it into his 1954 work, The Disintegration of the Persistence of Memory. The painting is a “sequel” to his 1931 masterpiece, The Persistence of Memory, which thrust Dalí into a life of world renowned fame. The paintings are very similar, but there are a few key differences. Water has invaded nearly every part of the landscape, which has now transformed into brick-like segments. The original painting merely presents the concept of the melting clocks, while the sequel expands upon that thought by using more recent ideas about physics and the interactions between atoms. These differences convey a theme that is very unique in comparison to the original work. The Disintegration of the Persistence of Memory represents the overall theme of change and the fluidity of the world through the symbols of the floating bricks and the floodwaters washing away the objects found in the previous portrait. 

The foreground features a plethora of what appears to be floating brick rectangles that are equidistant and reminiscent of the foreground in the original painting. From left to right, the coloring of the bricks fades from a light brown basking in the sunlight to a darker brown that appears tinted with the blue of the enveloping body of water. This change can bring about alterations in the mood of the viewer, thus altering the way the painting is viewed. This shift in color gradient of the bricks is present throughout the overall portrait, moving from lighter colors in the northwest corner to the cooler colored watery bricks in the opposite corner. The background of the image depicts a grid-like design that appears to run perpendicular to the rectangular objects of the foreground. This alignment forces the viewer to follow the lines to their intersection, near the fish and the golden clock. Despite the uniformity and proximity of the bricks in the grid, a clock seems to have slipped through the cracks, further expressing the fluidity of the objects in the painting. The fluidity and space found in the consistency of the bricks and rectangles allows the viewer to perceive the changes taking place in the painting with relative ease despite the sheer amount of surrealistic images thrusted into view by the artist.

Nearly the entire environment is submerged by the floodwaters, save for the hills in the distant background. The watery ecosystem is an incredible change from the arid, earthy, landscape found in the previous painting. The surface of the water is an opaque milky blue, yet it still mirrors the hills perfectly. This reflection is also a reflection of the past before the water invaded the area. The flood also introduced a brightly colored fish with red eyes that appears beneath the image of the reflected hills. Fluidity is exhibited by this fish, as it appears to be suspended in the water with its tail hiding behind the hills, simply floating along through the chaos unfolding around it. The intrusive flow of water is also washing away the melting watches. Symbolically, this is representative of time itself being washed away, thus morphing its importance from a centerpiece to a smeared skeleton of its former self. Time no longer holds the power it did in the previous painting, demonstrating the newly created fluidity of the painting. Without the constraint of time, the objects, and the fish, are free to wash away with the flood and modify themselves into new shapes and images like the previously discussed floating bricks transformed from the barren land.

Change is a major part of life, no matter how uneventful or monotonous one’s life may seem. Change is everywhere and it is fluid, taking on new shapes and sizes as it progresses through time. The Disintegration of the Persistence of Memory by Salvador Dalí portrays these themes by unconsciously releasing various images from the depths of his mind, also known as an art form, surrealism. The fluidity of the painting is due to the dreamlike nature of the surrealist agenda. Without this fluidity, the changes depicted in the painting would not be possible in this dream world. It is necessary for both concepts to be present in order for the grand project to come together as one cohesive unit. The floating bricks, coupled with the rising floodwaters, embody the surrealist spirit while conveying the overall theme of fluidity and change in the painting.  
