Dali's The Disintegration of the Persistence of Memoryö
Salvador Dali is, without question, one of the most famous artists of the twentieth century. One of his most recognizable works is his 1931 painting titled ôThe Persistence of Memory.ö However, a less well-known but equally significant work is Dali's 1952-1954 ôsequelö titled ôThe Disintegration of the Persistence of Memory.ö The personal and sociological journey represented by ôThe Disintegrationö demonstrates the search for meaning and stability that characterized much of the artwork created during the latter half of the twentieth century.
Dali painted ôThe Persistence of Memoryö during his early involvement with the Surrealist movement, a movement characterized by an interest in psychology and, in particular, Freudian psychoanalysis (Ades, 1982, p. 70). According to the Surrealists, artists recorded messages from the inner unconscious onto the canvas. Surrealism, therefore, was concerned with the artist's subjective views of himself and his world; it was not particularly interested in sharing any objective reality with its audience. However, Dali took the Surrealist automatic recording one step further. He believed that artists deformed and manipulated these unconscious yet automatic recordings during their journey from mind to canvas (Ades, 1982, p. 73).
Thus, Dali's ôThe Persistence of Memoryö was concerned with the workings of his own mind. The colorful background in the painting is that of the coast of Catalonia, Dali's Spanish hometown (MOMA, 2004, p. 1). In the center of the painting is a deformed figure that could be Dali, with a clock melting over it. Three other clocks melt in the foreground - a dark, desert-like flatland. The painting is Dali's psychology, manipulated by his memory. Ants û a sign of decay - overrun one of the melting clocks. In fact, everything in the painting except for the immovable background signifies decay and impermanence...