The Persistence of Memory

The well-known surrealist piece introduced the image of the soft melting pocket watch.[2] It epitomizes Dal's
theory of "softness" and "hardness", which was central to his thinking at the time. As Dawn Ades wrote,
"The soft watches are an unconscious symbol of the relativity of space and time, a Surrealist meditation on
the collapse of our notions of a fixed cosmic order". [3] This interpretation suggests that Dal was
incorporating an understanding of the world introduced by Albert Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity.
Asked by Ilya Prigogine whether this was in fact the case, Dal replied that the soft watches were not
inspired by the theory of relativity, but by the surrealist perception of a Camembert cheese melting in the
sun.[4]
Although fundamentally part of Dal's Freudian phase, the imagery precedes his transition to his scientific
phase by fourteen years, which occurred after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.
It is possible to recognize a human figure in the middle of the composition, in the strange "monster" that
Dal used in several period pieces to represent himself the abstract form becoming something of a selfportrait, reappearing frequently in his work. The orange clock at the bottom left of the painting is covered in
ants. Dal often used ants in his paintings as a symbol for death.
The figure in the middle of the picture can be read as a "fading" creature, one that often appears in dreams
where the dreamer cannot pinpoint the creature's exact form and composition. One can observe that the
creature has one closed eye with several eyelashes, suggesting that the creature is also in a dream state.
The iconography may refer to a dream that Dal himself had experienced, and the clocks may symbolize
the passing of time as one experiences it in sleep or the persistence of time in the eyes of the dreamer .
The Persistence of Memory employs "the exactitude of realist painting techniques" [7] to depict imagery more
likely to be found in dreams than in waking consciousness.

Eggs on the Plate without the Plate

Date: 1932
Material Used: Oil on canvas
Size: 23 3/4 x 16 1/2 inches
The absurd title of this work is a clue to the irrational nature of the world presented in the
canvas, where unusual still-life objects pull the viewer's eye to the unnaturally glowing sky. As
a Surrealist, Dali was open to making dreamlike associations, and his comments about this
work demonstrate the source of its imagery.
The most startling assertion is that Eggs on the Plate was inspired by an "intra-uterine
memory." According to the artist, he remembered his existence in the womb "as though it was
yesterday." All his pleasure was in his eyes, he said, and the most splendid vision he had
while in the womb was that of "a pair of eggs fried in a pan without a pan." In the painting, Dali
has reproduced this vision and the colors he saw: "red, orange, yellow, and bluish, the color
of flames." Above the two fried eggs on a plate, a third egg dangles, suspended on a string.
This resembles an embryo, which we can assume is the artist's self-portrait in the womb, the

string doubling as his umbilical cord, which connects him to his mother.
Dali made another unexpected association with the two fried eggs on the plate. He wanted to
pay homage to his beloved Gala, but instead of a conventional portrait, he chose to depict the
two egg yolks on the plate with a passion that suggested two staring eyes. Gala inspired
many Surrealists. Her power resided in her gaze, which her first husband Paul luard
described as so intense "it could pierce walls." In this work, the two eggs stare at us like
Gala's eyes, a surreal tribute to her power.

Swans Reflecting Elephants (1937) is a painting by the Spanish surrealist Salvador Dal. This
painting is from Dal's Paranoiac-critical period. Painted using oil on canvas, it contains one of Dali's
famous double images. The double images were a major part of Dali's "paranoia-critical method,"
which he put forward in his 1935 essay "The Conquest of the Irrational." He explained his process as
a "spontaneous method of irrational understanding based upon the interpretative critical association of
delirious phenomena." Dali used this method to bring forth the hallucinatory forms, double images and
visual illusions that filled his paintings during the Thirties. As with earlier Metamorphosis of
Narcissus, Swans Reflecting Elephants uses the reflection in a lake to create the double image seen
in the painting. In Metamorphosis, the reflection of Narcissus is used to mirror the shape of the hand
on the right of the picture. Here, the three swans in front of bleak, leafless trees are reflected in the
lake so that the swans' heads become the elephants' heads and the trees become the bodies of the
elephants. In the background of the painting is a Catalonian landscape depicted in fiery fall colors, the
brushwork creating swirls in the cliffs that surround the lake, to contrast with the stillness of the water.
[1]

Salvador Dali - Sleep 1937

Dalis Sleep of 1937 deals with a Freudian

theme of the world of dreams that has fascinated the Surrealists who believed that the freedom of the
subconscious within sleep could be tapped into and then realized creatively in their art. This painting
is an attempt to duplicate the dream world into canvas.

Sleep is virtually a visual rendering of the body's collapse into sleep, as if it was a collapse into a
separate condition of being. Against a deep blue summer sky, a huge disembodied head with eyes
dissolved in sleep, hangs suspended over an almost bare landscape. The head is "soft", vulnerable and
distorted. And what should be a neck tapers away to drop limply over a crutch. A dog appears on the
left, its head in a crutch too, as if half asleep itself.

The head is supported above land by a series of wooden crutches. The mouth, nose and also eyes are
all held in place by the crutches, suggesting that the head might collapse if they were removed.
Crutches are a familiar motif in Dalis works. As Dali attests in his book, The Secret Life of Salvador
Dali, I have often imagined the monster of sleep as a heavy, giant head with a tapering body held up
by the crutches of reality. When the crutches break we have the sensation of falling.

The Face of War

The Face of War (The Visage of War; in Spanish La Cara de la Guerra) (1940) is a painting by the
Spanish surrealist Salvador Dal. It was painted during a brief period when the artist lived in California.
The trauma and the view of war had often served as inspiration for Dals work. He sometimes believed his
artistic vision to be premonitions of war. This work was painted between the end of the Spanish Civil
Warand beginning of the Second World War.
The painting depicts a disembodied face hovering against a barren desert landscape. The face is withered
like that of a corpse and wears an expression of misery. In its mouth and eye sockets are identical faces. In
their mouths and eyes are more identical faces in a process implied to be infinite. Swarming around the
large face are biting serpents. In the lower right corner is a hand print that Dal insisted was left by his own
hand.

Metamorphosis of Narcissus
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Metamorphosis of Narcissus (1937) is an oil-on-canvas painting by the Spanish surrealistSalvador Dal.

This painting is from Dal's Paranoiac-critical period. According to Greek mythology, Narcissus fell in love
with his own reflection in a pool. Unable to embrace the watery image, he pined away, and the gods
immortalized him as a flower. Dali completed this painting in 1937 on his long awaited return to Paris after
having had great success in the United States.
The painting shows Narcissus sitting in a pool, gazing down. Not far away there is a decaying stone figure
which corresponds closely to him but is perceived quite differently; as a hand holding up a bulb or egg from
which a Narcissus is growing. The egg has been used as a symbol for sexuality in other paintings by Dali.
In the background, a group of naked figures can be seen, while a third Narcissus like figure appears on the
horizon.
A poem was written by Dal to accompany the painting.

"The elephant is also a recurring image in Dal's works. It first appeared in his 1944 work 'Dream
Caused by the Flight of a Bee around a Pomegranate a Second Before Awakening'. The elephants,
inspired by Gian Lorenzo Bernini's sculpture base in Rome of an elephant carrying an ancient obelisk,
are portrayed 'with long, multi-jointed, almost invisible legs of desire' along with obelisks on their
backs. Coupled with the image of their brittle legs, these encumbrances, noted for their phallic
overtones, create a sense of phantom reality. 'The elephant is a distortion in space,' one analysis
explains, 'its spindly legs contrasting the idea of weightlessness with structure.' 'I am painting
pictures which make me die for joy, I am creating with an absolute naturalness, without the slightest
aesthetic concern, I am making things that inspire me with a profound emotion and I am trying to paint
them honestly.' Salvador Dal, in Dawn Ades, Dal and Surrealism."

The Elephants
Elephants in the work of Dali[edit source | editbeta]
The elephant is a recurring theme in the works of Dal, first appearing in his 1944 workDream Caused by
the Flight of a Bee Around a Pomegranate a Second Before Awakening, and also in "The Temptation of
Saint Anthony" and "Swans Reflecting Elephants. "The Elephants" differs from the other paintings in that
the animals are the primary focus of the work, with a barren gradiated background and lack of other
content, where most of Dali's paintings contain much detail and points of interest (for example Swans
Reflecting Elephants which is somewhat better known within Dali's repertoire than "The Elephants".

[2]

The

storked-legged elephant is one of the best-known icons of Dali's work and adorn the walls of the Dali
Museum in Spain.[3]

Symbolism[edit source | editbeta]

The are various cultural depictions of elephants, where they are often viewed as symbols of strength,
dominance and power due to their bulk and weight.

[4]

Dali contrasts these typical associations by giving the

elephants long, spindly, almost arachnid-like legs, once described as "multijointed, almost invisible legs of
desire".[5] Dali enhances the appearance of strength and weight by depicting the elephants carrying
massive obelisks on their backs, however, on close inspection it can be seen that these weights are
floating. The obelisks on the backs of the elephants are believed to be inspired by Gian Lorenzo Bernini's
sculpture base in Rome of an elephant carrying an ancient obelisk, [6] and was mentioned in several
communications of the artist, so can be considered a reliable claim.

[2]

"The Elephants" is a good example of a surrealist work, creating a sense of phantom reality. "The elephant
is a distortion in space", one critic explains, "its spindly legs contrasting the idea of weightlessness with
structure."[5]; "contrasting weight and space". [2]