Salvador Dali added melting clocks to several of his most important paintings and this article discusses the symbolism of the clocks as well as covering the full career highlights of this talented Spanish painter who dominated the 20th century art scene.
There is there controversial disagreements over the reasons for Dali's use of melting clocks which some explaining that they represent his own views on the Theory of Relativity whilst others are convinced that the ideas simply came from a piece of melting French cheese that the artist witnessed just before starting the painting. As with much of Dali's surrealist career, many question marks still remain but this helps to add further interest and mystery to this truly unique artist who remains just as popular today as he was at any point in the 20th century.
Melting clocks were used by Salvador Dali within Persistence of Memory and Disintegration of the Persistence of Memory and these are two highly respected painting from his career, serving as great examples of his work within the art movement of surrealism. Besides these two paintings which made use of his melting clock symbolism, other crucial works included Three Young Surrealist Women Holding in their Arms the Skins of an Orchestra, Swans Reflecting Elephants, Female Figure with Head of Flowers, The Ship, The Metamorphosis of Narcissus, Burning Giraffes in Brown, Landscape with Butterflies, Spain and Soft Construction with Boiled Beans.
Salvador Dali was a hugely flexible artist who sought as many different avenues for his creativity as possible, going on to achieve success in many art media such as Painting, Drawing, Photography, Sculpture, Writing and Film. Dali has become known as one of the most important painters from the 20th century in any art movement and his achievements will be remembered for centuries to come thanks to the museums which have been set up in his name plus the great international exposure that his career has already enjoyed. Reflecting this success is the fact that his original paintings demand extraordinary prices on the very rare occasions that they come available for sale.
It is clear that Salvador Dali's melting clocks have great symbolism within several of his paintings and are good examples of this deep thinking artist and how he would put so much preparation and study into each of his paintings, with surrealism offering the ideal opportunity to produce work that goes beyond the boundaries of reality, which helpfully matched his own creative and highly intelligent mind.
Source by Tom Gurney
