The Persistence of Memory By Salvador Dali

The artwork, The Persistence of Memory, By Salvador Dali has been considered a brain teaser, an attack on the rational, or a surrealism art by different personalities who have been amazed by the creativity, originality, depth and value of the painting. The main theme of the quiet image is premised on time, as it mainly features the wall clocks that are melting and flowing off the edges of different objects. People have tried to attach different meanings to Dali’s work with others saying that its main meaning is that time is eternal and ever flowing. Other people have also labeled the theme stating that time is not fixed, but relative. Such group of art admirers has gone ahead to state that the art is true in explaining the reason why to some people, time is faster, and to others, it is slower. Moreover, some people have used time as the art’s major theme because to some people, time does not carry a lot of weight in life, but quietness, tranquility, and personal self-time is the major issue that people should aim to achieve. But the 1921 painting shows the deep connection of the dreams, time, and perceptions of reality. The paint has extended coverage of birth, death, and sexual desire themes that some people can read from its deep message in the meaning. Showing in a sunset scene, it possibly means that another day is gone and people need not worry about it because time is fast melting away. Therefore, it means that in the natural world what people have faith in may turn out to be not real, and at that point, they can challenge understanding, like on the value of time.

People have discovered that the famous and rich meaning has messages on the ways in which the dreams may be replaced with the irrational mind or with objective reality. The artwork uses bent objects that would not otherwise be true in the real world. The paintwork presents an object with several meanings in some instances, thus indicating that with an accurate understanding of art principles, one can manage to communicate any information they may need in the society.

The Style of the Painting

Salvador Dali was a renowned drawing and painting artist who was able to use a variety of models to create the piece of art. In this painting, however, Dali uses the models of hand painted using oil paints to create the surrealist features in the art. During Dali’s time, the need to resolve the dreams into surrealist arts was very important. As a result, the artist was able to make use of pencils, crayons and old paints to create the unique art with the theme of time. The painting was a useful way to achieve the need to “resolve the previously contradictory conditions of dream and reality (Freud 21-6).” Since the initial foundation of the artwork is based on the dream that was needed to be presented in reality, it would be safer to assume that the painting was a Surrealist paint.

The paint to date remains to be one of the most famous works by Salvador Dali following the depth, breath, and deep use of colors and shapes to present the theme he wanted to pass across. A painting that took Dali two hours to develop has gained world attention due to its richness, value, and style. Moreover, the drawing and painting reflected and underscored the value of time, color, texture and line forms.

The Major Theme and the Generalized Mood outlined in the Painting
People have attached different themes to the piece of arts revolving around time. However, the major theme in the painting art is that time is flowing; it is an element that is not constant, and still, time is eternal. It also denotes that time is fast for some people, while the same time is slow for others thus confirming that time is not the same. Therefore, the value of time is only known by the owner. The content issues that permeates the painting is the attack on the rational perspective of the viewer. As a surrealist artist, Dali uses objective reality to relate dreams with the viewers’ reality using the commonly known objects in a different context.

Similarly, it is worth to note that what permeates the painting is that the content issues include the bent wall clock with a possible meaning that that time can also melt. There are the contrasts in the use of shades of color, like dark and light contents for water and rocks respectively indicates the different positions people can take with time. Also, the most noticeable quality of the painting is the quiet and tranquil nature of the landscape, together with the melting clocks and the deep contrasts in the paint that make it inorganic. The painting subject matter is that as time melts, people need to know the value of time. When time elapses, it can change the landscape from desert to seas, or from water to rocks or from dark to light. It is, therefore, an important property to properly manage.

Modes of Expression Employed In the Work Naturalist

Dali uses skillful, imaginative drawing that reflects a realistic environment on the surface. An insightful study of the drawing shows that it was initially influenced by a dream that Dali had, but drawing the dream with distorted real environment objects gives the art a deep aesthetic beauty. A representational environment is given to represent the realist environment. Rocks drew closer to the water body. Presumably, the lake that also touches on the desert is a simulation of a real environment illustrated by Dali. In this respect, Dali deploys the surrealist attributes in the painting in representing most of the objects thus creating a connection between the dreams and the realization of such dreams. However, a bit of abstract drawing is also included in the drawing. The use of the melting wall clocks and the presentation of the non-identified figure in the foreground shows that Dali could as well used information that has not been seen, though people can relate with to make a better meaning out of work. Surrealists aim to create a bridge from the dreams to the dreams realizations in the real environment. Therefore, the visions the artists get in the dream can be converted to be the real objects in the drawings. In such cases, surrealists create more complex meanings in their painting than any other artists.
Various art principles can be used to achieve the goal of creating a bridge between a dream and the objective reality (Schell 47). Some of the unique principles of art include asymmetrical balance, harmony, and emphasis, all of which are available in the piece of art. In the art, Dali uses asymmetrical balance. The asymmetrical balance design principle is important in creating a focal point on the drawing, thus help the artist achieve developing meaning in the art with much ease. Dali gives a lot of weight to the top and the left of the drawing to create a landing point that helps in communicating meaning.

Moreover, Dali also uses harmony in work. Harmony is created through the use of the soft color transitions from the dark colors to the bright colors. It gives the artwork a quiet tone that helps to show that the drawing represents the cool of the day. Emphasis created using a form of color contrasts, with the background colors appearing brighter than the foreground colors are all important. The edges of the geometric object from which the dried up tree projects have a yellow color to show a strong emphasis on the hard object surface.

The Generalized Form and the Physicality of the Work

The general form of the work is a cool landscape, possibly showing the cool of the day, and the physically comprise of several contrasting features including desert, lake, and rocks. It also includes the bright colors and the dark colors. Though Dali is accredited for the use of a variety of drawing and painting tools, he deployed the use of oil paints and resin to create most of his famous arts. The use of pencils and crayons to create the drawing and the paint outlines was a common feature.

Dali made a choice on the pencils, crayons, resins and oil paints as they give the flexibility to modify the drawing when making this piece of art. For instance, the surrealists found these materials are very important as they could create a connection to the dream elements and realism. Most of the materials are found in the final drawings and paint by the artist. Though the pencil and the crayons may be faced out, the oil paints remain on the art and give it the desired meaning.

The materials used in the drawing and the ultimate painting presents a well-defined process that begins with the creation of the sketches using pencils, then shading using crayons and finally painting using oil. The initial view of the picture plane shows a case that is imbalanced, however, a critical analysis shows a picture space that is properly used.

The perceived meaning for the arrangement is that the artist wanted to create a landing place in on the items with more weight and value. Therefore, the juxtaposed melting clock watches that are strategically placed to lead the reader’s eye gives a quality finish paint. The allusion given in the photo is that time represented by the melting wall clock is a transitive and dynamic element. The artist also deployed both linear and atmospheric perspective by creating the objects in the background lighter in color, and the objects in the foreground darker in color.

Areas of the Work That Play Dominant Roles

The drawing has several items that would be considered for the dominance and the role of communicating the meaning as well as the time of the drawing. The melting watches have been made strong enough to appear in the foreground and so possibly defining the theme of the art. The objects including the dark shading and the light shading help to create contrast thus adding the meaning to the development of different themes from the drawing. The color tone and the variations on the size as well as the positions of the objects help in creating relative dominance in the drawing, thus helping in creating the art theme.

The picture also has negative or less intruding forms and spaces. The spaces between the objects with the melting clocks have less dominant color shadings that send them to the background of the drawing. The harmonic transitions between the bright and the dark colors help to create a strong meaning in the image. Therefore, the negative and the positive spaces create the contrasts that help in communicating the value and the quality of the image.

Visual Equilibrium and Balance in the art

The representation of images drawn in the photograph helps in determining the importance of the drawing sections. The middle left section of the painting is the most important part, followed by the top right part and then the top center part. The placement of the objects shows that there is an asymmetrical balancing of objects in the drawing. The artist uses the concept of non-uniform distribution of the objects to include the different themes in the drawing. Although there is no symmetrical balance in the distribution of the figures in the drawing as given by Dali, the drawing remains rich in the development of visual balance nonetheless. The visual balance is created from the development of the harmonic relationships between the objects in the drawing with relative positions and locations within the painting.

The choice of the colors also creates harmonious transitions. In this regard, the artists manage to let audience conclude that the drawing has quality ordering process. To understand the order, the art can be considered to have a reading line that moves from the left of the drawing to the right, and then to the top of the drawing, thus ensuring a complete use of space. This is because the artists have given out weight on the foreground and the left side of the photograph by placing the most significant objects in such places. In developing the proportional, variety and economy in the photograph, the artist uses different color shades and asymmetrical placement of the objects to illustrate value.

The Use of the Form Element of Line

The artist uses various forms of the line including the curvilinear line to draw the outlines of the melting wall clocks, and the edges of shapes. Moreover, curvilinear line forms are used in the transition between the contrasting features of the art as the light and the dark shading. The lines used in the art are in the form of organic lines, while others are biomorphic forms that mark the outlines of the different colors used to show water surfaces, the sky, and the land.

Geometric lines are also used to develop sharp corner shapes like the desk on which stands the dried up branch of a tree. Different line forms are therefore important in presenting different kinds of information. The geometric lines are important in creating the environment in the drawing while the organic lines are used to develop the watch object outlines. Therefore, all the lines are important for the development of the general unity and harmony in the art.

In a nutshell, the lines are important to create images of the melting wall clocks and are also important in creating the edges on which the clocks melt. Therefore, the use of the lines is important in the general theme development. Lines can be used to develop the depth as well as the breath of the drawing art.

The Form Element of Shape

In the drawing paint, shape provides the dominant theme of time. Normally, shapes can be used to develop objects in the drawing. However, the role of distorted shapes based on what people normally know under realism is a difficult art to come cross. Dali uses distorted wall clocks that would otherwise be circular to have shapes that show flow, thus attracting attention and creating meaning for the melting clocks. The fact that people can relate the abstraction shapes of the wall clocks and the realistic wall clocks and see a significant difference is a way of grabbing the reader’s attention.

The rectangular shape that defines the table to which the first wall clock melts and flows downward serves an important function in informing the readers that the melting of time is not based on any unique material or shape, but is based on the common objects like tables surfaces that the reader can find at home. The shapes provide the melting wall clocks with the surfaces to melt from, and so serves important functions in developing the theme of the drawing.

Shape given in the front ground has been the mystifying component of Dali’s art. The use of abstract shapes that have no real meaning in the personal understanding leaves people guessing for the meaning of the shape. In the foreground, a shape without meaning is used, and people have tried to understand the meaning. Since it has eyelashes, nose and a possible shape of the tongue, people have attributed the meaning of the shape to be a person in dreamland, though with a melting wall clock on it. Other people have viewed the shape to mean a dog, while other people prefer to leave it mystical. Therefore, the use of shapes, some which are formless, help in developing further interest and the need to know the deeper meaning of what the artist meant by the inclusion of such materials.

The Form Elements of Value

The value in art is created through the different shades of color that can create contrast, hue, volume, texture, and depth. In this piece of art, the use of chiaroscuro is very imported in creating contrast. The dark shades are given the foreground, and the light shades are given the background including the sky and the waters. Chiaroscuro is also useful in separating the illustrative shading between the water and the sky. There is a smooth transition from the dark shading to the bright shading of colors in the middle of the artwork. Chiaroscuro is also used in value rendering in the illustration of the geometrical box, with the different kinds of shading providing the situation for the three-dimensional object. One gets the idea that the present item on which the dried up tree is supported is a box only through the effective use of chiaroscuro.

Elements of tenebrism are also realizable on the foreground abstract shape, with the shading showing a sharp contrast between the shape and the surrounding, and the surrounding dark shading seems to be taking away the object, though it is not very pronounced. Nonetheless, it helps in developing the reader’s interest on the object. Volume is used to occupy space and cause three-dimensional perspectives of the objects in the art including the melting wall clocks, the objects from which they melt like the box on the bottom left corner or the tree stump from which another wall clock melts. Texture and depth are used to give the drawing more value on the surface reading and understanding. Different surfaces in the drawing present different concepts, for instance, the wall clocks have the normally smooth surfaces eminent in clocks, but the edges are rugged to show melting and possibly a flow.

The Form Element Texture

The texture is the surface feel. It can be coarse, rough, or smooth (Djonov and Theo 541). The texture of a surface is important in the devolvement of the representational feel on the surface. Some surfaces are naturally rough, others smooth and still some surfaces are soft. Finding a way in which such surfaces can be presented in the drawing would be very important for the artist that would be possibly the use of texture. The surface on the face of the melting away clocks remains smooth, the surface of the sandy desert leading into the waters are rough, and the surface of the three dimensions desk on the bottom left is coarse. The artist, therefore, chooses to use the real texture to represent the same in the drawing.

The texture used in the drawing is also implied, as it reflects the implied meaning. This is possible on the water shading with a different shade of blue as that of the sky in the background. The texture is important in telling more about the picture elements, together with the picture values and meaning. The texture is technically implemented on the piece of art through shading, lines, and dots. On the surface of the bottom left box, cross matching texture alongside the use of color shading is used. The artist decides to use the closed crosshatch texture to relay the message that the surface is not smooth as such, thus giving the illusion of timber being used to make the object.

The Form Element of Color

Color can be used for various functions in a drawing and a painting art. For instance, color can be used to show the tone, the texture, and the art theme. Some colors are warm others cold, some are bright while others are dull, but all forms of color are important in the development of images. In the drawing, the artist used different shades of brown, blue, yellow, and orange colors to note and depict different objects. Colors can also show the level of hue, art value, and saturation. The artist presents color-rich drawing that would fit the requirements of Red-Green and Blue (RGB) color combination, as the CYMK (Cyan, Yellow, Magenta, and Black) may be inadequate in describing the color property for the artwork.
Different images in the drawing have special color tones, but normally, the general trend in the drawing is that there is a continuous color tone. The artist also deployed the concept of simultaneous contrast in the use of colors and shading. The box at the bottom left corner with a melting clock has the upper part of the clock shaded with a different color tone as the lower part that has melted and continue to hang on the side of the object. The light blue, and yellow shading of the water body in the background alongside the sky, also influences one another under the concept of simultaneous contrast.

Objective aspect of color are the original wavelengths from the object that goes to the eyes while the subjective aspect of color is what the eyes have perceived and the brain has processed and so has to mean in context (Kuehni 82). The objective aspect of color determines the subjective aspect. This is why cool tonal value colors remain cool since what is emitted as the objective color is what is processed and presented as the color of the object. In the art, color is used objectively and subjectively. The shading of the water body and the sky with shades of blue shows that the artist minds about what the people already know about the color, that the water surfaces on the oceans are normally blue, as well as the skies. To achieve such a meaning from the painting, the artists had to paint the sections of the art with relevant colors initially. This also explains how the symbolic color as a subject matter was used in the painting. The objectives of color interaction in the piece of art are designed in such a way that what is finally processed should coincide with what people already know.

Unity and Harmony in the Art

Unity and harmony in the art are the degrees of similarity achievable from different sections of the art, especially is related to the objects or the color matches in the art. When harmony is used, adjacent elements are given similar or near similar shading to reflect the transitional color influence. When color unity is used, all the elements in the art, including the ones that are far apart are given similar or near similar color tones (Hunt 6). The artist has used shading to tie together different objects and events in the art. For instance, all the melting wall clocks are given the same color shade. This ties them together as objects that have a similar purpose in the drawing but at the same time creating unity in the artwork. Brown color has also been used to tie the different sections of the art, especially the bottom left box and the top right rocks both have almost similar shading. Repetition has been used to illustrate the different wall clock paints. Distribution has been used to create contrast in the drawing paint, for instance, the foreground is made darker, and the background is made lighter, though color distribution.

Conclusion

It is true that through an accurate understanding of art, one can communicate any information through a drawing art. Art is an important instrument of communicating deep-seated thoughts in the mind of an artist. Artist’s work relayed through drawing and painting have the advantage that they can be stored for a long period and only used when necessary. Moreover, the use of the drawing and painting like Salvador Dali’s Persistence of Memory have rich meanings that can be analyzed in many forms. Art, therefore, is very important in challenging the social order, educating the people to take up an initiative and showing personal opinions about a given concept. The use of color is an important aspect that many artists have found necessary in creating the theme of the images they draw, as well as developing the tone and harmony in the painting. Moreover, the use of line form is very useful way to present different concepts in the painting. Dali went ahead and used form, balance and unity as unique attributes that gave the artwork more depth, and breath. Moreover, Dali used the form elements of texture, value, and shape to create pieces of art that have surrealist meaning. In this respect, the painting has found different connotations and meanings across different quarters and among different scholars. Some people have read time value in the painting, noting that time is an element of life that can melt away, and a possible proper use would be important. Some people believe that what Dali wanted to communicate was that time is unlimited and can always be available. Whatever meaning would be attached to the various objects in the paint remains a discretion of the viewer, their psychosocial setup and what they would like to understand in the piece of art. What remains true for most of the art readers is that Dali was able to create a rich piece of drawing that can be understood to have deployed almost every other form of art principle.

Works Cited
Djonov, Emilia, and Theo Van Leeuwen. “The semiotics of texture: From tactile to visual.” Visual Communication 10.4 (2011): 541-564.
Freud, Sigmund. The interpretation of dreams. Read Books Ltd, 2013.
Kuehni, Rolf G. Color: An introduction to practice and principles. John Wiley & Sons, 2012.
Schell, Jesse. The Art of Game Design: A book of lenses. CRC Press, 2014.
Appendix: Persistence of Memory