final #2

Luke Buehrer
English 101
Dr. Amy Amendt-Raduege
Discovery Draft
May 6, 2010


Art is a great mode of thought and analysis. Art has the capacity to spark emotion, provoke thought, and stir the imagination. A black and white picture can show the world in a new light, one that may be seen as simpler or gloomy. While an abstract can lead to all sorts of interesting conclusions. The Persistence of Memory, by Salvador Dali is Surrealistic painting; it is an oil canvas painting that was painted in 1931. The Persistence of Memory is a very famous painting that still takes people into thought and wonder. The simple shapes and unusual objects such as the melting clocks, the dead tree, or the abstract face really make it unique. After looking at it for some time, many ideas of its meaning and propose come to mind. Maybe it the distorted clocks could mean that time distorts depending on certain influences such as emotion. It could be revolving around dreams and their impacts, or even other meanings.
Thinking about the idea that time can distort purely based on emotion made me think to times in my life. School was one of the worst areas for this to occur. Somehow ten minutes of hearing my biology teacher talk could feel like hours. But when I get out of school and go bike or hang out with some friends hours turn to minutes. In the painting there is a sagging clock that is on the branch of the dead tree. The tree may represent death, or bad times. And the long distorted clock could represent time being lengthened or slowed. I know for me when something bad happens like crashing on a bike time instantly slows down. Why must the bad times appear longer than the good ones? There is one clock, which is undistorted, and the only one where the numbers and hands are not visible; also, it is much more extravagant than any other clock. I found this interesting; what could Dali be trying to say by painting this? Possibly that in better times (the extravagant decorations) time may almost become irrelevant. I know that when I have no set plans and just go out to have fun, I later realize I have no idea what time it is. Or maybe that if people were to ignore time, put less on their plates to live simpler their lives may become more rich and fulfilling. With all the new technologies the world is becoming a smaller and faster place every day. With high demands at work, and a need for success, stress is an almost certain side effect. Dali may be trying to convey that a slower life style where relationships and passions outweigh the constant push for the latest and greatest may lead to a satisfying life. And that wealth isn’t measured by your possessions, rather your satisfaction in life. Even though time is for the most part constant (light being the only true constant), our perceptions of time can be fairly unstable.
Another idea that came up after looking at this painting was the unconscious. The abstract face appears to be a woman with her eyes closed, possibly asleep. On top of the face is a clock that covers the face like a blanket. What could he be saying here? He might be trying to say that time can also distort during sleep. There are several ways it could do so. First, time could speed up or slow down the way it does in the conscience. During happy dreams time may appear fast, and during nightmares or dreams of bad memories time could slow. There are no limits to dreams, they can distort time be taking you to the distant past of your childhood, or sometimes even combine times of your life together. Could the land Dali painted be the dream of the abstract face? Maybe the face represents Dali, in a dream. If that’s the case, I wonder why he made the land so bleak and simple. The abstract face is in the darkest part of the painting, and the brightest part is the furthest away. Dali may have been going through hard times when he drew this painting. He could have been trying to show how he feels a long ways away from where he wants to be in life, or that he feels depressed and sees no way out. Dreams are abstract occurrences; this surreal painting may just be making sense of them.
The title of the painting really made me think. While looking at the painting before I know what the title was I never thought too much about memory. By seeing how Dali thought it was a fitting title I needed to look in a little deeper. The Persistence of Memory is interesting by its self. Why would Dali call memory persistent? This seems apparent, wherever you go memory will be with you. Could it be that Dali has memories that keep nagging at him, to the point it is annoying? I honestly can’t see why he chose this title, but I still like it. The only connection to memory I see is through time. The distorted clocks could be representing how time distorts when looking back at memories. With memories you have the ability to warp back to any time in you life instantly. This can make life appear short. If you have lived seventy years but are able to look sum up the main event of your life in a few minutes, appear much shorter than you thought. This idea made me think how every year seems shorter. As a child, summer break felt like a lifetime, but now its gone before I even got used to the idea. Pink Floyd a band of the late sixties and seventies sing about this in their song “Time”,“…you are young and life is long and there is time to kill today. And then one day you find ten years have got behind you, No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun. And you run and you run to catch up with the sun, but it's sinking. Racing around to come up behind you again. The sun is the same in a relative way, but you're older, shorter of breath and one day closer to death. Every year is getting shorter; never seem to find the time. Plans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled lines. Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way, the time is gone, the song is over, thought I'd something more to say” (Pink Floyd). They Sum up my idea very well here; the idea of time seeming shorter every year. I wonder why this occurs, is it when your younger life is more exciting because you have experienced little making days seem longer. And as you age you get into a routine and the days seem less exciting and just seem to fly by. Our perception of time is very easily altered based on our feelings and age.
Time can be distorted quite easily when in the presence of memory, as well your age. This painting has made me think a lot about time and how it can be so easily altered by perception. Although I doubt that this is what the painting means, I would rather think about the painting and it mean then just going on-line and looking up what it means. If you just find the meaning without looking for it, there may be no meaning at all.








Works Cited

Floyd, Pink. “Time.” Dark Side of the Moon. London: Abby Road Studios, 1973.


Dali, Salvador. “The Persistence of Memory.” 1931. Oil on Canvas.