Week 11 [09.01-15.01] Salvador Dali and his "Persistence of Memory”

https://www.wikiart.org/en/salvador-dali

Salvador Dali is one of the most famous painters in the world. His paintings are unusual; they are different from other paintings. He did not paint the normal world in his pictures. He drew his dreams, his hallucinations, and his fantasies. Some people think that Salvador Dali was a genius while others think that he was demented, but everyone has heard about him and has seen at least one of his paintings. Salvador was good in several types of art. He was not only a painter but also a sculptor and a designer. He made films and cartoons. By the way, he was the person who invented the modern packaging of Chupa-Chups. People wrote books about him to show to the world this genius person.

I love paintings of Salvador Dali. One of his most important paintings is “The Persistence of Memory.” It features images of clocks draped over tree branches as though they were pizza dough. This symbolized Dali's perception of time as something flexible rather than rigid.

http://obrazy.org/obraz-salvador-dali-uporczywosc-pamieci-miekkie-zegary_303.html

This painting shows us different interpretations of time. This painting makes us understand that time can be different when you are doing different things. When you are waiting for something or dreaming, time can go very slowly; on the other hand, when you are late, time is running very fast. Only after a few seconds I can recognize a face here, so my feelings changed.

In this painting he used the asymmetrical balance. We can see that left side of the painting looks heavier than the right side. He used mostly warm colors. Even the blue color of  heaven is warm. It looks like time in the afternoon.

In the center of the painting is a center of interest. We cannot recognize what is in the center at first glance. He repeated some elements a few times to make the whole painting coherent.

He used some variety. He has different types of objects. There is a face in the middle, a few watches, a table, a glass, a piece of tree and a red bottle. He used emphasis to show us a figure in the center of the painting.

Salvador Dali used smooth and choppy brush strokes in the same painting. Dali would use long brush strokes for certain objects in his paintings to give them the appearance of a smooth surface. In contrast, he would also paint certain objects in the same painting with short, distinct brush strokes to create a rough or hard surface.

Dali had a different perspective of the surroundings. He was known to actually stand on his head for periods of time in order to induce hallucinations that would inspire his paintings.

Symbolism. Other symbols that appeared in Dali's paintings include fried eggs, which symbolized his supposed pre-birth memories from the womb, and crutches, which he said symbolized "a support for inadequacy." I will attach some of his most famous paintings below.

http://www.dalipaintings.com/swans-reflecting-elephants.jsp

http://www.dalipaintings.com/rose-meditative.jsp

Dali, Salvador. The Secret Life of Salvador Dalí by Salvador Dali. New York: Dover

http://webneel.com/salvador-dali-famous-surreal-optical-illusion-paintings

https://www.wikiart.org/en/salvador-dali

1. Have you seen Dali’s painting before?
2. What do you think about Salvador Dali and his type of art?
3. Would you like to hang some of his paintings in your house?