Thursday, January 22, 2009

The Disintegration of the Persistence of Memory


The Disintegration of the Persistence of Memory

“La desintegración de la persistencia de la memoria”

This work may be found in The Salvador Dalí Museum (Reynolds Morse Collection), in St Petersburg, Fl, USA.

This is a 1954 recreation by the surrealist painter Salvador Dali of his 1931 painting “The Persistence of Memory.”

According to several accounts, this work was influenced by Sigmund Freud’s work. And there are references that proffer that Mr. Dali “believed that logic had failed humanity, and turned to dreams and the subconscious to transcend the limitations of reason.”

Other accounts suggest that this “This symbolic Surrealist work breaks down the images of the earlier work to represent the psychological effect that nuclear energy’s destruction has on humanity in the aftermath of an atomic bomb.” (Art.com)


Whatever.

According to my old file notes Mr. Dali was quoted to have commented on this painting: “…After twenty years of immobility, the soft watches are themselves dynamically disintegrating...”

When I Googled that quote I was led to http://www.3d-dali.com/ which also elaborated: “Here, Dali broke the images of its famous painting ‘The Persistence of Memory’ (1931). During the last twenty years the painter has been affected by the consequences of several wars, particularly by the destructive use of the nuclear energy. Apart of this warlike use, this invention like many other advances of the human knowledge, interested the Painter, who frequently included them in his works.”

“Sobre este cuadro Dalí comentó: ‘Después de treinta años de inmovilidad, los relojes blandos se están desintegrando dinámicamente...’. Aquí, Dalí descompone las imágenes de su famosa pintura “La persistencia de la memoria” (1931). Durante los últimos veinte años el pintor ha sido afectado por las consecuencias de varias guerras, en particular por el uso destructivo de la energía nuclear. Apartando este uso bélico, esta invención al igual que muchos otros avances del conocimiento humano, interesaron al Pintor, quien con frecuencia, se documentaba y los incluí en sus obras.”

Both Wikipedia and NationMaster say:

“In this version, the landscape from the original work has been flooded with water. Disintegration depicts what is occurring both above and below the water's surface. The landscape of Cadaqués is now hovering above the water. The plane and block from the original is now divided into brick-like shapes that float in relation to each other, with nothing binding them, the tree from which the soft watch hangs being similarly segmented. The hands of the soft watches float above their dials, with several pointed objects resembling rhinoceros horns floating in parallel formations encircling the watches. The distorted human visage from the original painting is beginning to morph into another of the strange fish floating above it. However, to Dali, the fish was a symbol of life.”

19540000 The Disintegration of the Persistence of Memory

Kevin Dayhoff www.kevindayhoff.net http://kevindayhoff.blogspot.com/
Kevin Dayhoff Art http://kevindayhoffart.blogspot.com/

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