Salvador Dalì
La Persistenza della Memoria

THE REVIEW

It’s been a while since I've felt like either writing reviews or commenting on those of others, but what’s the point of telling you this, you might say? After all, we couldn't care less...

Well, after such an enlightening premise, having glanced at the dermic section, I thought to myself: “The poor sexy can't do everything alone here... Running a section by himself, kudos to him... Maybe I'll write one too; it won't be as technical as his, but oh well... Who cares...”

Then I thought: “Yes, but about which damn work should I write?”

Having looked at the last review that appeared, that famous, or rather “the most famous,” painting by Salvador Dalí came to mind, an artist certainly lacking something in a cerebral hemisphere (to wear those mustaches and have that look, not every Monday, no no...) excellently compensated by an extraordinary artistic side, oh yes... I always get lost in chatter... The painting is none other than “The Persistence of Memory” or “The Soft Watches,” as you please.

It's said the painting was born from a headache, a French cheese, a missed evening with friends, and a sudden illumination while observing one of his works in progress, precisely an unfinished glimpse of Port Lligat, which became the stage for this surreal, at times unsettling, representation. Who, after all, wouldn't have thought of slapping on a real landscape some semi-liquid watches, one enclosed covered with insects, with a strange animal, or rather, a sleeping eye of the artist himself at the center?

What does this painting represent? Well, some say the relentless passing of time, distorted by the dream, in each person's subjective vision, changes, distorts, takes on different characteristics, balancing between current and past moods. (WTF!) Others, still focusing on relentlessness, claim that time sticks to man, granting him experience but also sufferings... And the still closed watch covered with insects? Perhaps he wanted to use them as a metaphor to suggest that nothing escapes time, that nothing resists its passing, everything will be slowly eroded, as if devoured by a multitude of tiny creatures...

And everything is seasoned by the slow, wonderful sunset, as if to say that everything, precisely by effect of time, has a certain end, sooner or later... What I've always liked about this painting is the use Dalí made of colors: bright, real, light, and delicate brush strokes, almost bringing everything to float in another dimension... Surrealism indeed... Perhaps the key lies precisely in this, taking the real elsewhere, concrete concepts seen in an abstract world. Brilliant.

I always thought it was a monumental work, I don't know why, just a thought... But then I discovered it’s roughly the size of a mundane A4, and I won’t hide that it disappointed me a bit, but it hardly matters, if a work strikes and enchants, it can well be represented even on a stamp.

What do I think about the “persistence of memory”? I wouldn’t know how to answer that; sometimes I’d like to enter this painting, to ask the sleeping liquefied eye to wake up and explain the meaning of his dream to me, then I would try to touch the clocks to test their (in)consistency, after which I would take a walk to that cliff in the back, swallowed by a very calm and clear sea, and sit to look at the endless hidden horizon, waiting for some ferryman to distant worlds, losing myself in time and space stretched to the unbelievable...

After all, time and space are but concrete concepts created by man, but seen in the “universal” context, they immediately lose significance...