Perceptions of “persistence of memory” Although visual art is perceived differently by everyone, everyone either has a favorite work or at least something that attracts their attention attention. Personally, I don't have a work of art that I would call my favorite, but during a Spanish research project I discovered that Salvador Dali's work really stood out. “The Persistence of Memory,” painted in 1931 by the renowned surrealist painter Dali, is one of the most interesting works I have ever seen. Although the painting itself is quite simple in quality at first glance, what Dali must have been thinking about when creating this work is surprisingly complex. The painting appeals to me because it deals with the concept of time, something that continually worries everyone in the universe. Time is evident in the painting as four old-fashioned gold pocket watches are shown melting, which is a rather depressing concept to consider. Although this may seem difficult for most people to imagine, Dali accurately gives and describes how he perceived time to be capable of decaying or melting. The ants crawling on the overturned watch symbolize that the degradation of time is analogous to insects eating cheese. The painting reminds viewers of the fleeting aspect of time and the fact that we may not be here tomorrow or the day after. In order to maintain a somber attitude, Dali composed the painting with darker colors, with the exception of the largest watch having a bluish tint and the picturesque mountain landscape reflecting in the sea. The mountain scene seems to me to be the representation of something else that escapes with time; the ability to benefit from what nature has created for its spectators. Although the conscious and subconscious are...... middle of paper......ing such cheese throughout one's life. This would also make sense, because if the clocks represented melting cheese, that's probably why Dali chooses ants to eat one of the clocks. Similarly, Dali may have seen ants eating cheese at a picnic, which gave them the idea to also eat away at time or clocks. Dali's subconscious appears again with the elongated face in the middle of the painting which also appeared in Dali's previous painting, "The Great Masturbator". The face is his, and it comes from sexual thoughts from his previous painting and from his father making him look at pictures of people with venereal diseases that left him mentally scarred for the rest of his adult life. These impressions made him believe that sex led to putrefaction and/or degradation which could also be significant with the degradation of clocks in "The Persistence of Memory »..”