The great artist Salvador Dali once said: "Surrealism is destructive, but it destroys only what it considers chains that limit our vision." He certainly put this quote into practice when he created what some consider his greatest work, and what many consider his best-known work: his 1931 masterpiece “The Persistence of Memory.” Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay Salvador Dali was born on May 11, 1904 in Figueres, Spain. In 1922 Dali attended the Academia de San Fernando in Madrid, Spain. It was here that he began to experiment with different artistic styles, particularly Metaphysics and Cubism. After college, Dali soon joined the Surrealist Movement in 1929, where he associated with many other prominent Surrealist artists of the time, including Joan Miro, Pablo Picasso, and René Magrite. Dali married his wife Gala Dali in 1934. In 1980, Dali's body was ravaged by Parkinson's-like symptoms, mostly affecting his right hand. This was detrimental to his mental health and well-being and ultimately ended his artistic ability. Dali died in 1989 from heart failure. Throughout his life, Dali had many eccentric beliefs about time and space, which ultimately led him to create the Persistence of Memory. This painting began as a simple landscape drawing, as described in The Secret Life of Salvador Dali (his autobiography). However, after finishing a meal eating liquid Camembert, he “pondered the philosophical problems of super soft” and decided to take one last look at his work in progress. Just then the image of two pocket watches hanging from the branches of an olive tree came to mind and his masterpiece was completed two hours later. The artwork features a deserted landscape on the coast of a beach. There are four pocket watches depicted in this image: one hanging on an olive branch, one slumped over a rectangular prism shape, an unmelted one covered in ants, and a melted one lying atop a head shape. Interestingly, this head shape, thought to be Dali's side profile, had appeared in Dali's early works such as The Great Masturbator (1929) and The Enigma of Desire (1929). It is fascinating to note that none of the pocket watches tell the same time, which represents how relative time is while in a dream. As in all of his artwork, The Persistence of Memory features Dali's painstakingly meticulous painting technique and attention to detail. The softness of the oil in this oil painting captures the essence of being in a dreamlike state. Dali used both space and form in this work of art. Firstly, he used the element of shape by depicting pocket watches as they melt. Clocks are now irrational. Dali's use of form represents how time is relative and how, while in a dream state, the concept of time does not even permeate the subconscious. Subsequently, Dali used the element of space in this artwork by depicting the landscape as completely open and, seemingly, infinite. The use of a desolate, barren landscape became something of a cliché among Surrealist artists of the 1930s and 1940s. In several paintings, the use of a barren landscape creates confusion. In The Persistence of Memory, he works well with the idea that dreams have no limits or boundaries. Dali uses unity and balance in this painting. First, take advantage of the unit property by painting some pocket watches. All these pocket watches depict different times, but they are all united by the fact that they do not comply with the laws.