Persistence of Memory, 1931 | Salvador Dali

Does this look familiar?

Persistence of Memory is one of the many quizzical works by Spanish artist, Salvador Dali.  Dali was an artist of the Surrealism Movement.  He painted dreams and the unconscious.  His works have prompted debates and countless narratives through the years.  Dawn Ades, a British art historian and academic, stated that Dali is expressing the relativity of time and space and the collapse of our notions of a fixed cosmic order in this work. Dali shared that the “soft” clocks were inspired by Camembert cheese melting in the sun and he added the ants on the pocket watch to symbolize decay.  Dali was outrageous in paint and in person. He sometimes donned a large satin horn that extended far above the top of his head when he painted. He has been championed and reviled.

Dali’s work of relativity and collapse seems to speak to us now. The changed sense of time many of us have experienced in these past months might be pictured as melting clocks. This work can call us to wonder what Dali might have painted now with the world dramatically reshaped by a pandemic. This dream of odd objects on somewhat familiar surfaces seems to hold the play of reality and unreality we each experience now in our own times and places.

This eighty-nine year old dream of Salvador Dali challenges us to move beyond the relativity and collapse of our days in 2020. We know the history of the intervening years and the faith that was held and practiced through it all. We are walking now through another dreamscape. We might imagine passing representations of a novel virus, police brutality, protests, systemic racism, an economic downturn, and failed national leadership as we go. And we can also imagine the heart and love of God walking with us and God whispering, “Fear not. Just keep walking and I will guide your feet.”  As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, peace without end. Amen. Amen.

In hope and faith,

Sandy Prouty