The Persistence of Memory

The Persistence of Memory by Salvador Dali (1931)

This Surrealist piece, famous for its melting pocket watches in a desolate landscape, was painted by Dali when he was 27 years old. The story goes that the idea came to him one night after dinner while he was staring at a piece of melting camembert cheese.

The soft drooping texture symbolizes the fluidity of times, the subjectivity of memory and the inevitability of decay. It became one of the most recognized paintings of the Surrealist movement, capturing the anxieties of the world between WWI and WWII. 

It's a small painting, just 9 ½ by 13 but its influence on modern art has been huge. It's housed at the Museum of lModern Art (MOMA) in New York City.

I think it captures a bit of the anxious mood in the world today. How would you paint an anxious and unstable period in time?

 

Personal Symbols

Gather together a page of symbols that have personal meaning to you. They can be based on your heritage, where you live, symbols that just keep reappearing in your art or symbols you are strongly drawn to. Try googling "symbols" to see what attracts your attention.

I made 20 boxes on a piece of paper and lined them up in a grid, measuring them out like I did in Exercise #1. I like symbols and have been collecting them for years, so I knew there would be a lot.

I photographed the squares and printed out several copies of the blank template.

I then started drawing symbols into their individual squares or I printed them out from online or magazines and cut and paste them into the squares. Every time I see a symbol that resonates with me I add it to a square. If I feel stuck on a painting, I will pull out my pages of symbols and see if anything calls to me.

What symbols call to you?