The Persistence of Memory

If the foreground of this work is ignored, this would be a beautiful scenic sunset. I believe that is the real part of this painting. And what came in the foreground is what he was thinking while seeing the sea and the descending sun. That is time shedding something off of us every second.

There are three melting clocks, one on a mantle, one on a decaying face of the artist himself, the and other hanging from a dried branch of a dead tree. And a stiff, orange clock, facing downwards, ants swarming over the inside of the clock, to eat it like scavengers. All the clocks are representing time passing. Like a life clock.

Memory is a beautiful and a grotesque storage system. We might forget the touch, the voice, their missing existence. The ants and the dead animal - the carrion represents the role in ecosystem. How memory could decay. But, a sudden fragrance, or a quirk, could trigger the memory all together. Memory does decay, but it is persistent to leave a mark behind.

The past, present and future are all relative and are elusive too. We let the present become past thinking about the past, or worrying about the future. We live the future various times in our head, as we please. We evaluate the past by living in it again and again. Living in the present is an illusion that someone can achieve very rarely. We are constructed to try and try.

Sometimes, we do live in the present to look back and smile to it. And it is fair to do that too. But trying to not decay with time is all we live through. We talk about history, legacy, and memory. Is it about present or past?

If I did know, that time is melting away what would I jump out of the couch to do? Or what did Salvador Dalí do right after he painted this? He showed it to Gala, his wife. She stared at it for a long time and said "Once you have seen this painting, you will never forget it." This is a reminder that be it memory, or action, or ambition it is all ours to live it how many times we want. But the point it becomes unhealthy is unknown.