"Beauty should be edible, or not at all."
Salvador Dalí (artist)
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One evening in 1931, the Spanish artist Salvador Dalí was dining with a group of friends and his wife, Gala. The artist, exhausted and battling a slight headache, stayed behind while everyone else went out to the movies.
Who could have known the decision to remain home would prove to be one of the most important in art history.
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Salvador Dalí, "The Persistence of Memory", 1931, oil on canvas, 9.5 x 13 in., Museum of Modern Art, New York. © Salvador Dalí, Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí, ADAGP, [2016].
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Alone and in a compromised state, Dalí began to meditate at the table. His gaze settled on a piece of leftover Camembert cheese, and he soon became obsessed with its creamy, supple texture.
Suddenly, the inspired artist got up and rushed to his studio. Standing before an unfinished landscape, he envisioned three limp-like-Camembert watches. Brush in hand, he added the ticking machines, each face displaying a different time.
When his wife returned home, Dalí was finishing up the first masterpiece of his career.
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Details of watches in Salvador Dalí’s "The Persistence of Memory". © Salvador Dalí, Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí, ADAGP, [2016].
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A Surrealist, Dalí described his paintings as "hand painted dream photographs." His work was a reflection of the images and ideas in his subconscious.
Looking at The Persistence of Memory, it’s clear that Dalí had more than dairy products on his mind. An avid reader of psychology and science, he was likely influenced by Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, which proposed a new way of understanding space and time.
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Salvador Dalí, "Soft Watch at the Moment of First Explosion", 1954, oil on canvas, 23.6 x 31.5 in. © Salvador Dalí, Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí, ADAGP, [2016].
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In his painting, Dalí imagines a place where time is not rational, where hours feel like days and centuries like seconds. This theme continues to appear in his other works.
Some see another sign of Dalí’s subconscious: the white object in the foreground is a subtle profile of the artist, his eyelashes and nose barely visible. Could he be sniffing around for that last scrap of cheese?
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Details of Salvador Dalí’s profile "The Persistence of Memory". © Salvador Dalí, Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí, ADAGP, [2016].
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 Beauty should be edible, or not at all.
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Salvador Dalí (artist) 
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Roger Higgins, "Dalí in the 60s" photograph of the World Telegram, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
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