The late
J G Ballard:
"...Dalí's
masterpiece and, I believe, the greatest painting of the 20th century
is The Persistence of Memory, a tiny painting not much larger than the
postcard version, containing the age of
Freud,
Kafka and
Einstein
in its image of soft watches, an embryo and a beach of fused sand. The
ghost of Freud presides over the uterine fantasies that set the stage
for the adult traumas to come, while insects incarnate the self-loathing
of Kafka's
Metamorphosis and
its hero turned into a beetle. The soft watches belong to a realm where
clock time is no longer valid and relativity rules in Einstein's
self-warping continuum.
What monster would grow from this
sleeping embryo? It may be the long eyelashes, but there is something
feminine and almost coquettish about this little figure, and I see the
painting as the 20th century's
Mona Lisa, a psychoanalytic take on the mysterious
Gioconda
smile. If the Mona Lisa, as someone said, looks as if she has just
dined on her husband, then Dalí's embryo looks as if she dreams of
feasting on her mother..."
Artist:
Salvador Dali, 'The Persistence of Memory', 1931 & David Sipress, The New Yorker, 2007
Also see my
earlier post dated Sept 26 2010
.