The Persistence Of Memory Analysis

Daphne Edgren
12/4/15
Art History
Giovanni Aloi

“The Persistence of Memory,” by Salvador Dali, “A Trip to the Moon,” by George Méliès, and “The Great Day of His Wrath” by John Martin

“The Persistence of Memory,” by Salvador Dali, “A Trip to the Moon,” by George Méliès, and “The Great Day of His Wrath” by John Martin all displays the artists’ perception of parallel universes and scientific theories that are still being looked into today. Martin’s painting “The Great Day of His Wrath,” Méliès film, “A Trip to the Moon” and Dali’s “The Persistence of Memory” are all visually connected with fantasy, illusion, and play between reality and representation of scientific elements; Martin depicts the apocalypse, Méliès portrays his version outer space,
Martin was not just a painter, however. He was a scientist as well and participated in visionary engineering projects including a metropolitan railway for London and the embankment of Thames (Kahn). Martin created his magnum opus, which consisted of three paintings, “The Great Day of His Wrath,” “The Last Judgment,” and “The Plains of Heaven.” As the title suggests, the Book of Revelations in the Bible inspired Martin’s melodramatic, sublime, apocalyptic scene “The Great Day of His Wrath”. Although this title points straight to religious content, it has far more scientific inspiration than religion or the book of Revelations in the Bible. To begin, the painting, separate from science and religion, it is about the apocalypse. The apocalypse is an event that humans today are curious about, and people attempt to explain this future event through religion and science. As people have tried to explain the end of human existence through religion and science, they have also tried to explain the beginning of human existence through religion and science. Charles Darwin approached the theory of evolution during the Age of Darwin in the mid-eighteen hundreds; this is just around the time Martin painted “The Great Day of His Wrath,” which also proved to be one of Martin’s inspirations (Kahn). Darwin, a
At the time when it was exhibited, critics immediately drew a direct connection between the melting clocks and time dilation in the theory of relativity (Puchko). The critics made a direct connection between the piece and Einstein’s theory because of two reasons. First, when the painting was exhibited was around he time when Einstein released his theory. It made a big impact on the science world because it was so debatable, and it still is. Second is because it is extremely relevant visually to time dilation. Basically, the time dilation, a part of the theory of relativity, is the idea that nothing happens at the same time, even though two events seem to happen at the same exact moment (Whittaker). In Dali’s “The Persistence of Memory” mimics this through the visual in two ways. First, the portrayal of four different melting clocks, as if to question the relevancy of time. Second, each clock is around the same time, with the hour hand close to the 7 and the minute hand ranging between the 11 and the 1. This could represent the idea that nothing happens at the same exact time, although it may seem that two events happen exactly the same time. For example, moving clocks are slower than stationary ones. Two clocks, one stationary and one in a car, are exactly