Salvador Dali

If I was to say ‘think of a painting of a shrunken dolphin and a large melting wrist watch’, your reaction would be one of dubious concern for my well being. But if I showed you Dali’s painting of the same subject, you’d just nod your head in recognition, having seen it somewhere before, sometime before, but not quite sure where. If I was to mention that you might have seen it in your dreams, you would not be inclined to immediately doubt this possibility. There is something unchangingly familiar about the image and a small bit disturbing. That is Salvador Dali. So you do know his work, you are familiar with it.

This was my experience of being first exposed to his work. I was probably eleven years old? Reading an old Reader’ Digest magazine, more than likely just looking at the photos, and I remember vividly coming across an image of Dali’s, the one described above ‘The Persistence of Memory’ and it just drew me in and captivated me. I’m sure I didn’t read any of the accompanying text but just stored away the image for years until I became interested in art and inevitably came across the work of Dali. Then the original emotions that the image evoked came back to me and I came to appreciate what a really great artist that peculiar little man was.