Several aspects of his style can be readily seen in his most famous work, The Persistence of Memory (1931, oil on canvas), presently held at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. In this painting, Dali creates a very haunting allegory of space in which the existence of time is no more. The barren landscape, without a well-defined horizon, appears to drift into infinity, much like the mind of a person during the dream state, and is lit by a very eerie sun, far below the horizon and in a perpetual state of setting. In the foreground, what appears to be an unidentified and mysterious sleeping creature draped with a melting pocket watch. Another pocket watch, much like melting plastic, hangs from the branch of a dead tree, while another watch drips half-way over the edge of a rectangular block.

These watches are also infested with ants and a fly as if the watches were some kind of decaying life. Thus, the imagery suggests that since the watches are metallic objects in...

Exactly why this painting is called The Persistence of Memory is unclear, yet it seems to convey the message that time can often persist like a memory, even in the world of the unconscious when the mind is experiencing dream imagery and dream realities.
Bibliography

Gaunt, William. Painters of Fantasy: From Hieronymous Bosch to Salvador Dali. New York: Phaidon Press, 1974.

Morse, A. Reynolds. A New Introduction to Salvador Dali. Cleveland, OH: Salvador Museum Series, 1971.

Soby, James Thrall. Salvador Dali. New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1946.