The Disintegration of the Persistence of Memory is an oil painting produced between 1952 and 1954 by Spanish painter Salvador Dali.
The Disintegration of the Persistence of Memory was a recreated painting from The Persistence of Memory which was completed by Salvador Dali in 1931.
The Disintegration of the Persistence of Memory was originally known by name of The Chromosome of a highly colored Fish’s Eye Starting the Harmonious Disintegration of the Persistence of Memory. Salvador Dali completed the painting in 1954 sent it for exhibition at the Carstairs Gallery in New York. In this painting, the landscape of Cadaques was shown to be flooded with water making it a memory. Here, disintegration word was used to convey what was going on below and above the flooded water. Different shapes and figures made up of brick were shown floating in the water individually. These figures represent the quantum mechanics logic that matter consisted of atoms and molecules which are independent to each other.
During the Second World War, when the US launched a nuclear explosion in Japan, Salvador Dali attention got diverted to nuclear science and he then described the atom as his favorite food. He knew that matter was a combination of several atoms having spaces between them so that they don’t touch each other, similarly The Madonna of Port Lligat depicts this logic and Dali also replicated it. The dimensions of the painting The Disintegration of the Persistence of Memory were 25.4 cm × 33 cm or 10 in × 13 in.
Earlier, this painting was exhibited in 2009 at the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne. There were many other paintings of Salvador Dali in that gallery and later were transported to the Dali museum. This painting was well-known for its surrealism and the artist lost interest in this form of art as depicted by the picture. Later, Dali was led to another interest of his in nuclear physics and religion.
The work can be viewed at Salvador Dalí Museum, St. Petersburg, Florida