Salvador Dali 1930-1960[Singles]
Dali: The Rejuvenation of Time
Date: 1974
Medium: A work in four panels 52 ¾” x 56 ¼” (Together) 26 ¼” x 36 ½” (Left Panels) 26 ¼” x 19 ½” (Right Panels)
Dali: The Rejuvenation of Time
Created in four panels, as time is the fourth dimension, The Rejuvenation of Time was designed to be part of a dramatic stained-glass window display in the Teatro-Museo in the artist’s home town, Figueres, Spain.
The Rejuvenation of Time captures a crowned creature metamorphosing into the most famous surrealist image of all time the melting clock. This figure drinks from the "Fountain of Youth" and which elongates both his lifetime and his tail as he slowly rejuvenates into “Time”.
The melting clocks first appeared in The Persistence of Memory (1931) which today hangs in the Museum of Modern Art (New York). In 1974, the same year Dali created The Rejuvenation of Time, he reworked The Persistence of Memory and added a fourth melting clock, "The Clock of Immortality".
The figure’s head in The Rejuvenation of Time is unmistakably the same bizarre, embryonic body as seen in The Persistence of Memory. This oddly formed head with its eye closed and exaggerated lashes, is widely believed to be something of a self-portrait of Dali himself, it is Dali in his embryonic state. Dali claimed to have memories of his life in the womb. The shape of the head actually owes its inspiration to a well-known rock formation at Cape de Creus along the shoreline of the Bay of Port Lligat, where Dali and his wife Gala lived. The rock in fact appears as huge head balanced on its elongated nose. It belonged to part of the Catalan landscape which constantly inspired and influenced Dali and his works throughout the longevity of his life.
Perched on top of the figure’s head is a crown based upon Dali’s observance of scientific experiment. Dali once witnessed a drop of milk photographed stroboscopically at a highly intense speed. When played the footage reveals the milk drop as it “splashes” into the surface creating a “crown” from the liquid that projects upward from the impact. The award winning film Dali Dimension discusses in details Dali’s obsession with this phenomena and the sciences.
The Rejuvenation of Time was unveiled with tremendous celebration in 1974. In fact, the works were signed in front of a crowd at the Figueras Town Hall, where Dali was born and laid to rest. In 1974, when Dali turned 70, he was acutely aware that he achieved his immortality. His prophecy to Mike Wallace of “Dali will never die” had come true and he expressed such in his creation of a magnificent work titled The Rejuvenation of Time.
