The Persistence of MemoryAI

This is Salvador Dalí's most famous painting, and once you see those melting pocket watches, you'll never forget them. Painted in 1931 during the height of the Surrealist movement, Dalí created this strange dreamscape after being inspired by melting Camembert cheese on a hot day. The soft, drooping clocks suggest that time itself isn't as rigid as we think, bending and warping in our memories and dreams. The barren landscape in the background is based on the cliffs near Dalí's home in Catalonia, Spain.

That odd fleshy creature in the center with a clock draped over it appears in many of Dalí's works. It's thought to be a distorted self-portrait, lying collapsed and sleeping on the beach. The flies hovering over the orange watch and the ants crawling on the face-down clock add to the unsettling atmosphere, suggesting decay and the passage of time. Despite being relatively small (just about the size of a sheet of paper), this painting has become one of the most recognizable images in modern art, perfectly capturing the Surrealist goal of depicting the illogical world of dreams.