Salvador Dalí (1904)

Dalí was a Spanish painter whose striking images and eccentric personality made him the world's most recognized surrealist artist. Influenced by the theories and dream studies of Sigmund Freud, he painted nightmarishly absurd scenes in precise, realistic detail, creating worlds in which everyday objects are deformed or metamorphosed in strange ways. In his most famous work, The Persistence of Memory, limp watches melt in an eerie landscape. Which candy brand's logo was designed by Dalí? More...

I found the following lines on a website of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMa), New York:

Time is the theme here, from the melting watches to the decay implied by the swarming ants. The monstrous fleshy creature draped across the painting's center is an approximation of Dalís own face in profile.

I had to search for a large picture of Dali's painting to realise that the curious dots on the brown watch (left bottom corner) might be ants.

I have never looked more carefully at the large outstretched figure in the middle. I always associated it with a dead horse with the clock being the saddle. Now, looking closer, I see it is no horse, it's something undefinable. So I am really astonished to read that it should have similarity to Dali's profile.
The cliffs in the background are said to be those of the Catalonian coastline.

Link Moma, New York, Dali, The persistence of Memory

As to the interpretation - one of those pictures that are unfathomable - every observer will have their own imaginations.

It's surprising how small some of his paintings are. He had fantastic technique and had somehow rediscovered Vermeer's luminous sense of colour. However I can't help somehow concurring with HG Wells that there is an element of disgust in them. He is like a small child who produces something truly wonderful- then trashes it. The Wells critique is worth a read;

http://www.george-orwell.org/Benefit_of_Clergy:_Some_Notes_on_Salvador_Dali/0.html

Sorry, it's Friday.