The soft watch is certainly the icon par excellence of Salvador Dali, it is the most famous work of the Catalan artist, it symbolizes the flexibility of time and its subjective perception. "The Persistence of Memory" where the soft watch is represented for the first time (1931) can certainly be considered one of the artist's most famous works.
The hangers are a recurring element in the works of Salvador Dali, they are often used by Dali to create movements for his characters or to make his soft watches. They are a symbol of stability and support not only physical but also emotional in his works.
Dali's butterflies, he often integrated butterflies into his paintings to symbolize transformation, metamorphosis, the beauty of nature, symbol of the soul and change. For example, butterflies are also present in spring, a work included in the four seasons illustrated by Salvador Dali.
Elephants represent the strength, injustice and irrationality of the world, as only Salvador Dali could interpret them. Dali's elephants draw on the artist's most classic repertoire, historically the animal is associated with an idea of strength and dominance, in the artist's works the monumentality of the pachyderm is contrasted through the insertion of long, exaggeratedly tapered legs and almost unsafe. The Neapolitan sculptor Gian Lorenzo Bernini was undoubtedly Dali's inspiration, just look at the sculpture "the Obelisk of Minerva" located in Piazza della Minerva in Rome. During his life Dali was often in Italy and particularly in Rome but not only that, as is known, he was a great scholar of Italian artists.
Dali's ants used to communicate concepts of tireless work and the power of natural forces, a symbol of decay and composition, used by the surrealist artist in his works as a constant reminder of the temporal, transitory and mortal nature of human life.
The drawers are the influence of Freudian theories, they symbolize the unconscious. Salvador Dali reveals his genius in immortalizing open drawers as manifestations of surreal thoughts. For Dali the human body is full of drawers where everyone can hide their thoughts or secrets and only psychoanalysis is able to open them.
The rhinoceros symbolizes the irrationality and unpredictability of life. Dali plays with the perception of reality, transforming the rhinoceros into a surreal creature. Salvador Dali has repeatedly declared that the rhinoceros horn is a symbol of mathematical perfection.
Angels, a strong religious theme, are recurring in the works of Salvador Dali, for the artist they expressed grace, nobility and lightness, often representing the border between the earthly and the transcendent. Dali's angels embody spirituality, divine awareness, purity, protection and enlightenment.
The snail is a symbol connected to Sigmund Freud, they symbolize the slowness of time and the patience necessary to fully grasp the essence of life. Fascinated by the natural geometry of their shells and the idea of duality; hard exterior and soft interior.
Bread is an iconic element, Salvador Dali uses bread as a symbol of spiritual nourishment and its presence adds a profound meaning to the surreal context of Salvador Dali's works. This symbol always keeps the external hard and internal soft bond.
The telephone, often present in Dali's compositions, represents communication and connection between different worlds, just as his art challenges the boundaries of reality. The famous lobster telephone has a clear reference, according to Salvador Dali's typical iconology, to sexual and aphrodisiac elements.
The sea urchin also mentioned in the book "The diary of a genius" written by Salvador Dali, shows not only the goodness in itself of the seafood whose taste the master greatly appreciated but as already mentioned in other symbols, the fascinating union between the hard and the soft is a very important and recurring theme for Dali.
