Salvador Dalí’s Melting Clocks Painted on a Latte

In 1931, Sal­vador Dalí paint­ed The Per­sis­tence of Mem­o­ry, a land­mark piece of sur­re­al­ist art that used melt­ing pock­et watch­es to sym­bol­ize the rel­a­tiv­i­ty of space and time in dream­scapes. (More on that below.)

If you haven’t seen the paint­ing at the MoMA in NYC, you’ve almost cer­tain­ly seen those melt­ing watch­es on posters and all sorts of kitschy prod­ucts. Those poor watch­es have been abused over the years. But some­how I don’t mind see­ing them on my favorite ephemer­al can­vas — the frothy milk sur­face of a lat­te. The lat­te above was dec­o­rat­ed by Kazu­ki Yamamo­to, a Japan­ese artist who uses noth­ing but a tooth­pick for a paint brush. You can find an online gallery of his work here, which includes some 3D cre­ations. Or fol­low pic­tures of his lat­est works on Twit­ter.

The 6‑minute intro­duc­tion to Dalí’s 1931 paint­ing (below) comes cour­tesy of Smart His­to­ry.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Hon­oré de Balzac Writes About “The Plea­sures and Pains of Cof­fee,” and His Epic Cof­fee Addic­tion

Sal­vador Dalí’s 100 Illus­tra­tions of Dante’s The Divine Com­e­dy

Des­ti­no: The Sal­vador Dalí – Dis­ney Col­lab­o­ra­tion 57 Years in the Mak­ing

The (Beau­ti­ful) Physics of Adding Cream to Your Cof­fee