Salvador Dalí’s 1931 painting 'The Persistence of Memory' is the definitive image of Surrealism. It features melting clocks draped over a dreamlike landscape. While many critics interpreted the clocks as a reference to Einstein’s Theory of Relativity and the fluidity of time, Dalí himself gave a much more mundane explanation. He claimed the idea came to him after watching a piece of Camembert cheese melt in the sun after a dinner party. The strange, fleshy figure in the center is a distorted self-portrait of Dalí, shown as a 'soft' being in a dream state. The painting challenged the rational, rigid perception of reality, inviting the viewer into the bizarre logic of the subconscious mind.