“Profile of Time” is a sculpture by the illustrious artist Salvador Dali, created between the years 1977 and 1984. Crafted in bronze, the artwork is a testament to Dali’s engagement with the Surrealist art movement, leveraging its principles to manifest the unconventional and dream-like in tangible form. This genre of sculpture encapsulates the essence of Surrealism, an artistic endeavor that seeks to channel the unconscious to unlock the power of the imagination.
The artwork presents a striking visual metaphor for the fluidity and relentless passage of time. It features a softened clock draped over a tree-like form, a motif reminiscent of the melting clocks found in Dali’s famous painting, “The Persistence of Memory.” The base of the sculpture elegantly extends into a slender trunk, supporting the contorted, liquefied clock that languidly droops over its edges. The numbers on the clock face appear to be slipping into oblivion, suggesting a rejection of the rigid and linear conception of time. The tree itself could be symbolic of life and growth, juxtaposed with the distorted clock that seems to mock the very nature of temporal measurement. The bronze medium introduces a sense of permanence to the piece, ironically immortalizing the ever-shifting and transitory phenomenon that is time. This inanimate depiction, while frozen in form, still manages to evoke the dynamic and incessant flow of temporal experience.
