Modeled after Leon Hamin’s seminal photomosaic concept work, Salvador Dali’s Lincoln in Dalivision represents the conflation of several artistic movements and the evolution of art in terms of storing memory.

Founded by Andre Breton in the early 1920s and emphatically explained in his Manifestoes of Surrealism, Surrealism is often considered both a cultural and revolutionary art movement. The form dedicated itself to depicting the subconscious and as such many critics regard Surrealism as a substantial divergence from traditional art movements.

By stripping ordinary objects of their normal function, Surrealist artists aimed to expose psychological truth and as a result created abstract images in order to evoke empathy from the viewer. Highly individualized, the movement relied heavily on the element of the unexpected, borrowed from various Dadaist techniques and eventually came to represent the alienation many experienced in the wake of a war stricken world. These seven iconic surrealist paintings have become not only iconic in the field of surrealism, but in art as a whole:

Undoubtedly the most famous Surrealist painting in history, The Persistence of Memory is Salvador Dali’s iconic ode to time. The dripping clocks reflect the inner workings of Dali’s subconscious and convey a simple (albeit complexly delivered) message: time as we know it is meaningless.

Dali’s Metamorphosis of Narcissus depicts the tale of Greek figure Narcissus, the egotistical man who pined for his reflection in a pool of water. In this painting Narcissus is seen sitting in a pool with two other Narcissus-like figures hidden in the landscape.

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