Salvador Dali was born in Spain in 1904. Nine months prior to his birth, his three year old brother passed away due to gastroenteritis, a loss that profoundly affected the entire Dali family. Ever since he was a child, Salvador’s mother used to tell him that he was the reincarnation of his dead brother, who had also been named Salvador.
The future artist believed in what his mother told him and spent his life being extremely influenced by this thought, as it can also be seen in most of his work. Dali developed a love and passion for artwork in his childhood and his mother, whom he adored, supported his passion and fought her husband to let little Salvador experiment and fully discover just how interested he was in this new subject. As a teenager, Salvador Dali moved to the Residencia de Estudiantes in Madrid where he met many people who would later on influence his artwork.
As it was custom at that time for every young artist, Salvador Dali decided to move to Paris where he met Pablo Picasso who had already heard wonderful stories regarding the young Spanish painter, Joan Miró. In 1931, after experimenting quite a bit with the surrealist world and trying to fully capture the message and value of this art form, he painted probably his most famous painting titled The Persistence of Memory. In the painting, Dali questions the idea that time is rigid and cannot be altered.