In class yesterday, we continued to study the different Avant-Garde movements of the 20th century. We began by returning to Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, a radical work that can be viewed as a precursor to the Cubist movement. Cubism can be seen as divided into two phases, first, analytic cubism, and the later synthetic cubism. Analytic cubism focuses on reducing elements of art, including color, depth, light, shadow, brushwork, line, and, perhaps most crucially, form. The recurring theme across different avant-garde movements is the artist’s intent to shock viewers, which can especially be seen in the case of Futurism. We then moved through some examples of Dada art, finally ending with Surrealism. We considered The Persistence of Memory by Salvador Dalí. Surrealists were fascinated with representing what they saw as the unconscious or repressed feelings. In Dalí’s work, the melting or soft watches serve as an indicator of the distortion of time associated with the dream space of the unconscious. We also see the inclusion of ants in the painting, which was a recurring motif in Dalí’s paintings.