STUDY GUIDE
A chronological history of the Surrealist movement is on another page and a basic history and bibliography are on this page. In the Beginning The Surrealist movement came about after Dadaism began to subside. Pre-war Surrealism began, but was soon rejected by many Surrealists who decided to begin a new Surrealism. In 1919, a group of writers and painters gathered to proclaim the omnipotence of the unconscious mind, thought to be a higher reality than the conscious mind. Their goal was to make visible the imagery of the unconscious. This group, the Surrealists, was indebted to the shocking irrationality of dadaism and the fantastic creations of Chagall, Klee, and especially the dream images of De Chirico. They also drew heavily on the new psychology of Sigmund Freud and the paintings of Hieronomous Bosch. Belgium and France both had important Surrealists. In Belgium, there was Mosens, Magritte, and the poet Paul Nouge. In France, Surrealists like Dali, Miro, Delvaux, and Masson met to discuss Surrealism. The major spokesperson for the group was Andre Breton, who ran the magazine "Litterature". He created the "Surrealist Manifesto" in 1924 which included all of the major ideas of Surrealism. Surrealism as we know it today is closely related to some forms of abstract art. In fact, they shared similar origins, but they diverged on their interpretation of what those origins meant to the aesthetic of art. At the end of the First War World, Tristan Tzara, leader of the Dada movement (WebMuseum), wanted to attack society through scandal. He believed that a society that creates the monstrosity of war does not deserve art, so he decided to give it anti-art–not beauty but ugliness. With phrases like Dada destroys everything! Tzara wanted to offend the new industrial commercial world–the bourgeoisie. However, his intended victims were not insulted at all. Instead they thought that this rebellious new expression opposed, not them but the "old art" and the "old patrons" of feudalism and church dominion. In fact, the bourgeoisie embraced this "rebellious" new art so thoroughly that anti-art became Art, the anti-academy the Academy, the anti-conventionalism the Convention, and the rebellion through chaotic images, the status quo. One group of artists, however, did not embrace this new art that threw away all which centuries of artists had learned and passed on about the craft of art. The Surrealist movement gained momentum after the Dada movement. It was lead by Andre Breton, a French doctor who had fought in the trenches during the First World War. The artists in the movement researched and studied the works of Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung. Some of the artists in the group expressed themselves in the abstract tradition, while others, expressed themselves in the symbolic tradition. What is Surrealism?Surrealism is an art movement that lasted from 1919 to 1939. The Surrealists thought that their art would directly speak to a large audience and would override cultural and aesthetic prejudice. Basically, surrealism was the irrational combination of objects with the "determination to make the most familiar objects scream aloud". Much of surrealism was based on Freudian concepts and abnormal physical and psychological states like claustrophobia, anxiety, and panic. Most Surrealists were interested in man made objects and often contemplated their metaphysical reality versus their actual appearance. One method that was commonly used was "trompe-l'oeil" which literally means "to fool the eye". However, drugs and hypnosis were often used to release the stream of consciousness which interfered with Surrealist painting. Many Surrealists were obsessed with the erotic and death (Almost any Dali painting could be an example). Also, chance, automatism, black humor, displacement, ambiguity, and fear played prominent roles in Surrealist art. Sometimes these features were portrayed by "benevolent forces" like ghosts. Andre Breton's dictionary definition of Surrealism is: Surrealism, n. Psychic automatism in its pure state, by which one proposes to express-verbally, by means of the written word, or in any other manner-the actual functioning of thought. Dictated by thought, in the absence of any control exercised by reason, exempt from any aesthetic or moral concern. Encyclopedia. Philosophy. Surrealism is based on the belief in the superior reality of certain forms of previously neglected associations, in the omnipotence of dream, in the disinterested play of thought. Two Distinct Groups Emerge Michael S. Bell, through his research, realized that these two forms of expression formed two distinct trends of surrealism with marked differences. One could be qualified as Automatism, the other, as Veristic Surrealism. "Automatism" explains Mr. Bell, "is a form of abstraction. It has been the only type of surrealism accepted by critical reviewers after the war." Basically, two different interpretations of the works of Freud and Jung divided the two groups. For the purpose of personal analysis, Jung had talked about not judging the images of the subconscious, but simply accepting them as they came into consciousness so they could be analyzed. This was termed Automatism. The Automatists Every profession has its own history in which the accumulation of knowledge is the basis to push the frontiers into the unknown. Dali and Picasso are two masters who stand at the vanguard of two opposite approaches to art in the Twentieth Century: To use that accumulated knowledge and build upon it, or to discard it. Dali embraced all the science of painting as a way to study the psyche through subconscious images. He called this process the Paranoiac Critical Method. As any paranoiac, the artist should allow these images to reach the conscience, and then do what the paranoiac cannot do: Freeze them on canvas to give consciousness the opportunity to comprehend their meaning. Later on, he expanded the process into the Oniric-Critical Method, in which the artist pays attention to his dreams, freezing them through art, and analyzing them as well. As Freud said, "A dream that is not interpreted is like a letter that is not opened." Picasso took the opposite approach to art. He inherited the gusto for ugliness, scandal and chaos of the Dada movement and the automatic surrealists. Picasso rejected the craft to become "primitive," deciding that the ingenuity of childhood is the basis of art. To him this meant that the less the artist is preoccupied with his craft the better his art. To Dali, however, the "ingenuity of childhood" meant keeping an open mind and maintaining the curiosity and excitement of the child throughout one's life, not painting as a child. The Struggle of Surrealism For the automatists the approach to the mystery of Nature is to never become conscious of the mystery, for the surrealists it is to learn from it. The Picasso camp, won the "faith" of society. The Dali camp would have to secure a dialog with the public to be able to show the individual the "surrealist way of life" or the "path of individuation" as Jung called it. The Veristic Surrealist quest is none other than the one described by Breton as, "The cause of freedom and the transformation of man's consciousness." In the works of surrealists we find the legacy of Bosch, Brueguel, William Blake, the Symbolic painters of the Nineteenth Century, the perennial questioning of philosophy, the search of psychology, and the spirit of mysticism. It is work based on the desire to permit the forces that created the world to illuminate our vision, allowing us to consciously develop our human potential. The Veristic surrealists of today recognize the difficulties that their movement has faced during the second half of the Twentieth Century as it attempted to become a major cultural force, like modernism had. The United States, a country in which the business community never had to share its power with the aristocracy, wholeheartedly embraced abstraction and modernism. They shared the belief of abstract artists that the chaos of action painting and automatism were expressions of freedom, and that form, subjugation and inhibition walked hand in hand. The American art establishment looked at the image of form with mistrust until the advent of Pop Art, which glorified the imperialism of commerce, advertisement and marketing. Later, Photorealism which glorified modern life, was accepted. With these two movements Realism entered the cultural picture again (see Art Through the Ages). Therefore, the only historical artistic expression still in want of recognition as a cultural force in the Twentieth Century, is Veristic Surrealism. The Future of Surrealism Because it was ignored and rejected by the new academy of modernism, Veristic Surrealism in its evolution has become a new art. A new art that in the words of Donald Kuspit, "Must first show that it has democratic appeal–appeal to those generally unschooled in art or not professionally interested in it. Then it must suffer a period of aristocratic rejection by those schooled in an accepted and thereby 'traditional' form of art–those with a vested interest in a known art and concerned with protecting it at all costs." Contemporary Veristic Surrealists have worked for the past fifty years in silent seclusion. A renaissance of this art form will provide the world with new eternal aesthetic pleasures and reawaken the use of meaningful expression in art, so that it can once again have a dialogue with the public. It would take fifty years for artists born after the Second World War to discover how right this method is for helping us all understand the architecture of the psyche. Those who have understood the method, who have faithfully followed the images of the subconscious and, with patience, painted and analyzed them, have a lot to teach us about the make up and interaction of the three planes of the Spiritual, the psychological, and the physical. The End of SurrealismSadly to say, Surrealism ended in 1939. It led the way to non-geometrical abstract art (a definite mouthful). Andre Breton really began kicking artists out of his elite group in the late 1930's and early 1940's. As I have said before, Dali and Magritte were both kicked out. Soon afterwards, Breton rejected postwar Surrealism and headed on to new and more glorious things (yeah, right). Don't fret, though, because there are so many Surrealist pieces of art that I could spend several lifetimes telling you all about them. I barely did justice to the Surrealist writers. However, I do not spend my entire life devoted to my WebPages. I am not a web page slave yet. Thanks for looking over my information, and I hope this has been helpful and informative. Prominent Writers and MoviemakersHowever, Surrealism was not limited to art alone. Many writers and moviemakers took part in the movement. Paul Nouge, one of the Belgian Surrealists, was actually a poet. Other writers include Andre Gide, Paul Valery, T.S. Eliot, Rilke, Guillaume Apollinaire, and Arthur Rimbaud. They mainly expressed the "paradox of all form and the absurdity of all human existence". Two other noted Surrealist writers were Kafka and Joyce. However, besides the normal prose that was written, a whole new writing style came about. This style was known as automatic writing. Originally created by Andre Breton and Louis Aragon, it involves writing anything that comes to mind. You simply let your hand write in a flowing connected cursive. Breton wrote one of the first automatic writing works, "The Magnetic Fields". As for film makers, many of the painters themselves created films. Salvador Dali created Un Chien Andalou in 1928. Another Surrealist film was actually made quite recently, but I cannot remember its name or its maker.
Resources: Ades, Dawn. Dada and Surrealism Reviewed (1979). Alexandrian, Sarane. Surrealist Art. Thames and Hudson Ltd, London 1995. Chadwick, Whitney. Women Artists and the Surrealist Movement (1985). Dunlop, Ian. "The International Surrealist Exhibition" in Dunlop, The Shock of the New (1972). Fantastic Art, Dada, Surrealism (MOMA 1947). Fer, Briony, David Batchelor, and Paul Wood. Realism, Rationalism, Surrealism: Art Between the Wars (1993). Harrison, Charles and Paul Wood. Art in Theory 1900-1990: An Anthology of Changing Ideas. Blackwell Publishers, Cambridge Massachusetts 1994. Hughes, Robert. The Shock of the New (1991). Hunter, Sam and John Jacobus. Modern Art: Painting, Sculpture, Architecture. Vendome Press, New York 1992. Krauss, Rosalind and J. Livingston. L'Amour fou: Photography and Surrealism (1986). Lucie-Smith, Edward. Sexuality in Western Art. Thames and Hudson Inc., New York 1997. Motherwell, Robert ed. The Dada Painters and Poets: An Anthology. The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts 1981. Nadeau, Maurice. The History of Surrealism (1968). Nelson, Robert and Richard Shiff, ed. Critical Terms for Art History. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago and London 1996. Preble, Duane and Sarah. Artforms. Harper and Row Publishers, New York 1989. Stiles, Kristine and Peter Selz. Theories and Documents of Contemporary Art: A Sourcebook of Artists' Writings. University of California Press, Berkley 1996. Stitch, Sidra. Anxious Visions: Surrealist Art (1990). Rubin, William. Dada, Surrealism, and Their Heritage. The Museum of Modern Art, New York 1992. http://members.tripod.com/~Brekke/index.html http://www.daligallery.com/home.html http://www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/Alley/8470/ |