Surrealism

Surrealism is a revolution, a cultural, artistic, and intellectual movement oriented toward the liberation of the mind by emphasizing the critical and imaginative faculties of the "unconscious mind" and the attainment of a state different from, "more than", and ultimately truer than everyday reality: the "sur-real", i.e. more than real. For many Surrealists, this orientation toward transcending everyday reality toward one that incorporates the imaginative and the unconscious has manifested itself in the intent to bring about personal, cultural, political and social revolution, sometimes conceived or described as a complete transformation of life by freedom, poetry, love, and sexuality. In the words of André Breton, generally regarded as the founder of surrealism: "beauty will be convulsive or not at all." At various times individual surrealists aligned themselves with communism and anarchism to advance radical political and social change, arguing that only transformed institutions of work, the family, and education could make possible a general participation in the surreal. More recently some surrealists have participated in feminist and radical environmentalist activities for similar reasons.

History of Surrealism

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In 1917, Guillaume Apollinaire coined the term "surrealism" in the program notes describing the ballet Parade which was a collaborative work by Jean Cocteau, Erik Satie, Pablo Picasso and Léonide Massine:

Related Topics:
Guillaume Apollinaire - Parade - Jean Cocteau - Erik Satie - Pablo Picasso - Léonide Massine

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:From this new alliance, for until now stage sets and costumes on one side and choreography on the other had only a sham bond between them, there has come about, in 'Parade', a kind of super-realism ('sur-réalisme'), in which I see the starting point of a series of manifestations of this new spirit ('esprit nouveau').'

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The Surrealism movement originated in post-World War I European avant-garde literary and art circles, and many early Surrealists were associated with the earlier Dada movement. Movement participants seek to revolutionize life with actions intended to bring about change in accordance with the philosophy of surrealism, though there have been some claims in surrealist theoretical writing that surrealism is not a philosophy. While the movement's most important center was Paris, it spread throughout Europe and to North America, Japan and the Carribean during the course of the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s, by the 1960s to Africa, South America and much of Asia and by the 1980s to Australia and there have even been some manifestations of surrealism in Russia and China. Some historians mark the end of the movement at World War II, some with the death of André Breton, some with the death of Salvador Dali, while others believe that Surrealism continues as an identifiable movement.

Related Topics:
World War I - Avant-garde - Dada - Japan - 1920s - 1930s - 1940s - 1960s - Africa - South America - Asia - 1980s - Australia - Russia - China - World War II - André Breton - Salvador Dali

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Breton's Surrealist Manifesto of 1924 and the publication of the magazine La Révolution surréaliste (The Surrealist Revolution) marked the beginning of the Surrealism as a public agitation.

Related Topics:
Surrealist Manifesto - 1924 - La Révolution surréaliste

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Five years earlier, Breton and Philippe Soupault wrote the first "automatic book" (spontaneously written), Les Champs Magnétiques.

Related Topics:
Philippe Soupault - Automatic book - Les Champs Magnétiques

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By December of 1924, the publication La Révolution surréaliste edited by Pierre Naville and Benjamin Perét and later by Breton, was started. Also, a Bureau of Surrealist Research began in Paris and was at one time, under the direction of Antonin Artaud.

Related Topics:
La Révolution surréaliste - Pierre Naville - Benjamin Perét - Bureau of Surrealist Research - Antonin Artaud

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In 1926, Louis Aragon wrote Le Paysan de Paris, following the appearance of many Surrealist books, poems, pamphlets, automatic texts and theoretical works published by the Surrealists, including those by René Crevel.

Related Topics:
Louis Aragon - Le Paysan de Paris - René Crevel

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Many of the popular artists in Paris throughout the 1920s and 1930s were Surrealists, including René Magritte, Joan Miró, Max Ernst, Salvador Dalí, Alberto Giacometti, Valentine Hugo, Méret Oppenheim, Man Ray, Toyen and Yves Tanguy. Though Breton adored Pablo Picasso and Marcel Duchamp, and courted them to join the movement, they did not join.

Related Topics:
Paris - 1920s - 1930s - René Magritte - Joan Miró - Max Ernst - Salvador Dalí - Alberto Giacometti - Valentine Hugo - Méret Oppenheim - Man Ray - Toyen - Yves Tanguy - Pablo Picasso - Marcel Duchamp

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The Surrealists developed techniques such as automatic drawing (developed by André Masson), automatic painting, decalcomania, frottage, fumage, grattage and parsemage that became significant parts of Surrealist practice. (Automatism was later adapted to the computer.)

Related Topics:
Techniques - Automatic drawing - André Masson - Automatic painting - Decalcomania - Frottage - Fumage - Grattage - Parsemage - Automatism

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Games such as the exquisite corpse also assumed a great importance in Surrealism.

Related Topics:
Games - Exquisite corpse

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Although sometimes considered exclusively French, Surrealism was international from the beginning, with both the Belgian and Czech groups developing early; the Czech group continues uninterrupted to this day. Some of what have been described as the most significant Surrealist theorists such as Karel Teige from Czechoslovakia, Shuzo Takiguchi from Japan, Octavio Paz from Mexico, also Aime Cesaire and Rene Menil from Martinique, who both started the Surrealist journal Tropiques in 1940, have hailed from other countries. The most radical of Surrealist methods have also hailed from countries other than France, for example, the technique of cubomania was invented by Romanian Surrealist Gherasim Luca.

Related Topics:
Czech groups - Surrealist theorists - Karel Teige - Shuzo Takiguchi - Octavio Paz - Aime Cesaire - Rene Menil - Tropiques - Cubomania - Gherasim Luca

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Interwar Surrealism: Centrality of Breton

Breton, as the leader of the Surrealist movement, not only published its most thorough explanations of its techniques, aims and ideas, but was the individual who drew in, and expelled, writers, artists and thinkers. Through the interwar period he formed the focus of Surrealist activity in Paris, and his writings were enormously influential in spreading Surrealism as a body of thought, in such works Nadja (1928), the Second Surrealist Manifesto (1930), Communicating Vessels (1932), and Mad Love (1937).

Related Topics:
1928 - 1930 - 1932 - 1937

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To further the revolutionary aim of Surrealism, in 1927 Breton and others joined the Communist Party. (Breton was ousted in 1933.)

Related Topics:
Breton - Communist Party

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The late 1920s were turbulent for the group as several individuals closely associated with Breton left, and several prominent artists entered.

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Surrealism continued to expand in public visibility, in Breton's own estimation the high water mark was the 1936 London International Surrealist Exhibition.

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In 1937, Breton and Leon Trotsky co-authored a Manifesto for an independent revolutionary arthttp://www.marxists.org/subject/art/lit_crit/works/rivera/manifesto.htm on the need for a permanent revolution, and attacked Stalinism and Socialist realism, as the "negation of freedom".

Related Topics:
Leon Trotsky - Manifesto for an independent revolutionary art - Stalinism - Socialist realism

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Surrealism also attracted writers from the United Kingdom to Paris including David Gascoyne, who became friends with Paul Éluard and Max Ernst, and translated Breton and Dalí into English. In 1935 he authored A Short Study of Surrealism, and then returned to England during the World War II, where he roomed with Lucian Freud, and continued to write in the Surrealist style for the remainder of his life.

Related Topics:
David Gascoyne - Paul Éluard - Max Ernst - Breton - Dalí - Lucian Freud

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Acéphale was one splinter group that formed (mid-1930s). The group was comprised of some of those disaffected by Breton's increasing rigidity, and structured as a "secret society". Led by Bataille, they published Da Costa Encyclopedia meant to coincide with the 1947 Surrealist exhibition in Paris.

Related Topics:
Acéphale - Bataille - 1947

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Surrealism during World War II

The rise of Adolf Hitler and the events of 1939 through 1945 in Europe, for a time, overshadowed almost all else. However, after the war, Breton continued to write and espouse the importance of liberating of the human mind. For example in The Tower of Light in (1952).

Related Topics:
Adolf Hitler - 1952

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In 1941, Breton went to the United States, where he founded the short lived magazine VVV, which boasted high production values and a great deal of content, however, its content was increasingly in French, not English. It was American poet Charles Henri Ford and his magazine View which offered Breton a channel for promoting Surrealism in the United States. Ford and Breton had an on again, off again relationship, Breton felt that Ford should work more specifically for Surrealism, and Ford, for his part, resented what he felt to be Breton's attempts to make him "toe the line". Nevertheless, View published an interview between Breton and Nicolas Calas, as well as special issues on Tanguy and Ernst, and in 1945, on Marcel Duchamp.

Related Topics:
1941 - VVV - Charles Henri Ford - View - Nicolas Calas - Tanguy - Ernst - 1945

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The special issue on Duchamp was crucial for the public understanding of Surrealism in America, it stressed his connections to Surrealist methods, offered interpretations of his work by Breton, as well as Breton's view that Duchamp represented the bridge between early modern movements such as Futurism and Cubism with Surrealism.

Related Topics:
Futurism - Cubism

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Breton's return to France after the Second World War, began a new phase of surrealist activity in Paris, one which attracted considerable attention. Membership in the Paris Surrealist Group, and interest in it, climbed to above pre-war levels.

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Breton's critiques of rationalism and dualism, found a new audience after the Second World War, as his argument that returning to old patterns of behavior would ensure a repeated cycle of conflict seemed increasingly prophetic to French intellectuals while the Cold War mounted. Breton's insistence that Surrealism was not an aesthetic movement, nor a series of techniques and tools, but instead the means to an ongoing revolt against the reduction of humanity to market relationships, religious gestures and misery, meant that his ideas and stances were taken up by many, even those who had never heard of Breton, or read any of his work. The importance of living Surrealism was repeated by Breton and by those writing about him.

Related Topics:
Rationalism - Dualism - Cold War

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The "end" of Surrealism as an organized movement

There is no clear consensus about the end of the Surrealist movement: some historians suggest that the movement was effectively disbanded by WWII, others treat the movement as extending through the 1950s; art historian Sarane Alexandrian (1970) states that "the death of André Breton in 1966 marked the end of Surrealism as an organized movement." However, some who knew Breton, and were part of groups he founded or approved have continued to be active well after his death. For example, Czech Surrealism Group in Prague, though driven underground in 1968, re-emerged in the 1990s; and in 1976 the largest-ever exhibition of international surrealism, the World Surrealist Exhibition, went up in Chicago. Still other groups and artists, not directly connected to Breton, have claimed the Surrealist label. Observations tying the fate of the movement to Breton's life, however, fly in the face of his statement that the movement would continue after him.

Related Topics:
1950s - Sarane Alexandrian - 1970 - 1966 - 1968 - 1990s - 1976

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In addition, Surrealism, as a prominent critique of rationalism and capitalism, and a theory of integrated aesthetics and ethics had influence on later movements, including many aspects of postmodernism.

Related Topics:
Rationalism - Capitalism - Postmodernism

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People involved in the (first) Paris Surrealist Group

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• Louis Aragon
• Jean Arp
• Georges Bataille
• André Breton
• Giorgio de Chirico
• René Crevel
• Salvador Dalí
• René Daumal
• Robert Desnos
• Paul Éluard
• Max Ernst
• David Gascoyne
• Alberto Giacometti
• Valentine Hugo
• Michel Leiris
• René Magritte
• Roberto Matta
• Joan Miró
• André Masson
• Pierre Naville
• Méret Oppenheim
• Benjamin Péret
• Jacques Prévert
• Man Ray
• Philippe Soupault
• Tristan Tzara
• Yves Tanguy
• Toyen
• Remedios Varo
• Nancy Cunard
• André Thirion