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.

Surrealism in the arts

In general usage, the term Surrealism is more often considered a movement in visual arts than the original cultural and philosophical movement. As with some other movements that had both philosophical and artistic dimensions, such as romanticism and minimalism, the relationship between the two usages is complex and a matter of some debate outside the movement. Many Surrealist artists regarded their work as an expression of the philosophical movement first and foremost, and Breton was explicit in his belief that Surrealism was above all a revolutionary movement. In addition, many surrealists and surrealist documents have declared that surrealism is not an artistic movement for a number of additional reasons, among which is the conception of the "artistic" manifestations of surrealism as just one form of manifestation among many, various conceptions of visual work being created which somehow "goes beyond" traditional conceptions of art or aesthetics, or even the complete cessation of creative visual production.

Related Topics:
Visual arts - Romanticism - Minimalism - Breton - Artistic movement - Aesthetics

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Surrealism in visual arts

Early visual arts Surrealism

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Since so many of the artists involved in Surrealism came from the Dada movement, the demarcation between Surrealist and Dadaist art, as with the demarcation between Surrealism and Dada in general, is a drawn differently by different scholars.

Related Topics:
Dada

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The roots of Surrealism in the visual arts run to both Dada and Cubism, as well as the abstraction of Wassily Kandinsky and Expressionism, as well as Post-Impressionism. However, it was not the particulars of technique which marked the Surrealist movement in the visual arts, but an the creation of objects from the imagination, from automatism, or from a number of Surrealist techniques.

Related Topics:
Dada - Cubism - Wassily Kandinsky - Expressionism - Post-Impressionism - Surrealist techniques

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Masson's automatic drawings of 1923, are often used as a convenient point of difference, since these reflect the influence of the idea of the unconscious mind.

Related Topics:
Masson - Automatic drawings - 1923 - Unconscious mind

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Another example is Alberto Giacometti's 1925 Torso, which marked his movement to simplified forms and inspiration from pre-classical sculpture. However, a striking example of the line used to divide Dada and Surrealism among art experts is the pairing of 1925's Von minimax dadamax selbst konstruiertes maschinchen with Le Baiser from 1927 by Max Ernst. The first is generally held to have a distance, and erotic subtext, where as the second presents an erotic act openly and directly. In the second the influence of Miró and Picasso's drawing style is visible with the use of fluid curving and intersecting lines and colour, where as the first takes a directness that would later be influential in movements such as Pop art.

Related Topics:
1925 - 1927 - Pop art

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Giorgio de Chirico was one of the important joining figures between the philosophical and visual aspects of Surrealism. Between 1911 and 1917, he adopted a very primary colour palette, and unornamented epictional style whose surface would be adopted by others later. La tour rouge from 1913 shows the stark colour contrasts and illustrative style later adopted by Surrealist painters. His 1914 La Nostalgie du poete has the figure turned away from the viewer, and the juxtaposition of a bust with glasses and a fish as a relief which defies conventional realistic explanation. He was also a writer. His novel Hebdomeros presents a series of dreamscapes, with an unusual use of punctuation, syntax and grammar, designed to create a particular atmosphere and frame around its images. His images, including set designs for the Ballet Russe, would create a decorative form of visual Surrealism, and he would be an influence on the two that would be even more closely associated with Surrealism in the public mind: Dalí and Magritte.

Related Topics:
Giorgio de Chirico - 1911 - 1917 - 1913 - 1914 - Hebdomeros - Ballet Russe - Dalí - Magritte

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In 1924, Miro and Masson applied Surrealism theory to painting explicitly leading to the La Peinture Surrealiste Exposition at Gallerie Pierre in 1925, which included work by Man Ray, Masson, Klee and Miró among others. It confirmed that Surrealism had a component in the visual arts (though it had been initially debated whether this was possible), techniques from Dada, such as photomontage were used.

Related Topics:
1924 - Miro - Masson - 1925 - Man Ray - Photomontage

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Galerie Surréaliste opened on March 26, 1926 with an exhibition by Man Ray.

Related Topics:
Galerie Surréaliste - March 26 - 1926 - Man Ray

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Breton published Surrealism and Painting in 1928 which summarized the movement to that point, though he continued to update the work until the 1960s.

Related Topics:
1928 - 1960s

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1930s

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Dalí and Magritte created the most widely recognized images of the movement. Dalí joined the group in 1929, and participated in the rapid establishment of the visual style between 1930 and 1935.

Related Topics:
Dalí - Magritte - 1929 - 1930 - 1935

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Surrealism as a visual movement had found a method: to expose psychological truth by stripping ordinary objects of their normal significance, in order to create a compelling image that was beyond ordinary formal organization, in order to evoke empathy from the viewer.

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1931 marked a year when several Surrealist painters produced works which marked turning points in their stylistic evolution: Magritte's La Voix des airs is an example of this process, where three large spheres representing bells hanging above a landscape. Another Surrealist landscape from this same year is Tanguy's Palais promontoire, with its molten forms and liquid shapes. Liquid shapes became the trademark of Dalí, particularly in his The Persistence of Memory, which features the image of clocks that sag as if they are made out of cloth.

Related Topics:
1931 - Tanguy - The Persistence of Memory

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The characteristics of this style: a combination of the depictive, the abstract, and the psychological, came to stand for the alienation which many people felt in the modern period, combined with the sense of reaching more deeply into the psyche, to be "made whole with ones individuality".

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Long after personal, political and professional tensions broke up the Surrealist group, Magritte and Dalí continued to define a visual program in the arts. This program reached beyond painting, to encompass photography as well, as can be seen from this Man Ray self portrait whose use of assemblage influenced Robert Rauschenberg's collage boxes.

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During the 1930s Peggy Guggenheim, an important art collector married Max Ernst and began promoting work by other Surrealists such as Yves Tanguy and the British artist John Tunnard. However, by the outbreak of the Second World War, the taste of the avant-garde swung decisively towards Abstract Expressionism with the support of key taste makers, including Guggenheim.

Related Topics:
1930s - Peggy Guggenheim - Max Ernst - Yves Tanguy - John Tunnard - Second World War - Avant-garde - Abstract Expressionism

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World War II and beyond

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As with many artistic movements in Europe, the coming of the Second World War proved disruptive: both because of the rift between Breton and Dalí over Dalí's support for Francisco Franco, and because of a diaspora of the members of the Surrealist movement itself. Dalí said to remain a Surrealist forever was like "painting only eyes and noses", and declared he had embarked on a "classic" period; Max Ernst in 1962 said "I feel more affinity for some German Romantics". Magritte began painting what he called his "solar" or "Renoir" style.

Related Topics:
Breton - Dalí - Francisco Franco - Max Ernst - 1962 - Magritte - Renoir

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The works continued. Many Surrealist artists continued to explore their vocabularies, including Magritte. Many members of the Surrealist movement continued to correspond and meet. (In 1960, Magritte, Duchamp, Ernst, and Man Ray met in Paris.) While Dalí may have been excommunicated by Breton, he neither abandoned the themes from the 1930s, including references to the "persistence of time" in a later painting, nor did he become a depictive "pompier". His classic period did not represent so sharp a break with the past as some descriptions of his work might portray.

Related Topics:
1960 - 1930s

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During the 1940s Surrealism's influence was also felt in England and America. Mark Rothko took an interest in bimorphic figures, and in England Henry Moore, Lucian Freud, Francis Bacon and Paul Nash used or experimented with Surrealist techniques. However, Conroy Maddox, one of the first British Surrealists, beginning in 1935, remained within the movement, organizing an exhibition of current Surrealist work in 1978, in response to an exhibition which infuriated him because it did not properly represent Surrealism. The exhibition, titled Surrealism Unlimited was in Paris, and attracted international attention. He held his his last one man show in 2002, just before his death in 2005.

Related Topics:
1940s - Mark Rothko - Henry Moore - Lucian Freud - Francis Bacon - Paul Nash - Conroy Maddox - 1935 - 1978 - 2002 - 2005

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Magritte's work became more realistic in its depiction of actual objects, while maintaining the element of juxtaposition, such as in 1951's Personal Values and 1954's Empire of Light. Magritte continued to produce works which have entered artistic vocabulary, such as Castle in the Pyrenees which refers back to Voix from 1931, in its suspension over a landscape.

Related Topics:
1951 - 1954 - 1931

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Other figures from the Surrealist movement were expelled, Roberto Matta for example, but by their own description "remained close to Surrealism."

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Many new artists explicitly took up the Surrealist banner for themselves, some following what they saw as the path of Dalí, others holding to views they derived from Breton. Duchamp continued to produce sculpture and, at his death, was working on an installation with the realistic depiction of a woman viewable only through a peephole. Dorothea Tanning and Louise Bourgeois continued to work, for example with Tanning's Rainy Day Canape from 1970.

Related Topics:
Dorothea Tanning - Louise Bourgeois - 1970

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The 1960s saw an expansion of Surrealism with the founding of The West Coast Surrealist Group as recognized by Breton's personal assistant Jose Pierre and also Surrealist Movement in the United States.

Related Topics:
1960s - The West Coast Surrealist Group - Jose Pierre - Surrealist Movement in the United States

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That Surrealism has remained commercially successful and popularly recognized has lead many people associated with the Breton's Surrealist group to criticise more general uses of the term. They argue that many self-identified Surrealists are not grounded in Breton's work and the techniques of the movement.

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Surrealistic art remains enormously popular with museum patrons. In 2001 Tate Modern held an exhibition of Surrealist art that attracted over 170,000 visitors in its run. Having been one of the most important of movements in the Modern period, Surrealism proceeded to inspire a new generation seeking to expand the vocabulary of art.

Related Topics:
2001 - Tate Modern

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Surrealism in literature

The first surrealist work, according to Breton, was Les Champs Magnétiques (1921 ?Magnetic Fields?), which was actually a collaboration with the French poet and novelist Philippe Soupault. But even before that, in 1919, Breton, Soupault and Aragon had already published the magazine Littérature, which contained automatist works and accounts of dreams. The magazine and the portfolio both showed their disdain for literal meanings given to objects and focused rather on the undertones, the poetic undercurrents present. Not only did they give emphasis to the poetic undercurrents, but also to the connotations and the overtones which ?exist in ambiguous relationships to the visual images.?

Related Topics:
1921 - Philippe Soupault - 1919 - Breton - Soupault - Aragon

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Because surrealist writers seldom (if not totally) attempt to organize their thoughts and the images they present, some people find most of their works very difficult to follow.

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Surrealists revived interest in Isidore Ducasse, known by his pseudonym ?Le Comte de Lautréamont? and for the line ?beautiful as the chance meeting on a dissecting table of a sewing machine and an umbrella?, and Arthur Rimbaud, two late 19th century writers believed to be the precursors of Surrealism.

Related Topics:
Isidore Ducasse - Arthur Rimbaud - 19th century

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Examples of surrealist literature are Rene Crevel's, Mr. Knife Miss Fork, Louis Aragon's, Irene's Cunt, Andre Breton's, Sur la route de San Romano, Benjamin Peret's, Death to the Pigs, Antonin Artaud's, Le Pese-Nerfs.

Related Topics:
Rene Crevel - Louis Aragon - Andre Breton - Benjamin Peret - Antonin Artaud

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Surrealism in music

:Main article: Surrealism (music).

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In the 1920s several composers were influenced by Surrealism, or by individuals in the Surrealist movement. Among these were Bohuslav Martin, Andre Souris, and Edgar Varese, who stated that his work Arcana was drawn from a dream sequence. Souris in particular was associated with the movement: he had a long, if sometimes spotty, relationship with Magritte, and worked on Paul Nouge's publication Adieu Marie.

Related Topics:
1920s - Bohuslav Martin - Andre Souris - Edgar Varese - Paul Nouge

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French composer Pierre Boulez wrote a piece called explosante-fixe (1972), inspired by Breton's mad love.

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Even though Breton by 1946 responded rather negatively to the subject of music with his essay Silence is Golden, later Surrealists have been interested in, and found parallels to Surrealism in, the improvisation of jazz (as alluded to above), and the blues (Surrealists such as Paul Garon have written articles and full-length books on the subject). Jazz and blues musicians have occasionally reciprocated this interest; for example, the 1976 World Surrealist Exhibition included such performances by Honeyboy Edwards.

Related Topics:
1946 - Jazz - Blues - Paul Garon - 1976 World Surrealist Exhibition - Honeyboy Edwards

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Surrealists have also analysed reggae and, later, rap, and some rock bands such as The Psychedelic Furs. In addition to musicians who have been influenced by Surrealism (including some influence in rock — the title of the 1967 psychedelic Jefferson Airplane album Surrealistic Pillow was obviously inspired by the movement), such as the experimental group Nurse With Wound (whose album title Chance meeting on a dissecting table of a sewing machine and umbrella is taken from a line in Lautreamont's Maldoror), Surrealist music has included such explorations as those of Hal Rammel.

Related Topics:
Reggae - Rap - The Psychedelic Furs - 1967 - Psychedelic - Jefferson Airplane - Surrealistic Pillow - Nurse With Wound - Lautreamont - Hal Rammel

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Surrealism in film

Surrealist films include Un chien andalou and L'Âge d'Or by Luis Buñuel and Dalí. Jean Cocteau made history in the film world with his surrealist masterpiece, the Orphic Trilogy. These films included The Blood of a Poet (his directoral debut), Orpheus, and Testament of Orpheus (his last film). There is also a strong surrealist influence present in Alain Resnais's Last Year at Marienbad

Related Topics:
Film - Un chien andalou - L'Âge d'Or - Luis Buñuel - Dalí - Alain Resnais - Last Year at Marienbad

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Surrealist and film theorist Robert Benayoun has written books on Tex Avery, Woody Allen, Buster Keaton and the Marx Brothers.

Related Topics:
Robert Benayoun - Tex Avery - Woody Allen - Buster Keaton - Marx Brothers

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Some have described David Lynch as a Surrealist filmmaker. He has never participated in the Surrealist movement or in any Surrealist activity, but there are arguably some aspects of many of his films that are of Surrealist interest.

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Surreal Films

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Surrealism in television

Some have found the television series The Prisoner to be of Surrealist interest.

Related Topics:
Television - The Prisoner

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