Surrealism

The BACKGROUND Surrealism is a French avant-garde movement in art that flourished in the early twentieth century. It was founded in Paris by a group of artists lead by Andre Breton, in 1924. It gained momentum after the Dada movement. Initially, Surrealism originated as a literary movement that experimented with a new mode of expression called automatic writing(automatism), which supposedly released the uncontrolled imagination of the subconscious. Artists who contemplated Surrealism: Salvador Dali (The Persistence of Memory) Renee Magritte (The Listening Room) Joan Miro (Harlequin’s Carnival)

THE Purpose resolve the previously contradictory conditions of dream and reality into absolute reality(a super reality). Disdaining rationalism and literary realism. Artists attempted to portray, express or interpret the workings of the subconscious mind in painting it found expression in two techniques, the naturalistic (Dali) and the abstract(Miro). Surrealism basically aims at: Expressing imaginative dreams and visions free from conscious rational control. Avoid the use of geometric shapes in favour of the more emotive impact of natural organic forms(real or imagined). Interpreting true life imagery in an impossible form or location.

PIONEER OF THE MOVEMENT Introduced in Paris in 1924, by French writer André Breton who wrote the first Surrealist manifesto and Max Ernst a German painter associated with the Dada movement. Dada promoted negative messages because they hated the destruction and loss of life caused by war. Surrealists were different they promoted positive messages.

Sigmund Freud Sigmund Freud, founder of psychoanalysis and the first psychiatrist to discover and analyse the unconscious. Freud believed sexual desire and fear lay beneath the surface of everyone’s mind. Freud believed that human beings repress their desires and urges into the unconscious because they are not acceptable to society.

Freud believed it was healthier if people made their desires aware to the conscious mind. Freud believed the unconscious mind or real desires are revealed in dreams, myths, odd patterns of behavior, slips of the tongue, accidents, and art. Surrealists invented radical new art forms and techniques to tap the unconscious.

Salvador Dali Was a prominent Spanish surrealist painter born in Figueres, Catalonia, Spain. His best-known work, The Persistence of Memory, was completed in August 1931. Dali was highly imaginative, and also enjoyed indulging in unusual and grandiose behaviour. His work had already been heavily influenced by surrealism for two years.

The Surrealists hailed what Dalí called his paranoic-critical method of accessing the subconscious for greater artistic creativity. The paranoiac-critical method is a technique developed by Dali when creating a work of art that uses an active process of mind to visualize images in the work and incorporate these into the final product. As a result, double image or multiple image in which an ambiguous image can be interpreted in different ways.

Duration of the movement Surrealism started in 1920s and ended as an organized movement in 1966 with the death of André Breton stated by some art historians like: “Sarane Alexandrian” but the last movement ended at the start of WWII. But according to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, they stated that “it still goes on” and “It started has a movement, now it’s a genre” and was renewed in the US.   Many other art historians say that Surrealism was killed off mainly by the World War II because most of its pioneers who leaves Europe particularly France by being under the Nazi occupation and went to the United States. Despite their emigration to the US many Surrealist Artist got to spread their ideas more further. Other says that artist like Max Ernst, Juan Miro, Salvador Dali and many others artists were still active in Surrealism until their death. through the 1970s and 1980s. After the War new movement starts to appear such as Abstract, Expressionism, Pop Art and so on.

EXAMPLE OF WORKS

The Eye Like a Strange Balloon Mounts Toward Infinity from the series Edgar A. Poe (1882) The single eye - the all-seeing eye of God - is an old symbol, but is here transformed. The large scale of the eye is the symbol of the spirit rising up out of the dead matter of the swamp. It is a physical organ that looks upward toward the divine, taking with it the dead skull. The aura of light surrounding the main image helps express the idea of the supernatural, as does the nebulous space. The work evokes a sense of mystery within a dream world. However, Redon's works should not be confused with Surrealism, for they are meant to create a coherent, specific idea - the head as the origin of the imagination and the spirit lodged in matter. Also, Redon's works distinguish themselves from Surrealism in that the vision is possible to construct. Redon creates ethereal, macabre visions, but they are essentially realistic visions. As the artist himself wrote, "I approached the unlikely by means of the unlikely and could give visual logic to the imaginary elements which I perceived."

The Palace at 4 a.m. (1932) Giacometti was one of the few Surrealists who focused on sculpture. The Palace at 4 a.m. is a delicate construction that was inspired by his obsession with a lover named Denise the previous year. Of the affair he said, "a period of six months passed in the presence of a woman who, concentrating all life in herself, transported my every moment into a state of enchantment. We constructed a fantastical palace in the night - a very fragile palace of matches. At the least false movement a whole section would collapse. We always began it again." In 1933, he told Breton that he was incapable of making anything that did not have something to do with her. The work includes representations or symbols of his love interest as well as perhaps of his mother. Other imagery, such as the bird, is less easy to interpret. Thus, the work is characterized by its bizarre juxtaposition of objects and a title that is seemingly unrelated to the constructed scene, giving the piece an undercurrent of mystery and tension as if something frightening is about to occur. The work, in its child-like simplicity, captures the fragility of memory and desire. Giacometti's postwar interest in Existentialism is already evident here in how he represents the isolation of the various figures.

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