Introduction to Surrealism Honors English 10/ Mrs. Nardelli

WHAT IS SURREALISM? Surrealism 1924: Originally a literary movement, it explored dreams, the unconscious, the element of chance and multiple levels or reality. “more than real” “better than real” A 20th-century literary and artistic movement that attempts to express the workings of the subconscious and is characterized by fantastic imagery and incongruous juxtaposition of subject matter.

Why Surrealism in 1924? What was happening in the world around this time? World War I (1914-1918) Sigmund Freud Freud's work with free association, dream analysis, and the unconscious was of utmost importance to the Surrealists in developing methods to liberate imagination. They embraced idiosyncrasy, while rejecting the idea of an underlying madness. Marxism: the political, economic, and social theories of Karl Marx including the belief that the struggle between social classes is a major force in history and that there should eventually be a society in which there are no classes The Forest -Hans Arp

Reaction to WWI Physically and psychologically, WWI destroyed Western civilization. “The logic, science and technology that many thought would bring a better world had gone horribly wrong. Instead of a better world, the advancements of the 19th century had produced high tech weapons as machine guns, long-range artillery, tanks, submarines, fighter planes and mustard gas.” Surrealism is significant in the history of art. It rose from Dadaism, which was a movement focused on chance and nihilism. Surrealism represents an important part of history between WWI and WWII, when certain groups, particularly those aligned with leftist groups, like communism and socialism, saw rational thought and technology as the root of the development of machinery and the disasters of war. The artists associated with these groups, saw the unconscious mind as a link that united all human beings and could free them from the restrictions of nationalism.

Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) The father of psychoanalysis In 1900, Freud published The Interpretation of Dreams, and introduced the wider public to the notion of the unconscious mind theorized that forgetfulness or slips of the tongue (now called "Freudian slips") were not accidental at all, but it was the "dynamic unconscious" revealing something meaningful. He said, “Dreams are often most profound when they seem the most crazy.”

“Surrealist Manifesto” Andre Breton 1924> “Manifeste du Surréalisme” “Under the pretense of civilization and progress, we have managed to banish from the mind everything that may rightly or wrongly be termed superstition, or fancy; forbidden is any kind of search for truth which is not in conformance with accepted practices.” Breton explains: “Surrealism is based on the belief in the superior reality of the dream.” At an early age children are weaned on the marvelous, and later on they fail to retain a sufficient virginity of mind to thoroughly enjoy fairy tales. No matter how charming they may be, a grown man would think he were reverting to childhood by nourishing himself on fairy tales, and I am the first to admit that all such tales are not suitable for him. The fabric of adorable improbabilities must be made a trifle more subtle the older we grow, and we are still at the age of waiting for this kind of spider.... But the faculties do not change radically. Fear, the attraction of the unusual, chance, the taste for things extravagant are all devices which we can always call upon without fear of deception. There are fairy tales to be written for adults, fairy tales still almost blue.

Characteristics of Surrealism Surprising and unexpected imagery Influence of Freud Reaction to WWI Symbolism Automatism (free association) Disdain for convention Incongruous juxtaposition of subject matter Dali “Lobster with Telephone” (1936)

Salvador Dali “The Persistence of Memory” Salvador Dalí (Spanish, 1904-1989) 1931. Oil on canvas, 9 1/2 x 13" (24.1 x 33 cm). Given anonymously. © 2010 Salvador Dalí, Gala-Salvador Dalí Foundation / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York 162.1934 If Persistence of Memory depicts a dream state, the melting and distorted clocks symbolize the erratic passage of time that we experience while dreaming. Have you ever woken up and expected it to be still the middle of the night and are surprised to find that it is already morning? While we often are pretty good and keeping track of what time it is while we go about our days, keeping time while we are asleep is another story. There are many different ways to interpret the meaning of Persistence of Memory. If we look at the art through the perspective of a dream state, the distorted clocks don't have any power in the dream world and are melting away because of that. In Persistence of Memory Salvador Dali illustrates how useless, irrelevant, and arbitrary our normal concept of time is inside the dream state. During our daily lives, we're always rushed and busy, trying to get all of our work done on time. Many art scholars debate over whether these timepieces are clocks or in fact pocket watches, very popular accessories in the 1920s and 30s, when the Surrealists worked. The Surrealists laughed at most things middle-class society takes seriously, and that includes the importance we place on things like pocket watches that mark passage of time.

Salvador Dali “Eggs on the Plate without the Plate” Suspended on a string, in the center of the work is a single egg yolk, which Dali said represented himself in the womb. Below that, the two eggs on the plate (curious, that plate, look at the title again) were painted with a shimmering yolk. These represented the piercing gaze of Gala Dali, whom Dali had met in 1929. At the time, she had been the darling of the Surrealist movement, not to mention the wife of Paul Eluard, the French poet. It was said that her gaze could pierce through walls, and Dali is paying her homage here. A large, cubist building dominates the scene, while other objects are attached to the wall facing the eggs. First is a small, dripping watch, a continuation of the theme of the melting watches done in The Persistence of Memory. Above that is a phallic ear of corn, representing male sexuality. Just to the left of the ear of corn is a window in the building, and standing in it, looking out through another window, are the father and son figures that were originally painted in The First Days of Spring, some three years ago. Off in the distance are the rocks of Dali's homeland.

Salvador Dali “The Exploded Head” The Disintegration

Salvador Dali “Metamorphosis of Narcissus” Dali's inspiration for this painting came from a conversation overheard between two fishermen discussing a local man who would stare at himself in a mirror for hours. One of the men described the man as having a "bulb in his head"; a colloquium meaning that he was mentally ill. Dali combined this image with the ancient Greek myth of Narcissus, who fell in love with his own reflection and was transformed into the flower that bears his name after his death. The hand on the right that holds an egg, out of which a narcissus flower grows, echoes the configuration of Narcissus and his reflection in the lake. The same configuration occurs again at the top of the mountains that are directly above the figure of Narcissus, who stands on a dais admiring his body. The familiar sight of ants and a scavenging dog both appear around the hand, symbolizing the death and decay that has taken place. The Metamorphosis of Narcissus was painted using oil on canvas, while Dali and Gala were traveling in Italy. The influence of the great Italian masters on Dali can be seen in the Classical mythic theme to his use of color and form.

Andre Masson “Battle of the Fishes” (1926) 1926. Sand, gesso, oil, pencil, and charcoal on canvas, 14 1/4 x 28 3/4" (36.2 x 73 cm). Purchase. © 2010 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris 260.1937 Gallery Label Text Gallery Text: 2007 Masson made Battle of Fishes by freely applying gesso to areas of the canvas, throwing sand on it, then brushing away the excess. The resulting contours suggested forms "although almost always irrational ones," according to the artist around which he rapidly sketched and applied paint directly from the tube. The image that emerged suggests a savage underwater battle between sharp–toothed fish. Masson, who was physically and spiritually wounded during World War I, joined the Surrealist group in 1924. He believed that, if left to chance, pictorial compositions would reveal the sadism of all living creatures.

Rene Magritte The Human Condition 1933- In the "Human Condition," reality is pitted against its representation to see how well they match up. The painting of a landscape is placed before the window that opens up onto the landscape and the two appear to line up perfectly, except for the nagging suspicion that the so-called reality against which we measure the painted representation is nothing but a representation itself. What is the relationship between reality and image? Magritte makes us question whether the external world we take for reality is not merely an image itself. He messes with the system of things: his art points to an underlying disturbance rather than an underlying order (Mondrian). "Pictorial experience which puts the real world on trial . . ." He is the secret agent man, the sabateur who sabotages our sense of security about the reality of appearances and the appearance of reality. Magritte's highly realistic images end up undermining the authority and certainty of an external world; we start to suspect that the world might only be an extension of what is taking place inside our own heads. "We see the world as being outside ourselves, although it is only a mental representation of it that we experience inside ourselves." The Human Condition

Joan Miro The Potato (1999.363.50) of 1928 by Miró uses comparable organic forms and twisted lines to create an imaginative world of fantastic figures. Source: Surrealism | Thematic Essay | Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History | The Metropolitan Museum of Art The Potato

M.C. Escher Metamorphosis The concept of this work is to morph one image into a tessellated pattern, then gradually to alter the outlines of that pattern to become an altogether different image. From left to right, the image begins with a depiction of the coastal Italian town of Atrani (see Atrani, Coast of Amalfi). The outlines of the architecture then morph to a pattern of three-dimensional blocks. These blocks then slowly become a tessellated pattern of cartoon-like figures in oriental attire. Metamorphosis

M.C. Escher Drawing Hands The lithograph signifies mutual constitution; that is, the principle of one entity being formed by the other and vice versa (like predator–prey co-evolution). However, our minds cannot reconcile how the picture emerged in the first place. If we were to imagine that this lithograph was a dynamic work where the hands would continue drawing themselves, we could easily imagine how the work would end up looking but we could not go back in time and figure out where the first hand came from. It depicts a simple creation paradox where neither hand seems to have an origin (see the post on Terminator Time Travel for another paradox which appears to have no origin point). In Escher's lithograph, the paradox is effective at pointing out the unreality of the image. Like many surrealists works, the image is more effective at defining how the unreal works than the real. The image we are shown does not depict the rules of our world, instead it shows us the magical rules of art--where gravity can be defied, perspectives need not add up and two hands may draw themselves into existence (many of these themes appear in Escher's other work which display fantastic but impossible landscapes). In the world of Drawing Hands, creation doesn't require an origin--like Athena springing from Zeus' forehead, it can be spontaneous. So long as both hand draws the other, we can understand how the image exists by its rules if not ours. Drawing Hands

Jeff Koons Balloon Dog (2013) Jeffrey "Jeff" Koons (born January 21, 1955) is an American artist known for his reproductions of banal objects—such as balloon animals produced in stainless steel with mirror finish surfaces. He lives and works in both New York City and his hometown of York, Pennsylvania. His works have sold for substantial sums of money, including at least one world record auction price for a work by a living artist. On November 12, 2013, Koons’s Balloon Dog (Orange) sold at Christie's Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening Sale in New York for $58.4 million, above its high $55 million estimate, becoming the most expensive work by a living artist sold at auction.[1] The price topped Koons’s previous record of $33.7 million[2] and the record for the most expensive living artist, held by Gerhard Richter, whose 1968 painting, Domplatz, Mailand, sold for $37.1 million at Sotheby’s in May.[3] Balloon Dog (Orange) was one of the first of the Balloon Dogs to be fabricated, and had been acquired by Greenwich collector Peter Brant in the late 1990s.[4] Critics are sharply divided in their views of Koons. Some view his work as pioneering and of major art-historical importance. Others dismiss his work as kitsch: crass and based on cynical self-merchandising. Koons has stated that there are no hidden meanings in his works,[5] nor any critiques.[6] Balloon Dog (2013)

Jeff Koons Sandwiches (2000)