Magical Realism Art to Literature

I attribute no special value to the title “magical realism I attribute no special value to the title “magical realism.” ---- Fritz Roh In 1925, Fritz Roh coined the term “Magischer Realismus” to describe a new impetus in art, which eclipsed Expressionism, and represented a return to realism, albeit with a new emphasis. He adds that in this new realism “the mystery does not descend to the represented world, but rather hides and palpitates behind it…”

Magical Realism is: .

Roh identified many artists as “magical realists Roh identified many artists as “magical realists.” Though all unique, Roh provided a unifying definition for this group of artists. Magical Realism--We recognize the world, although now--not only because we have emerged from a dream--we look on it with new eyes. We are offered a new style that is thoroughly of this world, that celebrates the mundane. It employs various techniques that endow all things with a deeper meaning and reveal mysteries that always threaten the secure tranquility of simple and ingenuous things. This [art offers a] calm admiration of the magic of being, of the discovery that things already have their own faces, [this] means that the ground in which the most diverse ideas in the world can take root has been reconquered--albeit in new ways. For the new art it is a question of representing before our eyes, in an intuitive way, the fact, the interior figure, of the exterior world. (Franz Roh, Magic Realism: Post-Expressionism (1925).Magical Realism. Ed. L. P. Zamora and W. B. Faris. Durham: Duke UP, 1995. p. 15-32.)

BackGround INFO--Magical Realism in Art: Germany to The Americas (“New Objectivity”) This art depicted ordinary subjects with a mysterious and detached manner. The subjects painted by these magical realists were ordinary, but presented in a way that was far from boring. Although this movement died out in Germany, American artists like Paul Cadmus and George Tooker painted works of art that closely matched the aesthetics of Roh’s magical realism. Like its German predecessors, these paintings depicted everyday objects with such rich detail that they had a magical quality. Latin America encapsulated Magical Realism in both art and literature.

Magical Realism El Peluquero Zurdo (1949) by Emilio Baz Viaud Self Portrait with Monkey (1940) by Frida Kahlo

De Chirico The Disturbing Muses The Child’s Brain

Otto Dix Suleika, The Tattooed Wonder At The Mirror

George Grosz Three Human Beings The Hero

Characteristics - Fantastical elements As recently as 2008, magical realism in literature has been defined as "a kind of modern fiction in which fabulous and fantastical events are included in a narrative that otherwise maintains the 'reliable' tone and draw upon the genres of fable, folk tale, and myth while maintaining a strong contemporary voice. The fantastic attributes given to characters in such novels — levitation, flight, telepathy, telekinesis — are among the means that magic realism uses in order to discuss the often phantasmagorical realities of present day issues.

Characteristics - Hybridity When the plot lines utilize multiple layers of reality taking place at the same time. Such opposites as urban and rural, and past and present.

Characteristics - Authorial Reticence Authorial reticence is the "deliberate withholding of information and explanations about the disconcerting fictitious world".[ The narrator does not provide explanations about the accuracy or credibility of events described. Note that the act of explaining the supernatural would immediately reduce the legitimacy of this world in comparison to the natural world; the reader would consequently disregard the supernatural as false.

Characteristics - Sense of Mystery Something that most, if not all, critics agree on is this major theme. Magic realist literature tends to read at a very intensified level. You have to be open to the crazy, zany, and wacky stuff going on in these stories. "If you can explain it, then it's not magical realism."

Characteristics - Political Critique Magic realism contains an "implicit criticism of society, particularly the elite".

Recap: Characteristics of Magical Realism Fantastical Elements: "a kind of modern fiction in which fabulous and fantastical events are included in a narrative that otherwise maintains the 'reliable' tone and draw upon the genres of fable, folk tale, and myth while maintaining a strong contemporary voice. Hybridity: When the plot lines utilize multiple layers of reality taking place at the same time. Such opposites as urban and rural, and past and present. Authorial Reticence: The narrator does not provide explanations about the accuracy or credibility of events described. Mystery: You have to be open to the crazy, zany, and wacky stuff going on in these stories. "If you can explain it, then it's not magical realism." Political Critique: Magic realism contains an "implicit criticism of society, particularly the elite".

Recap-Magical Realism Definition Magical Realism is: “the blend of reality and fantasy so that the distinction between the two is erased. Transformation of the common and everyday into the awesome and unreal. “ Elements of dreams, fairy tales, or mythology combined with the everyday. The frame or surface of the work may be conventionally realistic.

From Art to Literature Fritz Roh’s 1925 essay made its way across the Atlantic in translation, and was appropriated by Latin American writers to describe a literary form that seemed peculiarly New World.

Connecting Art and Literature Irene Guenther states “This appropriation of a pictorial term by literary critics has been facilitated by the pliant meanings of both ‘magic’ and ‘realism’ and the ambivalence with which Roh first presented Magic Realism.”