20th Century Expressions VII: Surrealism 2. Leonora Carrington ( UK, 1917-2011) was one of the women Surrealists. Her art, like other Surrealists, was mysterious and she sought to access the unconscious. She was interested in Nature, magic, alchemy, and the Goddess. Her work contains many symbols that the average viewer would never understand. How could we go about describing this work in the structural frame? This wonderful image by Leonora Carrington is mysterious but also very aesthetically beautiful. Typically the Surrealists were more interested in the results of chance, and the results of accessing an inner reality, over aesthetics…this obviously didn’t apply to Carrington, whose images are lush. This work is finely painted, with use of detail and blended brushstrokes. There is some sense of linear perspective, although it’s somewhat muted, due to to the ambiguous background. There is the confusion of this giant bird seeming to form part of the figure of the woman, which is characteristic of Surrealism in that it is a weird juxtaposition of objects. Leonora Carrington (UK 1917-2011), Portrait of the late Mrs Partridge, 1947, details unknown.

Like other Surrealist images we have seen, this image of Carrington’s is full of symbols. Note the use of space again. This is a recurring aspect of Surrealist practise. What is this use of space telling us, as audience? Surrealist work lends itself to the Structural Frame, because of the symbolic nature of the imagery. Self portrait 1937-8, oil on canvas, 65 x 81cm

Women in Surrealist practice. The ideas behind Surrealism involved liberty and a doing away with middle-class values, restraints and rationalism. Also, Surrealists generally celebrated sexuality (mostly hetero though.) This would theoretically mean that women were accepted fully, rather than as marginalised people. However they were of a time and place where women’s roles were only recently being questioned and challenged. We saw in Dada that Hannah Hoch established herself as an artist, but not without difficulty. Women were more often seen as muses; or supports or inspirations to the main game – that is, male artistic production. <<Picasso, Portrait of Dora Maar Maar was a photographer, painter and poet, however her practice has been overshadowed by her relationship with the most famous artist of the 20th century. Dora Maar (French, 1907-1997), Sans Titre, (untitled), 1934,Photograph. >>

Meret Oppenheim (Swiss, 1913-1985) Object,(Lunch in fur), 1936, teacup, saucer and spoon covered with gazelle hide. Women artists were in fact more a part of the Surrealist movement than in any other Modernist movement (Leslie, 1980, p. 85) and their presence and work eventually had an impact. They were not simply the lovers, partners or companions of the men. However, women were only allowed to show in Surrealist exhibitions from 1933 onwards, with Oppenheim and Valentine Hugo. This image is another example of the Surrealist Object. A ‘readymade’ object – the cup and saucer - is transformed into something symbolising the Wild; Nature; and the erotic. What might a cup and saucer normally symbolise for us? Oppenheim was quite young when she met the Surrealists, and she became the femme-enfant, (the woman-infant) who because of her beauty and youth, supposedly had some special access to the realms of the dream and the unconscious. This of course was an objectification of her, and a denial of her full humanity and her artistic power. Her young and sudden success with the Lunch in fur caused a crisis for her, and she withdrew for 17 years from practice.   Audio clip from MoMa: http://www.moma.org/explore/multimedia/audios/3/59

In a way different to Magritte or Dali, here Oppenheim is representing the human form in a distorted, partially abstract kind of way. These forms are referred to as biomorphic. This type of distortion would go on to influence other artists. Note that the actual figure, though distorted and puzzling, is illusionistic….what about the ground though? How are we to read this image? Oppenheim, Red head, blue body, oil on canvas, 1936, 80 x 80cm

Salvador Dali (Spanish, 1904-1989) Dali, The accommodation of desire, oil and collage on cardboard, 22 x 34cm, 1929 The Surrealists as a group were interested in accessing an inner reality. They were also politically motivated as a group. They regarded themselves as revolutionaries…they didn’t want to fight with weapons of war, but they did want to overthrow the current way society was running…a way that was supposedly rational and proper. They were interested in liberty of all kinds, including sexual liberty. Salvador Dali became notorious as a semi-madman; semi-genius. Many of his images are well known to us. Part of the reason for that is that he was a great self-promoter and a truly eccentric character, which the media (growing in influence all the time during this period) loved. Like many others, Dali was greatly influenced by De Chirico’s spaces. The space used in this work is some kind of wasteland…or perhaps a stage. This early piece includes collage elements (the lions heads). What can we make of the various elements we see in the work? And the lighting? The sparse figuration? Also note the relative scale of objects, especially the ants.

Dali, Soft self-portrait with bacon, 1941, oil on canvas, 61 x 51cm Dali was very interested in Freud’s ideas and used symbols mentioned in Freud’s writings. (To Freud, symbols of various kinds often – usually- end up symbolising the phallus, or envy of the phallus, or fear of castration, or sexual desire of some kind.) Dali played with images which read ambiguously or morphed. He was known to have many obsessions and hallucinations, which he cultivated. He devised and named the ‘paranoic-critical’ method to arrive at images. This means staring at something fixedly…and eventually allowing yourself to see something else in it. It is another way of connecting to the unconscious. Again, consider the landscape around this main figure. Dali often used the contrast of hard and soft in his work. Dali, Soft self-portrait with bacon, 1941, oil on canvas, 61 x 51cm

He collaborated with Alfred Hitchcock on This is a famous example of the Surrealist Object, mentioned last session. It was a new form of artmaking. It comprises two ready-made (already existing in themselves), totally unrelated objects…or perhaps, if we reflect, we could see some relation? Or…not? Why do you think the Surrealists may have been attracted to this art technique? Dali became known to the Surrealists first because of his film, The Andalusian Dog. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vm2E5rTJCtA&list=PL2D885F5ED630353D&index=21&feature=plpp_video He collaborated with Alfred Hitchcock on The design for a dream sequence in the Film Spellbound in 1945. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzxlbgPkxHE&list=PL2D885F5ED630353D&index=23&feature=plpp_video Dali was not only a painter and sculptor, but a film and later, video maker; set designer, jewellery designer, furniture designer. Salvador Dali, Lobster telephone, painted plaster and working telephone, 1936

Rene Magritte (Belgian, 1898-1967) Magritte , like Dali, used a very illusionistic style in his work. He differed from Dali though, in that he didn’t populate his work with morphed creatures. Rather, he cultivated a sense of weirdness and dislocation by using normal things in everyday life. What was the possible intention of this super-realistic style? What effect does this have on us as audience? Promenades of Euclid, oil on canvas, 1955, 162 x 129cm   One of Magritte’s ongoing themes was to question what is real and what is illusion. Work on this theme (he did many of them) brings attention in a new way to the Concept of ‘window on the world’. We saw the Cubists, with their collages, question this illusion. Magritte works in a ‘traditional’ way in the sense that his works are realistic looking and modelled, Euclid was an ancient Greek mathematician Who wrote about geometry and perspective.

Magritte often played with The confusion of interior and Exterior. Clip on Magritte and Reality: http://www.sfmoma.org/explore/collection/artwork/27665 Magritte often played with The confusion of interior and Exterior. What are we to make of the objects in this image? How could these be read as symbols? Personal hygeine items loom large, but yet they are placed carelessly; Wardrobe with mirror may refer to an inner world; Glass could refer to a standing figure, a person, in their bedroom. If it did, then the curves of the glass could read as a woman, and the matchstick as a phallic symbol. Personal Values, 1952,oil on canvas, 80 x 100cm

In a way this image is the opposite of some Surrealist Imagery, in that it doesn’t seem at all incongruous or odd. The effect could be said to be the same though – that is, to ‘shock’ or shake us into some connection with an inner, liberating reality. Magritte’s use of text within the image is informing us. It’s like a kind of signpost, which is in fact what all writing is. It’s pointing out what is real. Possibly. The treachery of images, oil on canvas, 1928-9, 58 x 78cm.

After our ‘Wolf-table’ Surreal Object of last session, check out this fascinating website on NZ artist Lisa Black (thanks Graham): http://www.dyscario.com/design/steampunk-taxidermy-by-lisa-black.html Examining the exam

Q: The Blackstone Tjanpi Weavers are a group of Aboriginal women from 28 indigenous communities in Western Australia. Identify the main characteristics of their artmaking practice as represented in the images below. Plate 1: Blackstone Tjanpi Weavers, Australia. Tjanpi Grass Toyota, 2005. Grass, raffia and a discarded car frame. Plate 2: Kantjupayi Benson, Basket, 2005. Grass and raffia, 30 cm in diameter. Kantjupayi Benson is a leading member of the group. She specialises in coiled basketry technique.

Q: Explain how Jeffrey Smart and Glenn Murcutt have responded to the world around them in these artworks. Plate 3: Jeffrey Smart, born 1921, Australia, living in Italy. Morning, Yarragon siding, 1982–4. Oil on canvas, 100 × 134 cm. Smart painted this picture from a photograph he took of a railway station while travelling in country Victoria. A siding is a section of track off the main railway line. It is used for loading, unloading and storing trains.

Plate 4: Glenn Murcutt, architect, born 1936, Australia. Magney House, 1982–4, Bingie Point, New South Wales. Corrugated iron, steel, glass and brick. This house was commissioned by the Magney family to be built on the location of their favourite coastal camping site.

Resources Metropolitan Museum of Art: http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/1999.363.16 Pompidou Centre: http://www.centrepompidou.fr/education/ressources/ens-surrealistart-en/ens-surrealistart-en.htm#dali Gala & Salvador Dali Foundation: http://www.salvador-dali.org/dali/en_index.html Short, Robert, Dada and Surrealism. London: 1980, Octopus Books Ltd. Dali Exhibition at National Gallery of Victoria: http://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/dali/#id=Dali&num=01 San Francisco Museum of Modern Art: http://www.sfmoma.org/explore/collection/artists/4034?artwork=27665 Leslie, Richard, Surrealism: the dream of revolution. New York: 1997, Smithmark Publishers. Dorothea Tanning: http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/dorothea-tanning-2024 Leonora Carrington: http://www.carringtonleo.5u.com/leoweb/Galleries/glryindex.htm Dora Maar photographs: http://www.all-art.org/art_20th_century/maar1.html