Surrealism


 * Surrealism Home Page

Surrealism and Art** Surrealist art was a style that used images of the subconscious mind, without any intention of making the art logically comprehensible. It was based primarily on positive expression. Surrealist artists tended to avoid logic and reason, logic and reason supposedly hindered creativity. An interesting aspect about surrealist art is that despite its emphasis on the subconscious, the movement includes many works that were well thought out and logically executed, with just the subject matter remaining surreal. Surrealist art was heavily influenced by the psychological studies of Freud and Jung. Surrealism was primarily in Europe. There were many members within the surrealist artist circle. Many members of the dada movement were also attracted to the surrealist movement. There was a great group of surrealist artists from the early 20th century. Some of the members included Max Ernst, Joan Miró, Yves Tanguy, Francis Picabia, and Salvador Dali.

Joan Miró was a surrealist who was influenced by Dada. His artwork looked very child-like, with bright images and colors. Miró practiced automatism, which is automatic drawing and painting, without conscious censorship. Miró definitely had his own distinct painting style, which included very vibrant colors with simple forms. He liked to compare his work to poetry. He also worked with ceramics and sculpting. Joan Miró is quoted as saying, “The spectacle of the sky overwhelms me. I’m overwhelmed when I see, in an immense sky, the crescent of the moon, or the sun. There in my pictures, tiny forms in huge empty spaces. Empty spaces, empty horizons, empty plains-everything which is bare has always greatly impressed me.”Francis Picabia had many things that influenced his surrealist artwork. Cubism, machines, and abstract objects were often used within his pieces. In his pieces he used machines in abstract ways. He took machines and made them abstract, to where they became eroticized objects. Max Ernst was another surrealist artist who was also very much influenced by dada and abstract expressionism. He also collaborated with Miró on pieces of art. He was one of the first artists to use “surrealist” painting techniques. He practiced with decalcomania, which is where engravings and prints can be transferred to other materials, and he also used grattage, as did Miró, where paint is scraped off a canvas. Yves Tanguy was a surrealist who had no formal training as an artist. He joined the surrealist circle and established himself within the group after his very first painting, Les Forains. The painting helped not only establish him as a surrealist, but allowed him to lose his reference to reality. Tanguy’s artwork tended to be possessed by bold color accents and abstract landscapes.

Salvador Dali is usually referred to as the most popular surrealist artist. Surrealism and art cannot be talked about without the mention of Dali. Dali was an artist who dabbled and used many different aspects of art in his pieces. Dali claimed his work reflected images of his subconscious mind. He used poetry, film, symbolism, photography, and sculptures to help create his visions. Many of his pieces reflect dreamlike imagery. Dali enjoyed upsetting people’s “normal” views of reality. He painted regular objects, but painted these objects doing absurd things; floating or shooting the objects across the canvas. Dali may perhaps be responsible for the 20th century idea of an “artist.” It wasn’t only his artwork that was extreme, but also his image and persona. He had an over the top public image, which included wearing clothes that weren’t considered normal at the time and even donning an elaborate long black mustache. Dali’s worked portrayed eye-twisting images and landscapes with symbolic creatures and objects. Elephants, clocks, and eggs were recurring objects in Dali’s work. He was also very much intrigued by DNA and the hypercube. Dali helped associate surrealism with clear dreamlike imagery in his paintings. Dali’s most famous panting is the Persistence of Memory. The painting exhibits a clear dreamlike image of melting clocks scattered across a wide-spread landscape. Dali was a part of the surrealist circle, but often disputed with the other members. Dali often exuberated unusual and grotesque behavior, which he also used in his artwork. Dali clashed with other surrealists because many of them did not approve of content that Dali used in his artwork. Dali was eventually kicked out of the surrealist group, but continued painting throughout his life. Dali still considered himself a surrealist, claiming, “The only difference between me and the Surrealists is that I am a Surrealist.”

Surrealism was more than purely an artistic movement. It consisted of a revolutionary attitude towards life and was also influenced in part by the psychoanalytical experiments of Feud, which emphasized the importance of the unconscious and desire instead of reason and logic. Luis Buñuel is by far one of the movement’s most influential film makers. Often collaborating with fellow Surrealist and film maker Salvador Dalí, the two created scenes in which chickens populate nightmares, women grow beards, and aspiring saints are desired by luscious women. Buñuel is best known for his film Un Chien andalou in which a woman has her eye sliced open with a razor blade. Buñuel’s work grappled with issues that “were and are to do with how to live one’s life in the face of pressures that, in his view, seek to deny life.” (A Companion To Luis Buñuel, Gwynne Edwards) One of Buñuels later films, Cet obscur objet du désir, tells the story of an aging Frenchman who falls in love with a young woman who repeatedly frustrates his romantic and sexual desires. This film was made toward the end of his career in what Linda Williams, Figures of desire: a theory and Analysis of Surrealist Film, calls “the contemporary evolution of Surrealist film. She goes on say, “If Buñuel’s late period Surrealist films have a slick prettiness, a sunny glamour and an apparent story teller delight his [other] films do not have, it is because these qualities have the rhetorical function of reassuring the spectator at the very sight of his or her unease. The slicker and sunnier the films appear on the surface, the more complex and troubling they can often be underneath. “
 * Surrealism and Film**

Just like a bad dream you try to forget but it stays with you all day, Buñuels films have a way of sticking in your head. Rooted in dreams and founded on a revolution, Surrealism pretends to refuse all convictions and makes man express that which generally he does not: the unconscious. Surrealism presents a fragmented and false reality.

Works Cited:

Williams, Linda. //Figures of Desire: A Theory and Analysis of Surrealist Film//. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992. Print.

Edwards, Gwynne. //A Companion to Luis Buñuel (Monografías A)//. Ni puta idea: Tamesis Books, 2010. Print.


 * Surrealism & Theatre**

As mentioned throughout this wiki, Surrealists usually had a hard time working with one another in coherence. This led to many conflicts and one that I found funny was that which involved Jean Cocteau and Andre Breton, a founding member of Surrealism. What entailed was that Cocteau was a Surrealist writer and whenever his play would premiere, Breton would always try to attend. Breton was not attending to cheer Cocteau on, rather he was there to heckle him. Yes, he was there to make Cocteau's show seem like junk compared to other works in Surrealism. In an article by Misek, he states that, " Despite numerous overtures towards Dada and Surrealism in the early 1920s, Cocteau remained on the fringes of these two movements. A major factor in this was André Breton's irrational hatred of him. For many years, Breton would attend Cocteau's openings just for the chance to heckle his enemy"

I found this confrontation to fit in with our theme of what is going on with Surrealism and how no one could work together. They all had similar ideas but nothing would get done because they couldn't get along. Just look back up at Les Six from the music section. They couldn't work together.

Another thing to look at is Antonin Artaud. Just look at the Absurdism page and you'll understand what I mean. Artaud was also part of something not as Surrealistic and that was the creation of the idea of Theatre of Cruelty. Taken from Wikipedia,"Artaud believed that the Theatre should affect the audience as much as possible, therefore he used a mixture of strange and disturbing forms of lighting, sound and performance." Even though Artaud was a founding member of Surrealism with Breton, he had his own view of what Theatre really is. Artaud wanted to put the audience at the edge of their seats and have them think about what they are seeing. He didn't want them to go see it and then forget about it once they walk out of the theatre. Artaud wanted them to walk away talking about what they saw through violence, sexual actions, or anything similar.


 * Surrealism & Music**


 * "Enough of clouds, waves, aquariums, water-sprites and nocturnal scents; what we need is a music of the earth, everyday music . . . music one can live in like a house." - Jean Cocteau**

Music is one of the most malleable medium available. The ability to shift its forces to fit any message or purpose is just one of music’s beautiful qualities. A song has the potential to reach the masses, allowing one interpretation to influence or at least shift society’s attention for a moment. The mere possibility of affecting others is one of the most intriguing aspects of music, yet it is not always the end to the means.

As for the surrealist group Les Six, a group of musicians allied with the Surrealist movement led by Andre Breton, was intrinsically inspired to make their individual surrealist styles of music. They used similar aesthetics to compliment their personal ethics. One of the only things the surrealist musicians in Les Six could agree on is the importance of using non-traditional methods of composition to slowly pry open the minds of the masses. Les Six were dedicated to allowing their music to carry the message that truth can be found once one allows odd or absurd ways of interpreting the day to day life. Les Six comprised of Georges Auric, Louis Durey, Arthur Honegger, Darius Milhaud, Francis Poulenc, and Germaine Tailleferre. "The indifference of the public is what's depressing. Enthusiasm, or vehement protest, shows that your work really lives," said Darius Milhaud. This was the only unifying theme amongst all these musicians. The other prominent musicians of the Surrealist movement included George “Bad Boy” Antheil, who studied under Stravinsky and utilized an aggressive style of composition. He was most famous for hi//s// //Ballet Mécanique//, which used airplane propellers to add emphasis. One of the most famous Surrealist musicians was Erik Satie, who had always been rejected in the music conservatory for his unmelodic and untraditional forms of composition. Satie worked closely with Tristen Tzara, collaborating together through their untraditional views of life, which allows one to discover a new way of life, and by reinterpreting normal situations from alternative perspectives one can allow creativity and ingenuity to thrive.

The Surrealist musicians eventually disbanded, for they all had contrasting views on what the group represented. Some wanted to apply political messages to their music, supporting the Surrealist’s pro-Communism stance, yet some were only focused on the beauty found within the dissidence and incongruities of their music. The group was short lived, but can be paralleled to the Surrealist movement as a whole.

Works Cited:

"Dada and Surrealism." //Oxford Art Online // . Oxford University Press, 2010. Web. 17 March 2010. <[]>. //Hoffman, Irene. "Documents in Dada and Surrealism: Dada and Surrealist Journals in the Mary Reynolds Collection." //The Art Institute of Chicago //. The Art Institute of Chicago, 2001. Web. 17 March 2010. <[]>. //  “Surrealism.” Surrealism Period, Surrealist Artists, Surrealism History & Dali. //The Art History Guide. // 17 March 2010. < []>. rmutt@umich.edu. “The Vice of Surrealism.” //Flightless Hummingbird-A pseudo-periodical //<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 8pt; line-height: 150%;">. 17 March 2010. <[|http://www.personal.umich.edu/~rmutt/dictionary/breton.html?Surrealism]>. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 80%;">"Springtime in Paris: Erik Satie." //<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 80%;">Minnesota Public Radio: Music // <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 8pt; letter-spacing: 1pt; line-height: 150%;">. Minnesota Public Radio, 2005. Web. 17 March 2010. <[]>. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 80%; line-height: 19px;">"Springtime in Paris: Les Six." //<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 80%;">Minnesota Public Radio: Music // <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 80%; line-height: 19px;">. Minnesota Public Radio, 2005. Web. 17 March 2010. <[]>.