Surrealism final presentation

Dan AdsitLiz Ferrill

Erin Fowler

SurrealismSurrealism

Liz FerrillDan AdsitErin Fowler6th hour

Background• Founded in 1924 by André Breton (Surrealist Manifesto)• Manifesto stated: it was the means of uniting the conscious and

unconscious realms– The world of dream and fantasy would be joined to the

everyday rational world in a “surreality”– Emphasis on psychic automatism: artist using the interplay

between free creation and unconscious where there is no conscious control

• Major artists include Dali, Magritte, Man Ray, Ernst, and Miró

History• The revolution took place through the medium of automatic

writing– Automatic writing: continuation of writing without thinking

what is beneath your pen, writing as fast as you can, choosing a letter to begin a sentence at random

– Gave an outlet for repressed thoughts and instincts

History Cont.• Dadaism provided a “vital staging point”

– Considered to be the pre-Surrealist phase– Surrealism has a lighter spirit than Dadaism

• December 1, 1924: La Revolution Surrealiste was the “the most shocking review in the world”

• Two distinct groups emerge: Veristic and Absolute Surrealists

Absolute v. Veristic

Absolute Surrealism Veristic Surrealism

•Imagery from subconscious thought

•Suppression of conscious in favor of the subconscious

•Emphasis on feeling rather than analytical aspects

•Images should not be burdened with “meaning”

•Academic art “form” was intolerant of free expression

•Abstractionism was the only way to bring to life images of the subconscious

•Transforms objects from the physical world•“Automatism”: allowing images of subconscious to surface undisturbed•Meaning to be deciphered through analysis•Faithfully represent images as a link between abstract spiritual realities and real forms of material world• Metaphor for “inner reality”

•Academic discipline and form to represent images of the subconscious• Record and “freeze” images

•Language of subconscious=image•Language of conscious=decode and translate image into words

History Cont.

• Surrealists’ Goal: attempt to discover a super-reality – Tap into hallucinatory power of the irrational

• Surrealist poets were reluctant to align themselves with visual artists (laborious process of painting, drawing, sculpting were at odds with spontaneity of uninhibited expression)

• Surrealist movement in Europe dissolved with onset of World War II

• Renewal in the United States around 1940

Influences on Surrealism

• World War I• World War II• Dada• Heisenberg• Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung• Einstein

Joan Miró

Background and Timeline• Born in Barcelona (1893)• Referred to as the “most Surrealist of us all” by Andre Breton• Disciplined, orderly, reliable, punctilious man

Joan Miró Timeline

• 1913-17: Fauvist influence-Close objects with bright, broken colors, decorative ornaments

• 1918: Detailistic phase/poetic realism (farms)

“The Farm”(1921)

Joan Miró• 1923: Move toward sign-like forms, geometric shapes, overall

rhythm• 1924: joined Surrealist group led by breton (never completely

integrated himself) • 1927-28: Images crowded, gradually simplified

“Horse, Pipe, and Red Flower”(1920)

“Air” (1930)

Joan Miró• 1930s: Experimentation with materials, dropped all traditional practices• 1950: Mottled and “painterly” background, touches of colorbut mostly black and white• 1950-70: Monuments and sculptures

“Figur gegen rote Sonne II”(1950)

“Lunar Bird”

(1945)

Constellations

Miró: Paintings• Influenced by:

– Catalan folk art (flat, 2-dimensional, natural forms)– Romanesque church frescoes in native Spain

• Crude execution, simple, flat, cartoon-like images• Primary colors with thick black boundary• Dark surrounding field

– Memory, fantasy, “hunger hallucinations”, informalism

• Grattage: partial images (complete image in mind of viewer), scrap paint off canvas with a trowel, increase texture

• Concentrated interest on the symbol embedded in piece

Miró: Paintings• Paintings have a whimsical, humorous quality (like a 5 year old’s

drawings)– Differences of scale (largest object is most important)– Playfully distorted animal forms, geometric constructions,

organic shapes– Limited range of bright colors

– Overall type composition: encompass entire canvas evenly

– Movement (curves, organic forms)– Characterized by body language and freshness

Harlequin’s Carnival (1924-1925)

Still Life with Old Shoe (1937)

The Garden

Salvador Dali

1904-1989

“Every morning upon awakening, I experience a supreme pleasure: that of being Salvador

Dali”

Dali’s Beginning Paintings

• Landscapes, houses, olive trees, portraits, boats

• Bright and exuberant colors

• Influenced by cubism, psychology, and philosophy

• Finds comfort in art from ambiguous sexuality

• Encouraged by Roman Pichot

• “The Sick Child” (1915)

Mother’s Death

• Switched from portraits and landscapes to images that reflect his tormented soul

• Influenced by Neo-Cubists, Impressionists, and Realists, Hieronymus Bosch’s landscapes of hell“Garden of Earthly

Delights” (1515)

Meeting Picasso (1926)

“Figure on the Rocks” (1926)

“Apparatus and Hand” (1927)

Un Chien Andalou (1929)

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pib9zv1dHcE

“The Enigma of Desire: My Mother, My Mother, My

Mother” (1929)

“The Great Masturbator” (1929)

“Dismal Sport” (1929)

Paranoiac Critical Method

• Induced paranoid state

• Gain greater understanding of world and reality

• Work through obsessions with symbolism

“The Persistence of Memory” (1931)

“The Enigma of William Tell” (1933)

Post Spanish Civil War

“Autumn Cannibalism” (1936)“Soft Construction wit Boiled Beans (Premonition of War)”

(1936)

Post World War II

“Daddy Long Legs of the Evening-Hope!” (1940)

Nuclear Mysticism

• Mysticism: Energy behind Roman Catholicism

• Paintings become more comprehensible to public

• Reflects growing interest in Catholicism and in post WWII science and physics

• Heisenberg replaces Freud as “father”

“Galatea of the Spheres” (1952)

“The Disintegration of the Persistence of Memory” (1954)

“The Hallucinogenic Toreador” (1970)

Andre Breton

• Writer/poet– Published magazine, La Révolution

surréaliste

• One of the founders and leaders of the Surrealist movement

• Main Style:– Automatic writing

“Les Champs magnétiques(The Magnetic

Fields)”(1920)

First piece to employ

automatic writing

The Surrealist Manifesto (1924)

“pure psychic automatism

whereby one’s intention is to express, either verbally or in

writing, or in any other way, the real

functioning of thought”

Les Vases communicants (The Communicating Vessels) (1932)

• Aimed to establish the existence of close connections between dreams and the waking state

Man Ray- “I photographed as I painted, transforming the subject as a painter would”

- “I do not photograph nature. I photograph my visions”

Experimented with new photography procedures:Rayograph: photographs without a camera

-Also experimented with writing, painting, and Surrealist objects

“Le Violon d'Ingres”

(1924)

Untitled Rayograph

(1922)

“Electricity”(1931)

“The Gift”(1921)

Rene Magritte- “An object is not so attached to its name that

we cannot find another one that would suit it better”

- Founded Belgian Surrealist Group, member of Breton’s group in Paris

- Juxtaposed ordinary objects in an extraordinary way

- Methodical in his painting, had mastered the traditional art styles

Querelle des universaux (1928)

La trahison des images (The Treachery of Images) (1929)

“This is not a pipe”

“The Portrait”(1935)

“Golconda” (1953)

“The Human Condition” (1933)

Impact of

Surrealism

Picasso

“Guernica”

Abstract Expressionism: Gorkey

“Garden in Sochi”

“The Liver is the Cock’s Comb” (1944)

Abstract Expressionism: Pollock

“Autumn Rhythm #30, 1950” (1950)

Neo-Expressionism: Clemente

“Water and Wine” (1981)

Sculpture: Hans Arp

Human Concetion Series

Sculpture: Calder

“Lobster Trap and Fishtail”

Photography: Brandt

“London Child”

Fashion: Elsa Shirapelli

“Lobster Dress”

“Shoe Hat”

“Skeleton Dress”

Politics

• Directly: joining or aligning themselves with radical political groups, movements, and parties

• Indirectly: emphasize link between freeing imagination and the mind from archaic social structures

• New Left of the 1960’s and 70’s• French revolt of May 1968

Literature: Joyce

• Stream of consciousness style of writing