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Surrealism
pure psychic automatism
intended to express
the true process of thought
free from the exercise of reason
and from any aesthetic or moral purpose
mister sands / hmw oao
jem coones
art to the observer is an obsession
art to the artist is an addiction
few groups in the 20th century have been as influential as the
surrealists. surrealism came at a time of dramatic upheaval, both
historically and culturally, and grew to encompass all forms of art, wether
it be drama, literature, painting, photography or cinema. indeed, their
influence was so great that echoes of the breakthroughs made by such seers
as breton, artaud, man ray, and dali can still be heard today.
surrealism rose from the ashes of the defunct dada movement -- which
itself was an inhuman artistic reaction against the inhuman world of world
war one. as with all movements motivated by rage, dada burned out quickly,
and many of it's leaders -- notably andre breton -- went on to embrace the
new surrealist movement. disillusioned by on one hand "the cold and
insubstantial remains of art and literature, and on the other the scorching
analytical specifications of the exact sciences," surrealists were
dedicated to, in breton's words "pure psychic automatism intended to
express the true process of thought free from the exercise of reason and
from any aesthetic or moral purpose". as strongly influenced by the
psychoanalytical ideas of freud, which at that time were gaining prominence,
as it was by the deconstructionalism of dada, surrealism emerged as an
organized movement at the beginning of the 1920's, a period marked by "the
confused and inert stupefaction of a collective bourgeois existence
dedicated to nothing less than the mustiness of the balance sheet."
surrealism emerged not just as a reaction to this bourgeois complacency,
but as an attempt to create art that was closer to the reality of human
existence. in every form, surrealism succeeded admirably in obtaining this
goal, as can be plainly seen from the works of their greatest members:
antonin artaud, man ray, and salvador dali.
any study of 20th century theatre and literature would be incomplete
without mention of antonin artaud, the man who revolutionized the very
concept of theatre. in the pages of his incredibly influential 1937
treatise the theatre and it's double, artaud aimed to transform the stage
into a "sacred ground", wherein the emotions and fury of both the
performers and audience could somehow be purged. this concept of theatre
as a religious act, dubbed the "theatre of cruelty", was without doubt his
highest achievement, but he is also well known for his poetry and essays,
particularly van gogh the man suicided by society -- a stunning indictment
of a society that destroys it's most exquisite and ethereal talent.
the art of photography is a relatively new one, and given the
surrealists' hatred of the "old and outdated", it was only natural for them
to dabble in this new medium. although a number of photographers achieved
great success (names such as brassai spring to mind), the most successful
was surely man ray, who, aside from his fascinating character studies,
mastered the complex surrealist concept of the poetic image -- a principle
best described by the visionary surrealist-before-his-time lautreamont, who
spoke of "the accidental meeting of an umbrella and an accordion on the
operating table". man ray juxtaposed such diverse objects as guns and
lightbulbs, nudes and alphabet blocks, to create a new logic that was the
essence of surrealism.
while man ray's photography may have expressed the truest vision of
surrealism, for most people the movement is defined by one man, the
illustrious catelan; salvador dali. through acclaimed mainly for his
paintings -- his style must surely be one of the most distinctive and
recognizable of all artists -- dali also produced a number of books of both
essays and poetry, a single novel entitled hidden faces, and the film in
collaboration with luis bunuel that took breton's statement that "the
simplest surrealist act consists of dashing into the street, pistol in hand,
and firing blindly, as fast as you can pull the trigger, into the crowd" to
task. the film, un chien andalou, caused a riot at it's premiere -- due in
part to the drunken antics of, among others, dali and artaud -- and
heralded other surrealist films such as artaud's 1924 masterpiece, the
clergymen and the seashell. dali's name was to become synonymous with art
that shocks, disturbs, and challenges perceptions. works such as the
persistence of memory, sleep, and autumn cannibalism are masterpieces of
the modern sensibility and dali's paintings remain among the best known and
best loved works of modern art.
the continuing influence of surrealism goes far beyond the enduring
popularity of salvador dali. ideas developed by the surrealists are still
used by artists today: the montage technique used by innovators such as
toyen, which led to the passion and choas of picasso's guernica, is still
found in the works of modern montage artists such as david hockney; the
"object" principle mastered by such illustrious names as dada founder and
eventual surrealist marcel duchamp, andre breton, and man ray, has found
new life in industrial art's adoption of the assemblage; while photography
has never been the same since man ray. in the realm of theatre, peter
weiss' influential 1964 play marat/sade is a virtual embodiment of artaud's
principles of theatre, and it can be argued that the whole 1960's "be in"
scene is a not too distant cousin of the these same principles. american
beat writer william s. burroughs' technique of fold-in writing is very
similar to tristan tzara's scandalous 1919 rally where he pulled words out
of a hat and called them a poem, and modern american film makers like gus
van sant -- director of 1989's drugstore cowboy -- use a number of
surrealist techniques in their work. it can be plainly seen, then, that
surrealism was no mere flash in the pan, but rather a revolutionary
artistic and ideological movement that dropped a bomb on the complacent
culture of their day, and the reverberations of that explosion can still be
felt today in the work of artists who continue to battle a bourgeois values
and "safe" art.
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Surrealism
pure psychic automatism intended to express the true process of thought free from the exercise of reason and from any ae
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