Eloise Hendricks
GSI Matthew Gonzales
Discussion Section 102 (Fri. 11-12)
October 25, 2016
Surrealism, a literary and artistic movement that developed during the 1910s and 1920s, drew inspiration from the Dada movement that preceded it. However, whereas Dadaism claimed to be an anti-art movement, surrealism was not a denial of art but rather an exercise in positive expression with more organization than dadaism. In the aftermath of the rationalist thought that crescendoed into the devastation of World War I, surrealists sought a cultural departure from rationalism. Thus, surrealism represented the rejection of restrictions imposed by reason and society. The movement embraced the unity of the conscious and unconscious minds, as conceived by Freud, in order to foster the fusion of the dream world with reality; in the words of surrealist André Breton, this fusion created “an absolute reality, a surreality.” At once cerebral and seemingly nonsensical, surrealism flagrantly disregarded the limitations of tradition, thereby earning its avant-garde title.
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| The Persistence of Memory, Salvador Dali |
Founded and centered in Paris, surrealism developed largely under the tenets French poet André Breton proposed in his work, The Surrealist Manifesto. The text championed dreams as the foundation of surrealist art and encouraged surrealists to liberate themselves from the banalities of everyday life. Breton’s work, and the surrealist movement as a whole, drew heavily from the ideas of neurologist Sigmund Freud. Freud’s creation of the field of psychoanalysis, particularly its pertinence to the study and interpretation of dreams and the unconscious, influenced Breton’s conception of art in this manifesto. Dreams and the unconscious realm of the mind, Breton believed, were the fountainhead of the imagination, and accordingly the production of all art. The unconscious offered a raw, unfiltered image of human emotion, sexuality, desire, and violence that surrealists sought to harness. Thus, many surrealists used hypnotism and drugs to access their unconscious minds and translate the dream-like images into their artwork.
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| The Blank Signature, Rene Magritte |
The exact characteristics of surrealist art can be difficult to pinpoint, but there are similar aspects between surrealist pieces. Surrealists like Salvador Dalí, René Magritte, Max Ernst, Joan Miró, and Man Ray repeated some devices in various pieces, including levitation, shifting the scale of certain objects in a work, transparency, recurring motifs, and juxtaposition of unexpected or puzzling objects and images. The surrealists’ use of juxtaposition, often through one object that seemed not to fit logically in the context of the rest of the piece, was a means of conveying meaning and disconcerting the viewer. Surrealist artwork was imaginative and illusionistic, sexually suggestive to the point of being explicit, shocking and defiant of artistic conventions.
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| The Son of Man, Rene Magritte |
Surrealist art bears similarities to Lorca’s poems; both employ unconventional and often jarring or unsettling images and can seem irrational at first glance. Moreover, Lorca’s poems and surrealist paintings are sensorially stimulating and evoke strong emotions in their audiences. Lorca and many surrealists used repetition of certain objects to convey meaning. For instance, in his poem “The King of Harlem”, Lorca seems to use the rose as an embodiment of nature to suggest the decay of nature and the rise of industrialization. Likewise, painter René Magritte repeatedly used the motif of the apple as a manifestation of religious and mythological symbolism. Lorca, surrealism, and modernism as a whole rejected the conventions that preceded them and pushed the boundaries of artistic expression.
Identity of Images by Robert Desnos
I am fighting furiously with animals and bottles In a short time perhaps ten hours have passed one after another The beautiful swimmer who was afraid of coral wakes this morning Coral crowned with holly knocks on her door Ah! coal again always coal I conjure you coal tutelary genius of dreams and my solitude let me let me speak again of the beautiful swimmer who was afraid of coral No longer tyrannize this seductive subject of my dreams The beautiful swimmer was reposing in a bed of lace and birds The clothes on a chair at the foot of the bed were illuminated by gleams the last gleams of coal The one that had come from the depths of the sky and earth and sea was proud of its coral beak and great wings of crape All night long it had followed divergent funerals toward suburban cemeteries It had been to embassy balls marked white satin gowns with its imprint a fern leaf It had risen terribly before ships and the ships had not returned Now crouched in the chimney it was watching for the waking of foam and singing of kettles Its resounding step had disturbed the silence of nights in streets with sonorous pavements Sonorous coal coal master of dreams coal Ah tell me where is that beautiful swimmer the swimmer who was afraid of coral? But the swimmer herself has gone back to sleep And I remain face to face with the fire and shall remain through the night interrogating the coal with wings of darkness that persists in projecting on my monotonous road the shadow of its smoke and the terrible reflections of its embers Sonorous coal coal pitiless coal
Discussion Questions
1. How does the surrealist concept of fusing dreams with reality manifest itself in the texts we have read?
2. Based on the Lorca poems we have discussed in class, can Lorca's work be classified as surrealist? Why or why not?
Works Cited
"Identity of Images." Poets.org, Academy of American Poets.
<www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/identity-images>. Accessed 25 Oct. 2016.
"Magritte and the Apple." Itineraries of Taste.
<itinerariesoftaste.sanpellegrino.com/ca/how-we-were/magritte-apple>. Accessed 24 Oct. 2016.
"Surrealism". Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia
Britannica Inc., 2016. Web. 23 Oct. 2016. <https://www.britannica.com/art/Surrealism>.
"The Origins of Surrealism." Art History Archive.
<www.arthistoryarchive.com/arthistory/surrealism/Origins-of-Surrealism.html>. Accessed 24 Oct. 2016.
Voorhies, James. “Surrealism.” In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The
Metropolitan Museum of Art, October, 2004. <http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/surr/hd_surr.htm>.
Willette, Jeanne S.M. "Comparison of Dada and Surrealism." Art History Unstuffed, 17 June 2011.
<arthistoryunstuffed.com/comparison-of-dada-and-surrealism/>. Accessed 24 Oct. 2016.
I really enjoyed your article and how you were able to weave Freudian psychoanalysis, artistic expression, and modernist text all together. Bravo!
ReplyDeleteCrucial to your argument was the idea that "surrealism represented the rejection of restrictions imposed by reason and society." Such a straying from bound limitations is something that is repeatedly found in modernism. In some ways, "Melanctha" played with surrealism through the composition of a story-line so outrageously simple and mundane. In the poems we've read by Lorca, surrealist sound is played with, using a mixture of dream-like images and fantasy to make a political claim about racism in modern-day America. From my perspective, surrealists bring us back to the cold truth of reality (the industrial world) precisely by forcing into dream-state.
In addition to the infusing dreamlike elements with reality, surrealism also deals with the impreciseness and flexibility of time. In "The Persistence of Memory," there are a number of clocks that are melting in the sun and another one that has ants crawling all over it. When people have dreams, time seems to stand still and despite things not looking quite right, people accept the situation at face value. This slipping and mixing of time can be seen in a number of books we read in class from Dos Passos's "The 42nd Parallel" to Nella Larsen's "Passing". Sometimes different timelines move parallel with each other, sometimes time get augmented, and other times short sections of time are abruptly juxtaposed next to each other. I think Salvador Dali was trying to convey the same thing in his paintings.
ReplyDeleteI am not entirely sure Garcia Lorca's poems can be considered as surrealism, although I would definitely agree that they are abstract. In my mind, surrealist art must reference the supernatural or the dream world, whereas in the poetry we've read by Lorca, the dream world is not explicitly stated. Therefore, it is not clear whether Lorca is just making grand analogies and metaphors or if he is phrasing his poems to make them sound as though they are from a dream. Because he does not reference the supernatural and instead uses analogies and metaphors in his wild imagery, I would argue that his poetry is more abstract than surrealist. Of course, this interpretation relies heavily on one definition of surrealism and I'm sure that there are many arguments for and against Lorca's work as included in the body of surrealism.
ReplyDeleteIt is so strange to consider surrealist art at this point. After seeing many of these images on posters in bookstores and coffeehouses for years, it is hard to imagine the initial impact they created. However, your post was interesting. I can't wait to here you speak on the subject.
ReplyDeleteAt the beginning of Their Eyes were Watching God Hearston writes that "the dream is the truth." Perhaps Hearston means that a person's mental state has more importance than the actual world they inhabit. This belief is similar to surrealism.
ReplyDeleteWe can see subtle influences of surrealism in Lorca's work. It's definitely not as obvious as the paintings and works you mentioned in your post. But, it can definitely be argued that Lorca had been influenced by these painters, especially Dalí, who actually lived together for a while. I think surrealism is essential to understanding and analyzing some of the works we are studying right now. Thanks for the piece!
ReplyDeleteThe comparison between surrealism and dadaism is definitely an interesting one. As you said, dadaism was intended as a rejection of art whereas surrealism seems much more to embrace art. However, surprisingly, they both seem to embody modernist ideals that are present across the texts we've read in class so far. I also liked how you explained surrealism as an exploration of the unconscious mind and tied this back with Freud. Very interesting!
ReplyDeleteI think the concept of surrealism is integrated within the structures of the novels and poems we have read that lack organization or linear structure. One example of this would be Janey's story telling of her life in the Muck to Phoeby, which almost sounds like a dream. Hurston toggles back and forth between the present and a folktale story line, which presents the question of what is real and what is not. While Janey's experiences in Eatonville seem more grounded and concise then the Muck, her experiences and growth come to life in the Muck. Perhaps Their Eyes Were Watching God and other texts we have read can be read as surrealist texts because they give credit to the dream.
ReplyDeleteI definitely think that surrealism and dadaism are intertwined with modernism. The unconventional nature of the art form embodies the unconventionalities of modernist literature. Much like people were shocked by surrealism and dadaism, people weren't used to both the way modernist authors structured their texts and the ideas they dared to bring up in them.
ReplyDeleteSurrealism is so fun! I was introduced to surrealism in lower school but your blog post actually helped my understand this movement so much more. I would have loved to read more about how it connects to psychoanalysis. I remember reading once on the internet how Dalí would hold a pencil in his hand over a tin plate as he fell asleep so as soon and he began to dream and the pencil slipped onto the tin can to wake him he could capture the image of the dream. I don't think there's any way and artist could retain much sanity after habits like this! It's such an interesting angle to approach.
ReplyDelete