Surrealism
The artistic style of
surrealism began as an official movement shortly after the end of the first world war. In its infancy, it was a literary movement,
but soon found its greatest expression in the visual arts. In general, the style
focuses on psychological states which resemble dreams and fantasy. The artists
were influenced by psychological research of Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung, who
sought to explain the workings of the mind through analysis of the symbols of
dreams. Instead of using psychoanalysis to cure themselves of any disturbances,
the surrealists saw the unconscious as a wellspring of untapped creative ideas.
"A dream that is not interpreted is like a letter that is not opened"
is a famous quote from Freud. The surrealists were less interested in
interpretation of their dream symbols than they were in the expressive capacity
of such states.
The surrealists admired the
artwork of the insane for its freedom of expression, as well as artworks
created by children. They admired previous artists such as Henri Rousseau,
whose naive and self-taught works always contained an element of surreal
fantasy. In addition, they looked for inspiration from masters of the
Renaissance such as Hieronymous Bosch and Pieter Brueghel, whose fantastic elements can easily be described
as surreal. The word "surreal", in fact, means "above
reality". In other words, the artists believed that there was an element
of truth which is revealed by our subconscious minds which supercedes
the reality of our everyday consciousness.
Surrealism Background
Information Taken From:
http://www.eyeconart.net/history/surrealism.htm
Important Literary and Surrealistic Literary Elements
Surrealism -
Pure psychic automatism, by which it is intended to express, verbally, in
writing, or by other means, the real process of thought. Thought's dictation,
in the absence of all control exercised by the reason and outside all aesthetic
or moral preoccupations. Andre Breton
http://pers-www.wlv.ac.uk/~fa1871/whatsurr.html
Automatism - is
a surrealist technique involving spontaneous writing, drawing, or the like
practiced without conscious aesthetic or moral self-censorship.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surrealist_automatism
Displaced Objects Placing seemingly unrelated objects together in an artistic creation in
order to create a new perception of reality.
Metamorphosis
- Merging or transforming one object into aanother.
(Example A mermaid could be
a fish merged with a woman, or a woman transformed into a fish.)
Conflicting Images to create images that seem out of place, out of order
or out of scale, in order to force readers or viewers to question their fixed
sense of reality.
The
Dominion of Light to use a combination of light and dark images in order
to help a viewer or reader understand new realities that they cannot comprehend
in their everyday life. Rene Magritte created sixteen paintings titled the Dominion of Light that are based on this
theme.
Absence and Presence Using viewers or readers interaction with a text or visual in order
to question the absence or presence of objects in a literary or artistic work.
Revolves around the idea that every person will interpret a literary or
artistic creation differently, based on their own sense of reality.
Cubism An
art movement in which artists made paintings and collages using geometric
shapes such as cubes, cylinders and cones.
Paranoiac-critical method a phrase invented by Dali to describe pictures that
can be seen in two completely different ways.
Works Referenced
Bolton, Linda. Surrealism.
Cameo. Magritte.