Surrealism
- Created by: epearce1998
- Created on: 04-06-17 11:50
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- Surrealism
- Intro Points
- Absolute reality or surreality
- Name comes from Apollonaire in 1917- ref to Nietzsche's superman
- Great artist philosopher with qualities of willpower, creativity and imagination
- Started 1920s by Breton, followed Dada in challenging convention
- Themes of ******ism, dreams, phobias, the subconscious, socialism and symbolism
- Shock tactics to draw attention- seen as first sensationalists
- Freud's 'Interpretation of Dreams' a big influence
- Freud thought the Surrealists were 'quite mad'
- Underlying theme to create images of unconscious worlds and fuel them with animal desire they thought was in everyone
- Latent sexuality by placing objects where they wouldn't normally be
- Dali 'The Great Masturbator' (1929)
- Description
- Distorted human face in centre, looks down
- Could be Dali's own face
- Shape based on natural rock formation in Catalonia
- Nude female rises from back of head - mastubatory fantasy
- Resembles Dali's new muse Gala
- Mouth near thinly-clad male crotch
- Male only seen from wait down- cuts on knees
- Lion's head with lewd tongue sticking up contrasts the limp man
- Locust below central head
- Swarm of ants on abdomen and face
- Other figures arranged in landscape and an egg (symbol of fertility
- Figures walk away, includes child with adult
- Distorted human face in centre, looks down
- Context
- Dali's conflicted feelings towards sex
- Father gave him book of explicit diseases to 'educate him'
- Fascinated and horrified him - associated sex with decay
- Father gave him book of explicit diseases to 'educate him'
- Freudian dream logic of displacement and fetish
- Dali had irrational fear of locusts
- Linked to fear of castration as female locust bites head off male in climax
- Linked to Freudian idea of Eros and Thantos
- Linked to fear of castration as female locust bites head off male in climax
- Suggests that there is only safety in masturbation
- Dali's conflicted feelings towards sex
- Style
- Realistic style to de-rail reality
- Irrational juxtapositions by stringing objects together
- Reality as hallucinatory, irrational and subject to paranoia
- 'Materialise the images of concrete reality with the most imperialist fury of precision
- Surrealist aesthetic of compulsive beauty
- Comparisons made with Bosch's 'Garden of Earthly Delights' seen by Dali in Madrid
- Description
- Miro 'Catalan Landscape: The Hunter' (1923)
- Description
- Highly animated forms- left is stick figure of hunter
- Triangular head, smoking pipe, see beating heart and genitals
- One hand holding rabbit he's skinned, other holds smoking gun
- Far left, French and Catalan flags, balanced by Spanish flag on right
- Squiggly poo juxtaposed with hard edged triangle
- Stretched out along bottom is fish, tries to eat insect which pees as it flies away
- Food chain in which everyone eats, is eaten or excretes
- Centre is disembodied eye- inner and outer eye, source of imaginative imagery
- Everything a sign/ symbol
- Tree just a circle and leaf
- Highly animated forms- left is stick figure of hunter
- Style
- Miro's unconscious imaginings
- Automatic drawing, like a stream of conscious
- Seems child-like and made up
- Embraces surreal idea of psychic automaticism
- Flattened field- lack of depth and space
- Repetition of forms
- More abstracted rather than hyper-realism of other Surrealists
- More of an abstract stream of conscious than calculated precision of Dali
- Emphasis on process not product
- Context
- Jung looked at origins of symbols, worked with Freud
- Believed that symbols were embedded into our culture and hand meaning and value
- Influence of microscopic biology
- 'His pictures breathe ******ism but with a freedom and grace' -Motherwell
- 'Sard' in bottom right reference Spanish dance- memories of home
- Connection to naive, untrained artists
- Cheval's 'Le Palais Ideal' (1879-1923)
- Jung looked at origins of symbols, worked with Freud
- Description
- Magritte 'The Threatened Assassin' (1926-7)
- Description
- Sexual murder story
- Set up like a stage - figure frame door leaving space for viewer to look in
- Centre of room is nude female, laid over divan, towel place on neck, she has been decapitated, blood from mouth
- Unclear who has killed her
- Man by phonograph stands ready to leave with coat and hat
- 3 men look into scene - voyeuristic
- Gazes meet viewer's - we feel threatened
- Hyper realism with recognisable objects
- Context
- Violent and sadistic crime- Surrealist
- Breton likened beauty to series of violent and expulsive shocks
- Said women 'are the most disturbing and mysterious'
- 'Beauty must be convulsive or not at all'
- Men in suits and ties, but crime shows primal desire
- Megaphone said to be replaying woman's scream
- Women common motif for Magritte
- Mother drowned herself and was found in a white shroud
- Influences
- Fantomas - villain from 1900s pulp fiction
- Defied established, was a sociopath and sadistic murderer
- Large scale, almost like a film
- Derived from Feuillade's Fantomas film 1912
- Fantomas - villain from 1900s pulp fiction
- Defied established, was a sociopath and sadistic murderer
- Fantomas - villain from 1900s pulp fiction
- Derived from Feuillade's Fantomas film 1912
- Possibly scripted from violent, ****** poems by Nouge 1926-7, describes same men as in painting
- Borrowed placement of corpse from 'The Murderous Corpse' film (1913)
- Breton argued it was based on murder case of Henry Landrew- killed women for money
- Fantomas - villain from 1900s pulp fiction
- Description
- Intro Points
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