Unit 5: Art Contextual Studies
Surrealism Essay
Surrealism originated in France, Paris in 1924 and it is known to be a
development of another art movement, Dada. Surrealism shared some Dadaist
ideas, but they set out to be better organized and more relevant to the real
world. Surrealism flourished between the years 1924 and 1950 and it has
influenced the world and has continued to inspire or be plagiarized in industries
such as; literature, advertising, fashion, the press, film and in other art
movements, such as Fluxus and Abstract Expressionism. Deeply influenced by
psychoanalysis, writers and artists attempted to tap into the repressed realm of
the unconscious mind in order to liberate culture from conscious logic and
reason. The word surreal is now in common usage, but it did not exist until 1917
when Guillaume Apollinaire first invented the expression. Surrealism happened
during a time after the Great War, Andre Breton, a French doctor who had fought
in the trenches during the First World War, led it. I will be discussing about wellknown Surrealist painters such as René Magritte, Salvador Dalí, Joan Miró,
Alberto Giacometti and Max Ernst later on in this essay.
The term “Surrealists” is used to describe particular artists who stop thinking
consciously and let their unconscious mind take over. This simply means
allowing their pens, pencils or paintbrushes to make marks such as lines, words
or shapes. This technique of using the unconscious mind was strongly influenced
by the theories of Sigmund Freud who is a famous psychologist, best known for
developing the theories and techniques of psychoanalysis. Freud’s idea of the
unconscious mind having the creative potential in art is that the neuroses caused
by memories and desires that had been repressed from the conscious mind to
the unconscious. He believes that the unconscious mind was the source of
imagination and it should be accessed to achieve maximum creativity.
Furthermore, there seem to have three main approaches regarding Surrealism
and unlocking the unconscious mind. First, it was Automatism, the creation of
imagery through mechanical techniques in order to stimulate imagination.
Second technique was collage and ‘frottage’, which was created and discovered
in 1925 by Max Ernst. It involved rubbing a pencil or almost-dry paintbrush on
paper or textile placed over an object with an uneven surface, revealing the
texture of the under-lying object. The second and third technique was said to be
“more enduring”. ‘Grattage’, which involved scratching the painted surface on
the canvas with pointed tools to make it more tactile and ‘Decalcomania, which
involved pressing liquid paint between two canvases and then pulling the
canvases apart to produce ridges and bubbles of pigment.
They were realistic or dream-like; a good example of this technique shown in
artist’s works would be René Magritte. These artists continually tried to work
towards an internal image, which was either improvised through automatism or
represented an inner vision. However, what was common between automatism
and dream-like works were their visionary, poetic and metaphorical treatment
of their subjects. Viewers would often be challenged in their own perspectives
because the dream-like visuals cause them to become more skeptical. The works
of a Surrealist are often seen as illogical and abstract because a surreal painting
looks more than real, in other words, beyond realistic.
Unit 5: Art Contextual Studies
Surrealism Essay
The surrealists did not paint non-representational pictures. All Miro’s, Masson’s
and Arp’s works, however abstract they appear, the works always relate to or at
least suggest a subject. Out of these three artists, I personally find Joan Miro’s
style of work more eye-catching and engaging to the audience. Joan Miro who is
a Catalan painter born in Barcelona, Spain combines abstract art with Surrealist
fantasy to create his lithographs, murals, tapestries and sculptures for public
spaces. He was known for his signature colourful, biomorphic forms, roughly
geometric shapes, and recognizable objects are expressed in multiple media
forms, from ceramics to engravings to large bronze installations.
‘The Beautiful Bird Revealing the Unknown to a Pair of Lovers’ by Joan Miro was
created in 1941, when he set his mind to create new challenges in composition.
When you take a quick look at this mixed media piece using gouache, oil wash
and charcoal on paper, visuals of a tiger, human eye may strike you from the
crowd of geometric shapes. It has a solid colour background that emphasizes the
simplified forms and lines that when put together, mimics the appearance of a
complex constellation in the night sky. The entire sheet of paper is covered with
hourglass shapes and different forms suggesting stars, eyes, triangles, and
crescents that are linked by black thin lies to evoke fantastical thoughts. The
overall impression of this piece is very overwhelming and busy as the whole
piece if full of geometrics that are all linked together to form the constellation.
In the middle of producing the constellation series, he experienced a personal
crisis, which was triggered by the Spanish Civil War and World War 2. Miró was
forced to flee with his family from France to Mallorca to escape advancing
German troops. As an audience, you can easily sense how Miró was feeling when
he was able to complete this piece of work after having to flee. Miro often
referred his constellation collection to himself; it is a contrast of the dark period
of time. Their consistent strength, vivid colours, and poetry provided a striking
contrast. The crowded, chaotic feeling of these compositions in some ways
reflect Miró’s feelings regarding in the violence in Europe at the time. The colour
palette is dull and toned down, which depicts sadness. Although the background
is dull, the foreground is slightly more colourful with some geometric shapes
filled in with brighter colours. This could imply that there is hope within the
dullness, which could reflect back to the personal crisis he experienced.
Unit 5: Art Contextual Studies
Surrealism Essay
His artworks are often seen as it being illogical and abstract as he makes use of
geometric shapes and vibrant colours. I think he has a tendency of drawing
multiple small objects that all represent a certain thing or is relatable to his own
life. Taking this piece of artwork as an example, it represents what Surrealist
artists do because although the painting means something to Miro, to the
audience, it looks as if he drew them randomly once inspirations strikes him. No
one would be able to tell that he has actually planned out the composition that
makes up to a constellation as the black thin lines looks really random.
Joan Miro took inspiration from the publication of Sigmund Freud’s ‘The
Interpretation of Dreams’ similar to other Surrealists. In the book published in
1899 ‘The Interpretation of Dreams’, he identified a part of the human mind
where memories, intuition and our most fundamental instincts are stored. Freud
called this the unconscious and he also believed that the unconscious could be
accessed through certain methods. One of the methods to help unlock the
unconscious was the technique ‘free association’, where a person does not think
rationally. Other than this inspiration source, Miro also took inspiration from the
night, from music, and from the stars to create the image of the constellations.
Miro tested the limits of representation and relying on the imagination rather
than the objective world, and also identified an aesthetic point of no return.
While Miro’s imagination is juxtaposed with simple, recognizable forms,
Salvador Dali revisited the memories from his childhood and explored the theme
of Paranoia in some of his works. Dali’s childhood memories was particularly
memorable and depressing because his mother was not very well and he was
usually left alone with his father who was a very violent figure. His father would
not tolerate Dali’s outburst and would punish him severely, which led Dali to
having an unforgettable childhood.
Dali was strongly influenced by the dream-like works of the Italian painter
Giorgio de Chirico but his main influence in his personal life and in many of his
paintings is his wife, Gala. His major contribution to the Surrealist movement
was what he called the “paranoiac-critical method”, a mental exercise of
accessing the subconscious to further enhance a person’s creative thinking. He
believed that this method could avoid having to politically conquer the world. He
felt that by using his own vision to colour reality to his liking, it would become
unnecessary to actually change the world. Other than that, Dali’s paintings
became associated with three general themes, man’s universe and sensations,
sexual symbolism and ideographic imagery.
In 1929, he expanded his artistic exploration into the world of filmmaking when
he collaborated with Luis Buñel on the film Un Chien andalou (An Andalusian
Dog). This film was known for its opening scene- a stimulated slashing of a
human eye by a razor.
I feel that one of Dali’s most significant Surrealism painting would be ‘La Main’
(1930) although he was known for his melting clocks, which could be seen in
‘The persistence of memory’. La Main basically means ‘The Hand’ and the
painting depicts a woman’s face with medusa-like hair, which is thought to have
Unit 5: Art Contextual Studies
Surrealism Essay
been inspired by an Art Nouveau pin box owned by Dali. It also depicts a scrolllike base, which the man sits in, founded on a turn-of-the-century base of a statue
in Barcelona.
In this painting, it seems unrealistic to have such a big figure in the middle of
nowhere. As an audience, you can tell that the figure is actually big in size
because of the tiny human beings drawn below and around the figure. They are
scattered around and their faces are unclear, making it hard for the audience to
depict their emotions. Although the emotions are not clear, from the way Dali
painted the humans, it seems as if they are in their family groups and a few of
them look horrified from the way they are positioned. This could be related to
World War 1 to a certain extent because the theme death seems to be portrayed
by the figure and the colour palette used. The man sitting on the base looks
abnormal with bloodstains on his face and on his trousers. Another thing that is
abnormal is his hand that has been stretched out to reach for something. The
arm of his is small and it slowly grows to a bigger size once it reaches the mid
part of the hand. This style of surrealism could be seen as dream-like images
where things seem unreal from the audience’s point of view. The colour used in
the background also seems dream-like and it emphasizes how close the sky is to
the human beings and the figure that is dominating the whole area. The fact that
Dali purposely made a contrast in the sizes of the subjects in the painting shows
that he wanted to portray the power there is within the figure. Dali’s manner of
revealing the gap between reality and illusion influenced all manner of modern
artists. He is considered one of the major Surrealists who used shock to illustrate
moments of pleasure.
Similar to Salvador Dali, Rene Magritte would also be thought of when people
come across the word ‘Surreal’. Dali is perhaps the only other Surrealist whose
work could be compared to Magritte’s because they both share a similar
technique and working style.
Rene Magritte was born in Lessines, Belgium and he was the most celebrated
Belgian artist of the twentieth century with his approach in Surrealism.
Repetition was an important strategy for Magritte, informing not only his
handling of motifs within individual pictures, but also encouraging him to
produce multiple copies of some of his greatest works. His interest in the idea of
repetition may have come from Freudian psychoanalysis, for which repetition is
a sign of trauma. Magritte would leave objects incomplete and play with their
placement in reality, playing with logic. His works often did not provide answers,
but only confusion and questions as to why.
Unit 5: Art Contextual Studies
Surrealism Essay
One of my favorite Surrealism paintings done by Magritte is ‘Le modèle rouge’
which was produced in 1937. It is a very good example of Surrealism because it
demonstrates the illogicalness and randomness depicted by the pair of men’s
leather boots on a sand and gravel ground, against a backdrop of grained
wooden planks.
It is thought that Max Ernst suggested the idea to Magritte, having seen the motif
on the sign of a cobbler’s shop in Touraine. The colour palette of this painting is
restricted by the visual elements to only browns and ochre. The overall
impression of it is very dull and vintage-like. Everything seems to match up
together and nothing really stands out from the piece as everything has an equal
significance. In Magritte’s ‘Le modèle rouge’, he often blocked a subject’s face
with a hanging object to challenge human assumptions to a certain extent and
placed ordinary objects in unusual contexts to give new meaning and thoughts to
familiar things. Just like this painting has shown, the surrealist detail lies in the
fact that the front of the boots naturally transforms into a pair of human feet.
This is when the audience question themselves, “why does the pair of shoes not
have a closure in front but instead a pair of human feet?” This piece of work gives
a sense of humor because it is so unusual to be able to apply this to real life.
Magritte’s work has a deep emphasis on concept and its close association with
commercial art, focusing on every objects.
Moving on to another Surrealist Max Ernst, he was born into a middle-class
Catholic family in Germany, near Cologne. He was a shocking and innovative
artist who accessed his unconscious for dream-like imagery that mocked social
conventions. A soldier in World War 1, Ernst emerged deeply traumatized and
highly critical of western culture. This was the start of the basis of his artwork; it
allowed his vision to change to thinking that the modern world is irrational.
Ernst attacked the conventions and traditions of art; he questioned the
importance of art by creating non-representational works without clear
narratives. He was one of the first artists to apply Sigmund Freud’s dream
theories in order for him to explore his own creativity. He has attempted to
freely paint from his inner mind and in an attempt to reach the early
development stage, which one is not yet able to communicate by means of
words, preverbal state. From this attempting, he expressed his early emotions
Unit 5: Art Contextual Studies
Surrealism Essay
and revealed his personal traumas, which then became the subject of his collages
and paintings.
‘Pieta or revolution by night’ produced in 1923 explores one of the great themes
of European religious art. He is interested in Psychology, not religion.
This surrealist painting depicts a man, the artist himself supported in the arms of
a kneeling bowler-hatted figure. Neither the supported nor the supporting figure
seems full alive because the grey flesh of the one held up is like a recreation of a
stone or a ghost. The bowler-hatted helper is brown, like a figure of clay or wood.
The colours have a great significance in this piece as it easily depicts emotions
and new thoughts, depending on the audience. In the background, there is a
device that looks as if it is receiving messages from this realm of the unreal, in
surrealist terms, the realm of dreams.
Ernst is trying to recreate the pitiful moment when Mary supports her dead son
Christ on her lap, which flourished as a sculptural genre. Ernst attacked the
conventions of traditions of art and was one of the first artists to apply Freud’s
dream theories in order for Ernst to explore the source of his own creativity.
The most important contribution to Surrealist sculpture is probably Alberto
Giacometti’s work of the 1930s. He explored themes deriving from Freudian
psychoanalysis, like sexuality, obsession and trauma and developed a variety of
different sculptural objects. The sculptures almost encourage the audience to
physically interact with them, an idea which was very radical at the time.
Although in 1950s, the art world in both Europe and United States was
dominated by abstract painting, Giacometti’s figurative sculpture came to be a
hugely influential model. He is best remembered for his figurative work, which
helped make the motif of the suffering human figure a popular symbol of postwar trauma. His figures represented human beings alone in the world, turned in
on them and failing to communicate with people, despite their overwhelming
desire to reach out.
Unit 5: Art Contextual Studies
Surrealism Essay
One of my favorite works done by Giacometti is ‘La table Surrealiste’ produced in
1933. The form of the sculpture is abnormal as the hand of the women is
misplaced on the table. This could be described as an oneiric surreal piece
because it is dream-like and not realistic. It almost questions the audiences’
judgment, as the audience would have to observe it a several times.
Sculptures are unlike paintings; it is better to actually be there to see the finished
piece rather than seeing an image of it. From this point of view of the image, it
looks as if the table of the sculpture is not touching the floor but is hanging in
mid air. This is only the case if the sculpture is view on image from this
perspective. The women in the image covered with a head cloth reminds me of
Mother Theresa who was a lifesaver in the history. One of her eyes is covered
and the eye that is not covered seems to have no eyeballs. This could mean that
she is disabled or injured because one of her eyes is covered and she looks
shocked. The positioning of her hands is not positioned properly as where a
normal hand should be placed. This deliberate misplacement makes the
sculpture look more abstract because it is random and illogical. The hand is
obviously chopped off from the body of the women because you can see the
disconnection at the wrist area. Although colours cannot depict any emotions
from this sculpture, from what I observed, it seems to depict sadness and
trauma. It is illogical because the body part of the women is missing and it is just
floating in mid air while her hand is being removed and put in front of her. The
hand sign it is showing looks as if the women is pointing to the other side or
asking someone to handshake her. This is an example of how Giacometti makes
use of his composition to make the audience feel engaged and physically interact
with the sculpture. Giacometti’s work of the 1930s represents probably the most
important contribution to Surrealist sculpture. He explored the themes derived
from Freudian psychoanalysis, like sexuality, obsession and trauma.
Surrealism in general is very influential, as it has influenced contemporary
culture, art, cinema, fashion and literature. It might not be noticeable but the
elements of Surrealism are still used up until this day, and are all around us. The
unconscious played a large role in surrealist works and one of the underlying
themes was to try to create images of unconscious worlds after accessing the
unconscious mind. It was achieved through the use of symbolism and the placing
Unit 5: Art Contextual Studies
Surrealism Essay
of objects where they wouldn’t normally be to create a whole new meaning. This
would also give the objects a new life outside of the one in conventional reality.
Such techniques are widely and successfully used in advertising today in order to
manipulate the common perception of the product advertised.
In this sense, this art movement was one of the leading influences, certainly in
painting and sculpture and also perhaps culturally, in the 20th century.
Regarding the influence of Surrealism on Fashion, Salvador Dali had some very
interesting connections with Fashion although some of his costume designs were
not wearable; it has always been treated as a fashionable art piece. He once
collaborated with the great Surrealist of fashion, Elsa Schiparelli, one of the most
original fashion designers of the 20th century. They created the Lobster Dress in
1937, based around the lobster motif, which was inspired by Dali’s Lobster
Telephone. The ideas of the Lobster Dress have developed further more
nowadays but Dali and Schiparelli influenced it.