OUAN603 - Extended Practice - The Big Surrealism Research Haul

OUAN603 - Extended Practice:

The Big Surrealism Research Haul


What was Surrealism?

• A movement founded in Paris by a small group of creatives
• A means of using dreams, the subconscious, and imagination to create surreal and unusual works
• Inspired by Sigmund Freud and his idea that suppressed emotions and thoughts should be let out and explored
• Use of everyday imagery, nature, and mythology to symbolise dreams and the unconscious 
• Made to make the audience feel uneasy about the world around them - the uncanny
• One of the most distinct movements due to its ease of recognition
• Max Ernst was madly in love with the use of birds, Dali used ants and eggs

When and where did it take place?

• Started: 1924 to 1966 
• Place of Origin: Paris, France

Who were the major artists?

• Max Ernst
• Joan Miró
• René Magritte

Rene, a Belgian painter, is one of the most well-known artists of the 20th century. His unusual take on Surrealism makes his work incredibly unique and his love of repetition made him successful. (He often reproduced some of his most popular pieces.) "His interest in the idea may have come in part from Freudian psychoanalysis, for which repetition is a sign of trauma." - http://www.theartstory.org/artist-magritte-rene.htm

"The illustrative quality of Magritte's pictures often results in a powerful paradox: images that are beautiful in their clarity and simplicity, but which also provoke unsettling thoughts. They seem to declare that they hide no mystery, and yet they are also marvelously strange.

Magritte was fascinated by the interactions of textual and visual signs, and some of his most famous pictures employ both words and images. While those pictures often share the air of mystery that characterizes much of his Surrealist work, they often seem motivated more by a spirit of rational enquiry - and wonder - at the misunderstandings that can lurk in language.

The men in bowler hats that often appear in Magritte's pictures can be interpreted as self-portraits. Portrayals of the artist's wife, Georgette, are also common in his work, as are glimpses of the couple's modest Brussels apartment. Although this might suggest autobiographical content in Magritte's pictures, it more likely points to the commonplace sources of his inspiration. It is as if he believed that we need not look far for the mysterious, since it lurks everywhere in the most conventional of lives." - http://www.theartstory.org/artist-magritte-rene.htm 

• Salvador Dali

"Salvador Dali is among the most versatile and prolific artists of the twentieth century. Though chiefly remembered for his painterly output, in the course of his long career he successfully turned to sculpture, printmaking, fashion, advertising, writing, and, perhaps most famously, filmmaking. (Un Chien Andalou)" - http://www.theartstory.org/artist-dali-salvador.htm

Dali's work features themes of death, eroticism, and the decay of nature and objects. His famous "melting clocks", and "lobster telephone" are amongst some of the symbols that are most associated with him today, and he's known for his eccentricity and striking moustache! He has often been confused as being French, as many painters of the era were associated with France in some way due to its connection with art. However, Dali was in fact Spanish. 

"Dali soon became a leader of the Surrealist Movement. His painting, The Persistance of Memory, with the soft or melting watches is still one of the best-known surrealist works. But as the war approached, the apolitical Dali clashed with the Surrealists and was “expelled” from the surrealist group during a “trial” in 1934. He did however, exhibit works in international surrealist exhibitions throughout the decade but by 1940, Dali was moving into a new type of painting with a preoccupation with science and religion."

"As an artist, Salvador Dali was not limited to a particular style or media. The body of his work, from early impressionist paintings through his transitional surrealist works, and into his classical period, reveals a constantly growing and evolving artist. Dali worked in all media." - http://www.theartstory.org/artist-dali-salvador.htm

Dali was actually expelled from art school after stating that:

“none of the professors of the school being competent to judge me, I retire”

• Man Ray

Born: August 27, 1890 - Died: November 18, 1976 (From Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

As an American filmmaker, painter, and photographer, Man Ray's (Emmanuel Radnitzky) work spanned across many genres, often making it difficult to associate him with one major movement

"Although he matured as an abstract painter, Man Ray eventually disregarded the traditional superiority painting held over photography and happily moved between different forms. Dada and Surrealism were important in encouraging this attitude; they also persuaded him that the idea motivating a work of art was more important than the work of art itself." - http://www.theartstory.org/artist-ray-man.htm

He was fascinated with juxtaposing extraordinary objects and items with the female form. His work "Le Violon d'Ingres", featuring part of a violin overlapping a woman's back, follows her figure and curvature to represent a "human violin". This clever playing around with shapes may have lended itself more to the Surrealist movement, however Surrealism had not evolved just yet, so Man Ray's work could be seen as pre-Surrealism. This image, albeit influenced by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres's "La Grande Baigneuse", has gone on to make its mark in our popular culture. The violin's notorious 'f-holes' have become inspiration for tattoos! 

"In 1915, Man Ray met French artist Marcel Duchamp, and together they collaborated on many inventions and formed the New York group of Dada artists. In 1921, Ray moved to Paris and became associated with the Parisian Dada and Surrealist circles of artists and writers. His experiments with photography included rediscovering how to make "camera-less" pictures, which he called rayographs." - http://www.biography.com/people/man-ray-9452778

What were the major works?

• The Persistence of Memory (1931)

"This iconic and much-reproduced painting depicts time as a series of melting watches surrounded by swarming ants that hint at decay, an organic process in which Dali held an unshakeable fascination. The important distinction between hard and soft objects, associated by Dali with order and putrefaction respectively, informs his work method in subverting inherent textual properties: the softening of hard objects and corresponding hardening of soft objects. It is likely that Dali was using the clocks to symbolize mortality (specifically his own) rather than literal time, as the melting flesh in the painting's center is loosely based on Dali's profile. The cliffs that provide the backdrop are taken from images of Catalonia, Dali's home." - http://www.theartstory.org/artist-dali-salvador.htm

• The Son of Man (1946), Man in a Bowler Hat (1964), The Great War (1964)

Rene seems to have a thing about hats on people whose faces are obscured by unusual objects! In fact, the men in bowler hats are actually self portraits. 

• The Accommodations of Desire (1929)
• The Human Condition (1933)

What were they trying to achieve?

• Trying to explore the inner depths of the mind and translate these findings into art
• Use Freudian theories and dream analysis to work out meaning behind suppressed thoughts and emotions
• Bring science and psychology into the creative industry to create surreal work
• After the years of Dada, Surrealism wanted to bring back a little bit of the traditional whilst keeping modern thoughts and theories alive