Surrealism

Surrealism is a cultural, artistic, and intellectual movement oriented toward the liberation of the mind by emphasizing the critical and imaginative faculties of the "unconscious mind" and the attainment of a state different from, "more than", and ultimately "truer" than everyday reality: the "sur-real", or "more than real". For many Surrealists, this orientation toward transcending everyday reality toward one that incorporates the imaginative and the unconscious has manifested itself in the intent to bring about personal, cultural, political and social revolution, sometimes conceived or described as a complete transformation of life by freedom, poetry, love, and sexuality. In the words of Andr? Breton, generally regarded as the founder of surrealism: "beauty will be convulsive or not at all." At various times individual surrealists aligned themselves with communism and anarchism to advance radical political and social change, arguing that only transformed institutions of work, the family, and education could make possible a general participation to the surreal. The word "surreal" is often used colloquially to describe unexpected juxtapositions or use of non-sequiturs in art or dialog, particularly where such juxtapositions are presented as self-consistent [1]. However, this usage has been more or less harshly criticised by surrealists.

Philosophy

Surrealist philosophy emerged around 1920, partly as an outgrowth of Dada, with French writer Andr? Breton as its initial principal theorist. In Breton's Surrealist Manifesto of 1924 he defines Surrealism as: Dictionary: Surrealism, n. Pure psychic automatism, by which one proposes to express, either verbally, or in writing, or by any other manner, the real functioning of thought. Dictation of thought in the absence of all control exercised by reason, outside of all aesthetic and moral preoccupation. Encyclopedia: Surrealism. Philosophy. Surrealism is based on the belief in the superior reality of certain forms of previously neglected associations, in the omnipotence of dream, in the disinterested play of thought. It tends to ruin once and for all other psychic mechanisms and to substitute itself for them in solving all the principal problems of life." Breton would later qualify the first of these definitions by saying "in the absence of conscious moral or aesthetic self-censorship", and by his admission, through subsequent developments, that these definitions were capable of considerable expansion. Like those involved in Dada, adherents of Surrealism thought that the horrors of World War I were the culmination of the Industrial Revolution and the result of the rational mind. Consequently, irrational thought and dream-states were seen as the natural antidote to those social problems. While Dada rejected categories and labels and was rooted in negative response to the First World War, Surrealism advocates the idea that ordinary and depictive expressions are vital and important, but that the sense of their arrangement must be open to the full range of imagination according to the Hegelian Dialectic. The Marxist dialectic and other theories, such as Freudian theory, also played a significant role in some of the development of surrealist theory and, as in the work of such theorists as Walter Benjamin and Herbert Marcuse, surrealism contributed to the development of Marxian theory itself. The Surrealist diagnosis of the "problem" of the realism and capitalist civilization is a restrictive overlay of false rationality, including social and academic convention, on the free functioning of the instinctual urges of the human mind. Surrealist philosophy connects with the theories of psychiatrist Sigmund Freud. Freud asserted that unconscious thoughts (the thoughts of which one is not aware) motivate human behavior, and he advocated free association (uncensored expression) and dream analysis to reveal unconscious thoughts. It is through the practice of automatism, dream interpretation, and numerous other surrealist methods that Surrealists believe the wellspring of imagination and creativity can be accessed. Surrealism also embraces idiosyncrasy, while rejecting the idea of an underlying madness or darkness of the mind. Salvador Dal?, who is considered to have been quite idiosyncratic, explained it as "The only difference between myself and a madman is I am not MAD!" Surrealists look to so-called "primitive art" as an example of expression that is not self-censored. The radical aim of Surrealism is to revolutionize human experience, including its personal, cultural, social, and political aspects, by freeing people from what is seen as false rationality, and restrictive customs and structures. As Breton proclaimed, the true aim of Surrealism is "long live the social revolution, and it alone!". To this goal, at various times Surrealists have aligned with communism and anarchism. Not all Surrealists subscribe to all facets of the philosophy. Historically many were not interested in political matters, and this lack of interest created rifts in the Surrealism movement. By the turn of the 21st century, Surrealist philosophy varied amongst Surrealist groups around the globe. Some Surrealist theorists have stated that Surrealism has somehow "gone beyond" or "superseded" philosophy, or that philosophy has been "outclassed" by Surrealism.

History of Surrealism

In 1917, Guillaume Apollinaire coined the term "surrealism" in the program notes describing the ballet Parade which was a collaborative work by Jean Cocteau, Erik Satie, Pablo Picasso and L?onide Massine: From this new alliance, for until now stage sets and costumes on one side and choreography on the other had only a sham bond between them, there has come about, in 'Parade', a kind of super-realism ('sur-r?alisme'), in which I see the starting point of a series of manifestations of this new spirit ('esprit nouveau').' The Surrealist movement mainly originated in the Dada movement. While the movement's most important center was Paris, it spread throughout Europe and to North America, Japan and the Caribbean during the course of the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s, by the 1960s to Africa, South America and much of Asia and by the 1980s to Australia. There have even been some manifestations of surrealism in Russia and China. Some historians mark the end of the movement at World War II, some with the death of Andr? Breton, some with the death of Salvador Dal?, while others believe that Surrealism continues as an identifiable movement.

Split from Dada

Breton's Surrealist Manifesto of 1924 and the publication of the magazine La R?volution surr?aliste (The Surrealist Revolution) marked the split from the more Dada oriented Surrealists centred round Tristan Tzara. Five years earlier, Breton and Philippe Soupault wrote the first "automatic book" (spontaneously written), Les Champs Magn?tiques. By December of 1924, the publication La R?volution surr?aliste edited by Pierre Naville and Benjamin P?ret and later by Breton, was started. Also, a Bureau of Surrealist Research began in Paris and was at one time, under the direction of Antonin Artaud. In 1926, Louis Aragon wrote Le Paysan de Paris, following the appearance of many Surrealist books, poems, pamphlets, automatic texts and theoretical works published by the Surrealists, including those by Ren? Crevel. Many of the popular artists in Paris throughout the 1920s and 1930s were Surrealists, including Ren? Magritte, Joan Mir?, Max Ernst, Salvador Dal?, Alberto Giacometti, Valentine Hugo, M?ret Oppenheim, Man Ray, Toyen and Yves Tanguy. Though Breton adored Pablo Picasso and Marcel Duchamp and courted them to join the movement, they did not join. The Surrealists developed techniques such as automatic drawing (developed by Andr? Masson), automatic painting, decalcomania, Frottage, fumage, grattage and parsemage that became significant parts of Surrealist practice. (Automatism was later adapted to the computer.) Games such as the exquisite corpse also assumed a great importance in Surrealism. Although sometimes considered exclusively French, Surrealism was international from the beginning, with both the Belgian and Czech groups developing early; the Czech group continues uninterrupted to this day. Some of what have been described as the most significant Surrealist theorists such as Karel Teige from Czechoslovakia, Shuzo Takiguchi from Japan, Octavio Paz from Mexico, also Aim? C?saire and Ren? Menil from Martinique, who both started the Surrealist journal Tropiques in 1940, have hailed from other countries. The most radical of Surrealist methods have also originated in countries other than France, for example, the technique of cubomania was invented by Romanian Surrealist Gherasim Luca. Interwar Surrealism: Centrality of Breton Breton, as the leader of the Surrealist movement, not only published its most thorough explanations of its techniques, aims and ideas, but was the individual who drew in, and expelled, writers, artists and thinkers. Through the interwar period he formed the focus of Surrealist activity in Paris, and his writings were enormously influential in spreading Surrealism as a body of thought, in such works Nadja (1928), the Second Surrealist Manifesto (1930), Communicating Vessels (1932), and Mad Love (1937). To further the revolutionary aim of Surrealism, in 1927 Breton and others joined the Communist Party. Breton was ousted from the Party in 1933. The late 1920s were turbulent for the group as several individuals closely associated with Breton left, and several prominent artists entered. Surrealism continued to expand in public visibility. The high water mark, in Breton's own estimation, was the 1936 London International Surrealist Exhibition. In 1937, Breton (on visit to Mexico) and Leon Trotsky co-authored a Manifesto for an independent revolutionary art[2] on the need for a permanent revolution, and attacked Stalinism and Socialist realism, as the "negation of freedom". Surrealism also attracted writers from the United Kingdom to Paris including David Gascoyne, who became friends with Paul ?luard and Max Ernst, and translated Breton and Dal? into English. In 1935 he authored A Short Study of Surrealism, and then returned to England during the World War II, where he roomed with Lucian Freud and continued to write in the Surrealist style for the remainder of his life. Ac?phale was one splinter group that formed (mid-1930s). The group was comprised of some of those disaffected by what they claimed was or what they saw as Breton's increasing rigidity, and structured as a "secret society". Led by Bataille, they published Da Costa Encyclopedia meant to coincide with the 1947 Surrealist exhibition in Paris.

Surrealism during World War II

The rise of Adolf Hitler and the events of 1939 through 1945 in Europe, for a time overshadowed almost all else. However, after the war, Breton continued to write and espouse the importance of liberating of the human mind. For example in The Tower of Light in (1952). In 1941, Breton went to the United States, where he founded the short lived magazine VVV, which boasted high production values and a great deal of content. However, its content was increasingly in French, not English. It was American poet Charles Henri Ford and his magazine View which offered Breton a channel for promoting Surrealism in the United States. Ford and Breton had an on/off relationship. Breton felt that Ford should work more specifically for Surrealism and Ford, for his part, resented what he felt to be Breton's attempts to make him "toe the line". Nevertheless, View published an interview between Breton and Nicolas Calas, as well as special issues on Tanguy and Ernst and in 1945, on Marcel Duchamp. The View special issue on Duchamp was crucial for the public understanding of Surrealism in America. It stressed his connections to Surrealist methods, offered interpretations of his work by Breton, as well as Breton's view that Duchamp represented the bridge between early modern movements, such as Futurism and Cubism, to Surrealism. Breton's return to France after the Second World War, began a new phase of surrealist activity in Paris, one which attracted considerable attention. Membership in the Paris Surrealist Group and interest in it, climbed to above pre-war levels. Breton's critiques of rationalism and dualism, found a new audience after the Second World War, as his argument that returning to old patterns of behavior would ensure a repeated cycle of conflict seemed increasingly prophetic to French intellectuals while the Cold War mounted. Breton's insistence that Surrealism was not an aesthetic movement, nor a series of techniques and tools, but instead the means for ongoing revolt against the reduction of humanity to market relationships, religious gestures and misery, meant that his ideas and stances were taken up by many, even those who had never heard of Breton, or read any of his work. The importance of living Surrealism was repeated by Breton and by those writing about him.

Post World War II Surrealism

There is no clear consensus about the end of the Surrealist movement: some art historians suggest that the movement was effectively disbanded by WWII (despite the expansion of membership in the Paris group and the creation of others after that date), others treat the movement as extending through the 1950s. (This argument has been largely based on the so-called "art movement" having been superseded by other art movements, though it is arguable that, given the assertion of many surrealists that surrealism is not an artistic movment, this may be irrelevant.) In 1959, Andre Breton organized an exhibiton in Spain called The Homage to Surrealism to celebrate the Fortieth Anniversary of Surrealism which exhibited works by Salvador Dal?, Joan Mir?, Enrique T?bara, and Eugenio Granell. Art historian Sarane Alexandrian (1970) states, "the death of Andr? Breton in 1966 marked the end of Surrealism as an organized movement." (There have also been attempts to tie the obituary of the movement to the 1989 death of Salvador Dali.) However, this is in direct contradiction to Breton's statement that surrealism would continue after him, and the many manifestations of surrealism after his death. For example, the Chicago Surrealist Group was founded in 1966; the Czech Surrealist Group in Prague, though driven underground in 1968, re-emerged in the 1990s. Still other groups and individuals, not directly connected to Breton (though the relevance of such a connexion could certainly be questioned as the movement was never conceived of as being tied personally to Breton), have claimed the Surrealist label.

Surrealism in the arts

In general usage, the term Surrealism is more often considered a movement in visual arts than the original cultural and philosophical movement. As with some other movements that had both philosophical and artistic dimensions, such as romanticism and minimalism, the relationship between the two usages is complex and a matter of some debate outside the movement. Many Surrealist artists regarded their work as an expression of the philosophical movement first and foremost, and Breton was explicit in his belief that Surrealism was above all a revolutionary movement. In addition, many surrealists and surrealist documents have declared that surrealism is not an artistic movement for a number of additional reasons, among which is the conception of the "artistic" manifestations of surrealism as just one form of manifestation among many, various conceptions of visual work being created which somehow "goes beyond" traditional conceptions of art or aesthetics, or even the complete cessation of creative visual production. In addition, the art object/product - while an important part of the Surrealist process - is viewed as merely a "souvenir" of a vastly more critical journey, interesting only in so far as it is revelatory of that adventure.

Surrealism in visual arts

Early visual arts Surrealism

Since so many of the artists involved in Surrealism came from the Dada movement, the demarcation between Surrealist and Dadaist art, as with the demarcation between Surrealism and Dada in general, is a line drawn differently by different scholars. The roots of Surrealism in the visual arts run to both Dada and Cubism, as well as the abstraction of Wassily Kandinsky and Expressionism, as well as Post-Impressionism. However, it was not the particulars of technique which marked the Surrealist movement in the visual arts, but the creation of objects from the imagination, from automatism, or from a number of Surrealist techniques. Masson's automatic drawings of 1923, are often used as a convenient point of difference, since these reflect the influence of the idea of the unconscious mind. Another example is Alberto Giacometti's 1925 Torso, which marked his movement to simplified forms and inspiration from pre-classical sculpture. However, a striking example of the line used to divide Dada and Surrealism among art experts is the pairing of 1925's Von minimax dadamax selbst konstruiertes maschinchen with Le Baiser from 1927 by Max Ernst. The first is generally held to have a distance, and erotic subtext, where as the second presents an erotic act openly and directly. In the second the influence of Mir? and Picasso's drawing style is visible with the use of fluid curving and intersecting lines and colour, where as the first takes a directness that would later be influential in movements such as Pop art. Giorgio de Chirico was one of the important joining figures between the philosophical and visual aspects of Surrealism. Between 1911 and 1917, he adopted a very primary colour palette, and unornamented epictional style whose surface would be adopted by others later. La tour rouge from 1913 shows the stark colour contrasts and illustrative style later adopted by Surrealist painters. His 1914 La Nostalgie du poete has the figure turned away from the viewer, and the juxtaposition of a bust with glasses and a fish as a relief which defies conventional realistic explanation. He was also a writer. His novel Hebdomeros presents a series of dreamscapes, with an unusual use of punctuation, syntax and grammar, designed to create a particular atmosphere and frame around its images. His images, including set designs for the Ballet Russe, would create a decorative form of visual Surrealism, and he would be an influence on the two that would be even more closely associated with Surrealism in the public mind: Dal? and Magritte. In 1924, Miro and Masson applied Surrealism theory to painting explicitly leading to the La Peinture Surrealiste Exposition at Gallerie Pierre in 1925, which included work by Man Ray, Masson, Klee and Mir? among others. It confirmed that Surrealism had a component in the visual arts (though it had been initially debated whether this was possible), techniques from Dada, such as photomontage were used. Galerie Surr?aliste opened on March 26, 1926 with an exhibition by Man Ray. Breton published Surrealism and Painting in 1928 which summarized the movement to that point, though he continued to update the work until the 1960s.

1930s

Dal? and Magritte created the most widely recognized images of the movement. Dal? joined the group in 1929, and participated in the rapid establishment of the visual style between 1930 and 1935. Surrealism as a visual movement had found a method: to expose psychological truth by stripping ordinary objects of their normal significance, in order to create a compelling image that was beyond ordinary formal organization, in order to evoke empathy from the viewer. 1931 marked a year when several Surrealist painters produced works which marked turning points in their stylistic evolution: Magritte's La Voix des airs is an example of this process, where three large spheres representing bells hanging above a landscape. Another Surrealist landscape from this same year is Tanguy's Palais promontoire, with its molten forms and liquid shapes. Liquid shapes became the trademark of Dal?, particularly in his The Persistence of Memory, which features the image of clocks that sag as if they are made out of cloth. The characteristics of this style: a combination of the depictive, the abstract, and the psychological, came to stand for the alienation which many people felt in the modern period, combined with the sense of reaching more deeply into the psyche, to be "made whole with ones individuality". Long after personal, political and professional tensions broke up the Surrealist group, Magritte and Dal? continued to define a visual program in the arts. This program reached beyond painting, to encompass photography as well, as can be seen from a Man Ray self portrait, whose use of assemblage influenced Robert Rauschenberg's collage boxes. During the 1930s Peggy Guggenheim, an important art collector married Max Ernst and began promoting work by other Surrealists such as Yves Tanguy and the British artist John Tunnard. However, by the outbreak of the Second World War, the taste of the avant-garde swung decisively towards Abstract Expressionism with the support of key taste makers, including Guggenheim. However, it should not be easily forgotten that Abstract Expressionism itself grew directly out of the meeting of American (particularly New York) artists with European Surrealists self-exiled during WWII. In particular, Arshile Gorky influenced the development of this American art form, which - as Surrealism did - celebrated the instantaneous human act as the well-spring of creativity. The early work of many Abstract Expressionists reveals a tight bond between the more superficial aspects of both movements, and the emergence (at a later date) of aspects of Dadaistic humor in such artists as Rauschenberg sheds an even starker light upon the connection. Up until the emergence of Pop Art, Surrealism can be seen to have been the single most important influence on the sudden growth in American arts, and even in Pop, some of the humor manifested in Surrealism can be found, often turned to a cultural criticism.

World War II and beyond

The coming of the Second World War proved disruptive for surrealism. The works continued. Many Surrealist artists continued to explore their vocabularies, including Magritte. Many members of the Surrealist movement continued to correspond and meet. (In 1960, Magritte, Duchamp, Ernst, and Man Ray met in Paris.) While Dal? may have been excommunicated by Breton, he neither abandoned his themes from the 1930s, including references to the "persistence of time" in a later painting, nor did he become a depictive "pompier". His classic period did not represent so sharp a break with the past as some descriptions of his work might portray, and some, such as Thirion, argued that there were works of his after this period that continued to have some relevance for the movement. During the 1940s Surrealism's influence was also felt in England and America. Mark Rothko took an interest in bimorphic figures, and in England Henry Moore, Lucian Freud, Francis Bacon and Paul Nash used or experimented with Surrealist techniques. However, Conroy Maddox, one of the first British Surrealists, beginning in 1935, remained within the movement, organizing an exhibition of current Surrealist work in 1978, in response to an exhibition which infuriated him because it did not properly represent Surrealism. The exhibition, titled Surrealism Unlimited was in Paris, and attracted international attention. He held his last one man show in 2002, just before his death in 2005. Magritte's work became more realistic in its depiction of actual objects, while maintaining the element of juxtaposition, such as in 1951's Personal Values and 1954's Empire of Light. Magritte continued to produce works which have entered artistic vocabulary, such as Castle in the Pyrenees which refers back to Voix from 1931, in its suspension over a landscape. Other figures from the Surrealist movement were expelled, Roberto Matta for example, but by their own description "remained close to Surrealism." Many new artists explicitly took up the Surrealist banner for themselves. Duchamp continued to produce sculpture and, at his death, was working on an installation with the realistic depiction of a woman viewable only through a peephole. Dorothea Tanning and Louise Bourgeois continued to work, for example with Tanning's Rainy Day Canape from 1970. The 1960s saw an expansion of Surrealism with the founding of The West Coast Surrealist Group as recognized by Breton's personal assistant Jose Pierre and also the Surrealist Movement in the United States. Surrealistic art remains enormously popular with museum patrons. In 2001 Tate Modern held an exhibition of Surrealist art that attracted over 170,000 visitors in its run. Having been one of the most important of movements in the Modern period, Surrealism proceeded to inspire a new generation seeking to expand the vocabulary of art.

Surrealism in literature

The first surrealist work, according to Breton, was Les Champs Magn?tiques (1921 “Magnetic Fields”), which was actually a collaboration with the French poet and novelist Philippe Soupault. But even before that, in 1919, Breton, Soupault and Aragon had already published the magazine Litt?rature, which contained automatist works and accounts of dreams. The magazine and the portfolio both showed their disdain for literal meanings given to objects and focused rather on the undertones, the poetic undercurrents present. Not only did they give emphasis to the poetic undercurrents, but also to the connotations and the overtones which “exist in ambiguous relationships to the visual images.” Because surrealist writers seldom (if ever) appear to organize their thoughts and the images they present, some people find much of their work difficult to "parse". This notion however is a superficial comprehension, prompted no doubt by Breton's initial emphasis on automatic writing as the main route toward a higher reality. But - as in Breton's case itself - much of what is presented as purely automatic is actually edited and very "thought out". Breton himself later admitted that automatic writing's centrality had been overstated, and other elements were introduced, especially as the growing involvement of visual artists in the movement forced the issue, since "automatic painting" required a rather more strenuous set of approaches. Thus such elements as collage were introduced, arising partly from an ideal of startling juxtapositions as revealed in Pierre Reverdy's poetry. And - as in Magritte's case (where there is no obvious recourse to either automatic techniques or collage) the very notion of convulsive joining became a tool for revelation in and of itself. Surrealism was meant to be always in flux - to be more modern than modern - and so it was natural there should be a rapid shuffling of the philosophy as new challenges arose. Surrealists revived interest in Isidore Ducasse, known by his pseudonym “Le Comte de Lautr?amont” and for the line “beautiful as the chance meeting on a dissecting table of a sewing machine and an umbrella”, and Arthur Rimbaud, two late 19th century writers believed to be the precursors of Surrealism. Examples of surrealist literature are Ren? Crevel's, Mr. Knife Miss Fork, Louis Aragon's, Irene's Cunt, Andr? Breton's, Sur la route de San Romano, Benjamin Peret's, Death to the Pigs, Antonin Artaud's, Le Pese-Nerfs.

Surrealism in music

In the 1920s several composers were influenced by Surrealism, or by individuals in the Surrealist movement. Among these were Bohuslav Martinu, Andr? Souris, and Edgard Var?se, who stated that his work Arcana was drawn from a dream sequence. Souris in particular was associated with the movement: he had a long, if sometimes spotty, relationship with Magritte, and worked on Paul Nouge's publication Adieu Marie. French composer Pierre Boulez wrote a piece called explosante-fixe (1972), inspired by Breton's mad love. Germaine Tailleferre of the French group Les Six wrote several works which could be considered to be inspired by Surrealism, including the 1948 Ballet "Paris-Magie" (scenario by Lise Deharme, who was closely linked to Breton), the Operas "La Petite Sir?ne" (book by Philippe Soupault) and "Le Ma?tre" (book by Eug?ne Ionesco). Tailleferre also wrote popular songs to texts by Claude Marci, the wife of Henri Jeanson, whose portrait had been painted by Magritte in the 1930s. Even though Breton by 1946 responded rather negatively to the subject of music with his essay Silence is Golden, later Surrealists have been interested in - and found parallels to - Surrealism in the improvisation of jazz (as alluded to above), and the blues (Surrealists such as Paul Garon have written articles and full-length books on the subject). Jazz and blues musicians have occasionally reciprocated this interest. For example, the 1976 World Surrealist Exhibition included such performances by Honeyboy Edwards. Surrealists have also been influenced by reggae and, later, rap and some rock or pop bands such as The Psychedelic Furs. In addition to musicians who have been influenced by Surrealism (including some influence in rock — the title of the 1967 psychedelic Jefferson Airplane album Surrealistic Pillow was obviously inspired by the movement), such as the experimental group Nurse With Wound (whose album title Chance meeting on a dissecting table of a sewing machine and umbrella is taken from a line in Lautreamont's Maldoror). Surrealist music has included such explorations as those of Hal Rammel. More importantly, the ideas of chance have been used by such modern musical artists as David Bowie Brian Eno who - in turn - have sometimes mentioned either Dadaists or Surrealists in their work.

Surrealism in film

Surrealist films include Un chien andalou and L'?ge d'Or by Luis Bu?uel and Dal?; Bu?uel went on to direct many more. There is also a strong surrealist influence present in Alain Resnais's Last Year at Marienbad Surrealist and film theorist Robert Benayoun has written books on Tex Avery, Woody Allen, Buster Keaton and the Marx Brothers. Some have described David Lynch as a Surrealist filmmaker. Some aspects of many of his films that are of Surrealist interest, although - despite his work's superficial resemblance to many of the Surrealist images - his overall vision tends to be socially conservative, which is not an ideal promoted by Surrealism at large. Czech surrealist Jan Svankmajer has also made a number of surrealist films.[3] The truest aspects of Surrealism in film are often found in passing frames of a larger film; the sudden emergence of the uncanny into the "normal" which may or may not be further explored in the rest of the film. The original group spent hours going from film to film, often not finishing one before seeking another, partly in hopes of catching just such ephemeral moments, and partly with the idea of "stitching together" a film in their own minds out of the disparate parts.

Surrealism in television

Some have found the television series The Prisoner to be of Surrealist interest. Tex Avery cartoons originated on film in the 1930s and 1940s, but millions more know his famous characters from Saturday morning cartoons replayed during the 1970s: Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, etc.

Surrealism in politics

The 1968 revolt in France was arguably based on or included a number of surrealist ideas, and among the slogans the students spray-painted on the walls of the Sorbonne were familiar surrealist ones. Joan Mir? would commemorate this in a painting entitled May 1968. During the 1980s, behind the Iron Curtain, Surrealism entered into politics, and this thanks to an underground artistic opposition movement known as the Orange Alternative. The Orange Alternative was created in 1981 by Waldemar Fydrych alias "Major", a graduate of history and art history at the University of Wroclaw, who used surrealism symbolism and terminology in its large scale happenings organized in the major Polish cities during the Jaruzelski regime and painted surrealist graffiti on spots covering up anti-regime slogans. Major himself was the author of the so-called "Manifest of Socialist Surrealism". In this Manifest, he stated that the socialist (communist) system had become so surrealistic that it could be seen as an expression of art itself.

Impact of Surrealism

While Surrealism is typically associated with the arts, it has been said to transcend them; Surrealism has had an impact in many other fields. In this sense, Surrealism does not specifically refer only to self-identified "Surrealists", or those sanctioned by Breton, rather, it refers to a range of creative acts of revolt and efforts to liberate imagination. In addition to Surrealist ideas that are grounded in the ideas of Hegel, Marx and Freud, surrealism is seen by its advocates as being inherently dynamic and as dialectic in its thought. Surrealists have also drawn on sources as seemingly diverse as Clark Ashton Smith, Montague Summers, Fantomas, The Residents, Bugs Bunny, comic strips, the obscure poet Samuel Greenberg and the hobo writer and humourist T-Bone Slim. One might say that Surrealist strands may be found in movements such as Free Jazz (Don Cherry, Sun Ra, etc.) and even in the daily lives of people in confrontation with limiting social conditions. Thought of as the effort of humanity to liberate imagination as an act of insurrection against society, surrealism finds precedents in the alchemists, possibly Dante, Hieronymus Bosch, Marquis de Sade, Charles Fourier, Comte de Lautreamont and Arthur Rimbaud. Surrealists believe that non-Western cultures also provide a continued source of inspiration for Surrealist activity because some may strike up a better balance between instrumental reason and the imagination in flight than Western culture. Surrealism has had an identifiable impact on radical and revolutionary politics, both directly -- as in some surrealists joining or allying themselves with radical political groups, movements and parties -- and indirectly -- through the way in which surrealists' emphasis on the intimate link between freeing the imagination and the mind and liberation from repressive and archaic social structures. This was especially visible in the New Left of the 1960s and 1970s and the French revolt of May 1968, whose slogan "All power to the imagination" arose directly from French surrealist thought and practice. Some artists, such as H.R. Giger in Europe, who won an Academy Award for his stage set, and who also designed the "creature," in the movie Alien, have been popularly called "Surrealists," though Giger is a visionary artist and he does not claim to be surrealist. The Society for the Art of Imagination has come in for particularly bitter criticism from a self-labeled surrealist movement (although this criticism has been characterized by at least one anonymous individual as coming from "the Marxists [sic] Surrealist groups, who maintain small contingents worldwide;" he has also pointed out what he considers the hypocrisy of any Surrealist criticism of the Society for the Art of Imagination given that Kathleen Fox designed the cover of issue 4 of the bulletin of the Groupe de Paris du Mouvement Surrealiste and also participated in the 2003 Brave Destiny[4] show at the Williamsburg Art & Historical Center. Though some presented Brave Destiny as the largest-ever exhibit of Surrealist artists, the show was officially billed as exhibiting "Surrealism, Surreal/Conceptual, Visionary, Fantastic, Symbolism, Magic Realism, the Vienna School, Neuve Invention, Outsider, Na?ve, the Macabre, Grotesque and Singulier Art.)"

Critiques of Surrealism

Surrealism has been critiqued from several perspectives: Freud initiated the psychoanalytic critique of surrealism with his remark that what interested him most about the surrealists was not their unconscious but their conscious. His meaning was that the manifestations of and experiments with psychic automatism highlighted by surrealists as the liberation of the unconscious were highly structured by ego activity, similar to the activities of the dream censorship in dreams, and that therefore it was in principle a mistake to regard surrealist poems and other art works as direct manifestations of the unconscious, when they were indeed highly shaped and processed by the ego. In this view, the surrealists may have been producing great works, but they were products of the conscious, not the unconscious mind, and they deceived themselves with regard to what they were doing with the unconscious. In psychoanalysis proper, the unconscious does not just express itself automatically but can only be uncovered through the analysis of resistance and transference in the psychoanalytic process. Feminists have in the past critiqued the surrealist movement, claiming that, despite the occasional few celebrated woman surrealist painters and poets, fundamentally a male movement and a male fellowship. They believe that it adopts typical male attitudes toward women, such as worshipping them symbolically in stereotypical romantic but sexist ways, as representing higher values and truths, putting them on a pedestal, making them into objects of desire and of mystery.