Where did the
Surrealist Movement come from? What furthered its progress? What else was
happening in society that allowed Surrealism to unfold?
Surrealism did
not appear out of thin air, to say the least. In fact, you might be surprised
to find out how much of it is rooted in previous art movements. In the 19th
century, art was an outlet for bourgeois individualism; it was an escape from
daily life and materialism. This outlook on art was then challenged by Realism,
which redefined art as something that should emulate reality in the later half
of the 19th century. By the early 20th century, the
leading art movements were adamant that art was not to be approached as separate
from the other aspects of modernity and society. Once and for all, art was not
to be used as means of rejecting reality, politics, or societal issues. By the
time Surrealism was born, art of the avant-garde was expected to coincide with
sociopolitical radicalism of the times.
But how did this
shift happen? What inspired the change in approaching art? These questions do
not have simple, direct answers. It appears to me that inspiration from all
kinds of directions molded Surrealism into the art movement it became. The
change between 19th and 20th century art was a subtle
start in the direction of drastic artistic change, but more recent, relatable
groups of artists such as the Cubists and Expressionists can be held
accountable for influencing Surrealism, too. Cubism (think Picasso) and
Expressionism (think Kandinsky) pushed the envelope with unique approaches to
art, developing new “languages” for art interpretation. Surrealism took these freshly
developed “languages” and catered them to schools of life, thought processes,
and experiences. It branched off from using these new interpretations to ask
viewers to dissect art about art
(which happened in Cubism and Expressionism) and reinvented them to invite the
viewers to question themselves and
their lives through the art. I don’t
mean to suggest that Surrealism echoes Realism, although this in-touch
relationship Surrealist art establishes with viewers is comparable to the ones
Realist paintings created. It is still far— a century— from it. It exists to
introduce thoughts and possibilities the viewers might not have thought about
before; it exists to stimulate the brain in new
ways, not in the obvious ways a realistic scene from a Realist painting
might by expressing something the viewer is already familiar with.
| Picasso, Ma Jolie, 1911 (example of Cubism) |
| Kandinsky, Panel for Edwin R. Campbell No. 4, 1914 (Expressionism) |
There is a
massive influence on Surrealism that I have avoided discussing thus far. The
things I have previously discussed, in my opinion, laid the path for Surrealism
to develop upon. But it was the Dada movement that gave birth to it,
figuratively speaking. It was followers of the Dada movement who founded
Surrealism, thus interlocking them infinitely. While my mind associates the two
movements, we must all be careful not to group them together just because of
how closely related they are. Surrealism only lived because Dadaism died.
Dadaism explored irrationality. A Frenchman by the name of André Breton was
heavily involved with the Dada movement until 1922, when he found a weak spot.
To Breton, Dada was too negative and was not blatantly political—as I said
earlier, avant-garde art was supposedly expected to involve society, politics,
and opinion. Breton “seized the opportunity to reorientate avant-garde
priorities. The way was prepared for Surrealism” (Hopkins 16). And so it was, a
Dada advocate took matters into his own hands and created something entirely
new—Surrealism. In the same pivotal year of 1922, Breton organized the Congrès de Paris with a goal of redirecting the avant-garde away
from everything Dada had become. I think the at-hand transition is well
explained by Kasimir Malevich, a Suprematist painter who stated that "at
the essence of the new arts lies not representation but creative construction.”
(Malevich). For Breton, it was no longer
the time to whine about societal problems without deep-seated political
opinions, representing the irrational through art. It was time to create something new on the journey into
the unknown crevices of the human mind. Surrealism is said to be a reordered
Post-Dada adaptation of the Dada Movement.
| André Breton |
Now that we know
the origins of Surrealism, it is time to swim deeper into the specifics. Where
did Breton gain inspiration for his movement? What happened to him? What else
happened that pushed Surrealism forward and helped it materialize?
A series of
events occurred in Breton’s social circle and the Dada society that made the
divisions between Surrealism and Dadaism clear. It was between the summers of
1923 and 1924 that the new movement emerged with it’s self evident leader,
Breton. Dada leader Tristan Tzara associated with Breton formally, but he held
a performance in this time period that was crucial in Breton’s break from Dada.
At the performance, a speaker, Pierre de Massot, defamed Picasso. Breton’s
immediate reaction was to attack the speaker. I don’t think there was much
turning back after that. It was clear Breton and Tzara were on different pages.
Breton held a meeting with those who followed him away from Dada in 1923, and
he gained these people as his support group. Their loyalty was eventually to
Surrealism. Breton proceeded to publish Les
Pas Perdus in 1924, a collection of essays on society at large and the
prominent styles, including Dadaism and Surrealism. What’s funny about that?
The essays were all written before 1923— in other words, they were written
before the true emergence of Surrealism in 1924. This seems to me to be highly
indicative of Breton’s wishes to leave Dada in the dust— suggesting the
importance of Surrealism alongside Dadaism was a bold move considering
Surrealism had not even exploded yet.
Breton himself
was inspired by the theories of the unconscious developed by Sigmund Freud. He
considered Freud a guiding light for the growth of Surrealism, even though Freud
was not the fondest of the artistic adaptation of his techniques. I think this
exemplifies Breton’s steadfastness in endorsing the immersion of the arts with
the sciences, politics, and society. While Freud may have seen it as a
worthless use of his ideas, Breton’s incorporation is completely in line with
the goals of the new, Anti-Dada avant-garde. Breton published the First Surrealist Manifesto in 1924,
formalizing the birth of this crusade. To no surprise, Freud’s ideas were
prevalent in the manifesto; in it, Breton defines Surrealism as based on the
power of dreams, the reality of before-unacknowledged associations between
things and the “disinterested play of thought” (Breton). Peinture
poésie, or poetic, visionary painting (Max Ernst is known for this with his
dream painting) attracted visual artists and painters to the movement.
| Ernst, The Elephant Celebes, 1921 |
Taking a look
into politics and out of the arts society, the Surrealists were like the
Dadaists in their opposition to the right-wing government in France, and thus
opposed the French Colonial War in Morocco occurring at the time. The
Surrealists aligned against capitalism with the French Communist Party. This
brought questioning from individuals such as Pierre Naville, an internal
Surrealist critic. He brought up the clash between the individualism of
Surrealism and the collectivist politics of Communism. Despite this debacle,
Surrealism continued to attract members and was actively politicized. I think
that the ardent efforts of the Surrealists to be in touch with the other
aspects of French society made them appealing, especially compared to the
Dadaists, who in the end became exactly what they were opposed to in the
beginning: an art movement. Perhaps this contradiction confused Dada supporters
and led them to join Breton’s Surrealist movement in hopes of a movement that
would not turn against itself.
Sources:
Hopkins, David, Dada and Surrealism : a
very short introduction / Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, 2004.
Arts Library/Art, General Collection
NX456.5.D3 H66 2004 [Regular Loan]
Pegrum, Mark A. Challenging modernity
: Dada between modern and postmodern / New York : Berghahn Books, 2000.
Arts Library/Art, General Collection
NX456.5.D3 P43 2000 [Regular Loan]
Bezzola, Tobia. André Breton : Dossier
Dada / Ostfildern-Ruit : Hatje Cantz ; New York : Distributed in USA / North
America by D.A.P., Distributed Art Publishers, 2005.
Arts Library/Art, General Collection
NX456.5.D3 B48 2005 [Regular Loan]
Breton’s First Surrealist Manifesto: http://www.tcf.ua.edu/Classes/Jbutler/T340/F98/SurrealistManifesto.htm
Malevich’s Question of Imitative Art (on course website): https://gauchospace.ucsb.edu/courses/file.php/5295/Malevich_imitatn_o_art.pdf
Image sources:
http://www.moma.org/collection/object.php?object_id=79051
http://www.moma.org/collection/object.php?object_id=79452
http://thumbprintgallery.blogspot.com/2012/03/andre-breton-french-surrealist-artist.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Elephant_Celebes
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