Surrealism

Surrealism 1924

Figure 1: Catalin, Precup of a woman with a boarded up face and poppy flowers, Unknown year, Drawing. 

https://za.pinterest.com/pin/337910778261222320/

 

The founder of the surrealist movement was a man named Andre Breton in 1924. Andre Breton was a poet and founder of the surrealist movement. He issued the first Surrealist manifesto in Paris 1924. (Steyn, 2017)

Breton insisted that art and life could be renewed by connecting with the areas of the forbidden mind. He believed that surrealism is where chance, desire, memory and coincidence would meet. The surrealistic manifesto included imaginative literature and poetry rather than the visual arts. Surrealism had an appeal for the total liberation of art from all restraints. 

Influenced by the Dada movement surrealism often fantasised about the irrational and the inappropriate. (Steyn, 2017)

Same as Dada it questioned reality and logic reason. Surrealism was more positive in spirit than the Dada. Artists such as Marcel Duchamp and Pablo Picasso influenced the Surrealism movement. 

Surrealism is not really said to be abstract like Cubism nor Dada, however, it approached these movements alternatively. 

Andre Breton's definition of Surrealism is the movement as being a real process of thought, that it is based on the belief in the superior reality of certain forms of association.(Steyn, 2017)

Three main artists that define Surrealism in different ways:

• Sigmund Freud
• Carl Gustav Jung
• Salvador Dali
• Frida Kahlo

Sigmund Freud

Influenced by the surrealists. He is the father of Psychoanalysis, therefore he believed that people could be cured by making conscious their unconscious thoughts and motivations, thus gaining insight. (Steyn, 2017)

Surrealists were influenced by Freud's theory of the conscious and the subconscious of the ID, EGO and Super-ego. 

The ID and the EGO work hand in hand which are modified by the direct influenced by the external world. The super-ego is the part that embodies the self-controls of the conscious. 

The ID are theInstincts(avoidance of pain), the EGO becomes reality Reasoning and problem-solving) and the Super-ego becomes the Morality(right and wrong that we were taught as kids). An individual's feelings are all of the above merged together. 

Freud felt that the EGO, ID and the super-ego should be brought together and they must bring desires of awareness of the unconscious mind.  When the mind relaxes and dreams it creates dreams of odd patterns of behaviour and art. 

Carl Gustav Jung

A swiss psychiatrist who founded analytical Psychology who worked with Freud for a couple of years. Jung believed that the unconscious mind played more a role in controlling the thoughts process, especially during dreaming.

Jung had three parts of the human psyche

The ego, the personal unconscious and the collective unconscious(knowledge we were born with). 

Salvador Dali

Versatile and prolific artist of the twentieth century. He practised cubist styles in 1920 and was deeply influenced by Pablo Picasso. He painted bodies, bones and symbolic objects and that referred to the anxiousness over the passing of time. He had a flamboyant personality this is was shown by his hyper-realistic style and religious symbolism of his works. 

The aspect of paranoia that Dali was interested in and which helped inspire the method was the ability of the brain to perceive links between things which rationally are not linked. Dali wanted to reveal the gap between reality and illusion. He used the emotion of shock and the feeling of unease to illustrate moments of pleasure. (Steyn, 2017)

Frida Kahlo

Mexican artist. Frida Kahlo was very religious and followed culture. Kahlo suffered Polio and had a tragic car accident hence the emotions most of her artworks have. All her painting were very symbolic that had meant to her. She expressed her emotions in all the artworks she did. 

Figure 2: Kahlo, F, Self-portrait With Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird, 1940, Oil on canvas.

http://www.art.com/products/p21810478470-sa-i7437405/frida-kahlo-self-portrait-with-thorn-necklace-and-hummingbird-c-1940.htm?ac=true

In this painting of Kahlo, it had a lot of symbolism, the black cat symbolised bad luck and death, while the black spider monkey symbolised evil. The dead hummingbird symbolised a symbol of Mexican folkloric of luck charms. The Christ's unravelled crown of thorns and a necklace that digs in her throat all represents Christian martyr and her failed marriage. As a surrealist painter, little did Kahlo know, she was a surrealist. She released her unconscious mind through the use of what seemed to be an irrational juxtaposition of images. Every work she did had a symbolic reference, and that is how she made people understand who she was and what she was going through. (Steyn, 2017)

Figure 3: Hattori, N, Trees, 2015.

https://za.pinterest.com/pin/357825132877475621/

The image above is of different elements that can have symbolic representations. This painting looks like it was captured from a dream, basically using the unconscious mind to produce such art. Elements in this artwork do not exist nor are real. 

Hattori usually painted his figures as alienated dolls, plants, nature and growth like uncontrollable mixes. Figures intertwine and morph with other shapes. Hands extended, body parts distorted, and eyes almost appear everywhere.  (Anon., 2008)

Hattori did his artworks based on his dreaming mind, of being awake. 

Sites for images:

Figure 1: https://za.pinterest.com/pin/337910778261222320/

Figure 2: http://www.art.com/products/p21810478470-sa-i7437405/frida-kahlo-self-portrait-with-thorn-necklace-and-hummingbird-c-1940.htm?ac=true

Figure 3: https://za.pinterest.com/pin/357825132877475621/