After the publication of André Breton’s Manifesto of Surrealism, avant-garde artists used the new term “Surrealism” to define their artistic movement.
When the young French writer and critic André Breton published his first Manifeste du surréalisme (Manifesto of Surrealism, 1969) in October, 1924, he did not merely provide a friendly group of writers and artists with a new theory for their new art, he also gave this art its name and thus fostered the birth of Surrealism. The painters Max Ernst, André Masson,
As Breton’s manifesto defined it, Surrealism sought to break down the boundary between dream and reality and to unite, in one picture or one text, the unconscious and the conscious. “Surrealism is based on the belief in the superior reality of certain forms of associations hitherto neglected, in the omnipotence of dream, in the disinterested play of thought,” Breton explained. To capture this new “surreality,” Breton and his friends strongly recommended “automatic,” instead of premeditated, painting and writing. Surrealist theory thus emphasized a revolution in both the form and content of art.
In the fall of 1924, a distinctive body of new art already existed for which Breton created his theory. The early works of Max Ernst, for example, exhibit many of the Surrealists’ ideas. By inviting the viewer to see an elephant in the form of a huge steel cauldron to which the artist has given legs and tusks, Ernst’s painting The Elephant of the Celebes (1921)
André Breton.
Similar in theory, but quite different in its style, Joan Miró’s Catalan Landscape (The Hunter) (1923-1924)
In literature, the field of Breton’s own experiments, 1924 saw the publication of two major Surrealist texts. Breton’s Les Pas perdus (the lost steps)
Although the Surrealists initially defined it, their art had deep roots in earlier experiments with “antiart.” Like the Dadaists,
Breton admitted freely that the term “Surrealism” was the invention of his deceased friend Guillaume Apollinaire.
Because of Breton’s forceful promotion of their work, more painters felt drawn to the movement, which had originally favored writers and poets. After a one-man show of Masson’s work in the Galérie Simon in Paris in 1924, the Surrealists staged their first major collective exhibition in the Galérie Pierre in Paris in 1925. At the exhibition, a wide audience reviewed works by the founding members of the Surrealist group, including Ernst, Masson, Miró, and Man Ray, and by such relative newcomers as Pierre Roy and Hans Arp. Also included were works by Pablo Picasso and Paul Klee, who were not strictly Surrealists. Giorgio De Chirico’s early work was shown because of its initial influence on Surrealist painters, even though the Surrealists despised his current art.
A steady stream of exhibitions followed. The acquisition of the Surrealist Gallery, which opened on March 26, 1926, gave Surrealist painting a permanent exhibition space. Increasingly, international artists such as the Spaniard Salvador Dalí and the Belgian René Magritte joined the Surrealists, whose influence spread throughout Europe, the United States, and Japan. With Dalí and his fellow Spaniard Luis Buñuel, Surrealists turned to film; Dalí and Buñuel’s Un Chien andalou (1928; An Andalusian Dog)
The energy and creativity of its founders helped to make Surrealism the most influential artistic movement between 1924 and World War II. In the field of the visual arts, the Surrealists’ fascination with the unconscious yielded a rather unexpected result, for even though they strove to discard realist modes of representation, they desired to convey the new meaning that their dream logic gave familiar objects. Consequently, despite techniques that pointed in a different direction, Surrealist painting reemphasized the object, and the idea of meaning, in art.
These divergent artistic aspirations, which would ultimately separate and lead to both abstract expressionism and neorealism, were powerfully unified in such Surrealist paintings as Yves Tanguy’s Genesis (1926).
To uncover the meaning that Tanguy invests in his objects, one must look at Freudian psychology, which Surrealism greatly helped to popularize. With Sigmund Freud,
Whereas Freud used psychoanalysis to heal patients, however, the Surrealists were interested in the method alone. At the extreme, Dalí became fascinated with psychopathology and the sickness of the soul and developed his own branch of Surrealism. The famous melting watches of Dalí’s The Persistence of Memory (1931)
In the quest for the unconscious, Breton exhorted the Surrealists to experiment continuously with new techniques. Ironically, the idea of “automatic” writing and painting, which the Manifesto of Surrealism had called the key to Surrealism, soon proved a dead end. It was abandoned despite such isolated successes as Miró’s The Gentleman (1924), the major features of which appeared in the artist’s mind at the moment of painting.
Overall, the Surrealists created many techniques that entered the repertoire of contemporary art. Among these lasting inventions are Ernst’s collages, which, as in his The Hundred-Headed Woman (1929), create strange bird-people out of mixed-up illustrations cut from the pages of nineteenth century novels. Other innovations included Ernst’s frottage (the rubbing of canvas over natural objects) and grattage (the scraping of the canvas). Oscar Dominguez’s discovery of “decalcomania” (the spreading of black ink between two sheets of paper), first exhibited in the new Surrealist magazine Minotaure in 1936, quickly inspired other Surrealist painters.
Together, the goal of these techniques was to create accidental structures that the artist invests with a subjective meaning. For Masson’s Battle of Fishes (1927),
Just as influential were the methods of Surrealist painters, such as Magritte, who painted their objects with often photographic precision but placed them in impossible contexts. Magritte’s The Human Condition, I (1943) offers a view of a window that is partially blocked by a painting that shows exactly the part of the landscape outside the window that the painting obscures. Magritte’s style, Verism,
Despite its powerful impact, Surrealism was persistently plagued by internal strife. Because Breton looked at the movement as an all-encompassing lifestyle, he took a personal interest in guarding its purity and expelled many offenders. His continuous development of Surrealist theory is linked to this control over the movement. Breton’s discussion of the visual arts, Le Surréalisme et la peinture (1928; Surrealism and painting),
The Surrealists’ relationship with the French communists was characterized by the former’s tenacious fight for artistic freedom. In Légitime Défense (1926; legitimate defense), Breton defended the Surrealists’ interest in dreams. Even though he would briefly join the communists—at one point, he renamed his magazine Le Surréalisme au service de la Révolution (Surrealism in the service of the revolution)—from 1930 on, he knew that Surrealist art remained incompatible with the dogma of Socialist Realism.
Pierre Roy’s
After World War II, which caused most European Surrealists to flee to the United States after the Nazis occupied France in 1940, Surrealism, although still productive, lost its initial influence. The last great international Surrealist exhibitions were held in Chicago and Paris in 1947. After the deaths of many Surrealist artists in the 1960’s and 1970’s, however, major retrospectives of their works opened in Europe and the United States. Since then, interest in their art has remained strong, and in 1992, a Magritte retrospective received a warm welcome upon opening in London. Arrival of the exhibition was also greeted eagerly in the United States, where European Surrealists had flourished late but had left strong traces.
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Hopkins, David. Dada and Surrealism: A Very Short Introduction. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. Concise introduction to these art movements discusses their international nature and the range of media employed. Also addresses the debates surrounding them, including issues of quality and attitudes toward women. -
Jean, Marcel, ed. The Autobiography of Surrealism. New York: Viking Press, 1980. Anthology of writings by Surrealist painters and writers presents primary texts that shaped Surrealist art theory, which the artists took very seriously. Most selections are fine translations of crucial French texts. Richly illustrated with photos of the artists and their works. Includes bibliography. -
_______. The History of Surrealist Painting. Translated by Simon Watson Taylor. New York: Grove Press, 1960. Definitive history of Surrealism up to the date of its publication. Includes reproductions of the most important Surrealist artworks (most in black and white, however) and photos of the artists themselves. Readable and extremely informative. -
McShane, Megan. Genesis of a Revolution from Dada to Surrealism. New York: Parkstone Press, 2006. Describes the emergence of Surrealism and its relation to Dadaism, focusing on the common goals of the two movements. Includes more than one hundred illustrations. -
Picon, Gaetan. Surrealists and Surrealism, 1919-1939. Translated by James Emmons. 1983. Reprint. New York: Hacker Art Books, 1996. Richly illustrated, detailed look at the development and growth of Surrealist art. Discusses many major Surrealist works and celebrates Surrealism’s impact on art and artists all over the world. Includes chronological survey, bibliography, and “dictionary-index” with a brief entry for each major surrealist artist. -
Polizzotti, Mark. Revolution of the Mind: The Life of André Breton. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1995. First full-length biography of Breton in English places the man and his work in the context of his times. Includes photographs, notes, and index. -
Read, Herbert Edward. Surrealism. 1936. Reprint. New York: Praeger, 1971. The first serious academic discussion of Surrealism in English, written at the height of Surrealism’s artistic influence on modern art. Aimed at readers with some familiarity with art history. Intelligent, informative, and valuable for anyone interested in the origins and reception of the Surrealist movement. -
Russell, John. Max Ernst. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1967. One of the most comprehensive surveys of Ernst’s work available for the general reader. Draws on interviews with Ernst to recount Ernst’s impact on the birth of Surrealism and his later conflict with Breton. Includes reproductions of most of Ernst’s major works, chronological survey of Ernst’s works, biographical notes, and useful bibliography. -
Schneede, Uwe M. Surrealism. Translated by Maria Pelikan. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1974. Introductory survey aimed at a general audience. Presents forty-one discussions of individual Surrealist paintings (reproduced in color) and a concise but brief introductory text with black-and-white reproductions. Includes short chronology (1924-1971) and limited bibliography.
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