Fundamental discoveries in the field of psychology at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries radically influenced morality and the idea of what a person really is. It is not surprising that such changes in the mentality of Western European society found expression in new aesthetic concepts. In the early 20s of the twentieth century, a group of young artists completed the initial stage of their creative exploration and announced the creation of a new direction in fine art. The very name surrealism (from the French surréalisme, literally “overrealism”) was coined by the poet Guillaume Apollinaire several years earlier. Thus was born one of the most influential and exciting avant-garde movements of the twentieth century. Over more than 40 years of history, representatives of surrealism have created thousands of magnificent paintings, rather reminiscent of a journey through the looking glass.
Opening the door to the world of surrealism
“I am not interested in reality in art, but in imagination. After all, reality can be found in any photograph.” - Salvador Dali
Salvador Dalí changed the way the art world was approached forever when he obtained a wetsuit some eighty years ago, intending to wear it to an important lecture to “dive into the depths of the human subconscious.” The special equipment was obtained by the artist in the spring of 1936 from a dive shop in southeast England, where the Spanish master also communicated his intentions to the sales clerk. This same wetsuit, transformed by the eccentric Dali into a means of exploring the human psyche, became the centerpiece of the International Exhibition of Surrealism, held in London that same year and bringing together the greatest masters of the 20th century, including Pablo Picasso, René Magritte, Max Ernst, Alexander Calder, Giorgio de Chirico, Marcel Duchamp, Alberto Giacometti, Paul Klee, Joan Miró and, of course, Salvador Dali. During this important event, the aforementioned lecture took place, at which Dalí, dressed as a diver, made a “difficult” entrance to the stage: the iron suit was so bulky that some friends had to help him up onto the stage.
Only after reaching his destination, the master realized that his words, hidden by heavy “armor,” could not be heard by the public; nevertheless, he continued his speech. However, at some point, the air inside the suit began to run out, and Dali began to fidget nervously to warn viewers of the impending danger of suffocation. The participants, however, did not immediately understand the artist’s pleas for help and continued to applaud and laugh at the visible performance. Undoubtedly, this would have been one of the most ridiculous and stupid deaths in the history of art if at some point the artist’s wife had not realized the seriousness of the situation and called on the organizers of the event to let her loved one go. Why talk about this episode as an introduction to surrealism? Indeed, this fact sums up with force, irony and impulse the ideology of the aforementioned movement, which often precisely through eccentricity placed at the center of its poetics the unconscious and dreamlike dimensions of the human being, considered as the only entities capable of telling about reality without the filters of reason.
Dive into the world of surrealism
“Creativity is a journey into the deepest labyrinth of the subconscious, where colors and shapes turn into the language of the soul.” - Max Ernst
The term "surrealism", invented by the poet Guillaume Apollinaire in 1917, means everything that represents those movements and associations originating from the human unconscious, which become partially "tangible" due to their placement in the dimension of "superreality". The surrealist movement arose after the First World War, or more precisely, two years after the end of Dadaism, an artistic movement from which it inherited certain aspects, such as: a reaction to cubist formalism, an affinity for nihilistic revolt, the glorification of the nonsense and the irrational, the use of elements of psychic automatism and accidents.
Despite the great weight that surrealism had in the world of figurative art, it arose primarily as a literary movement aimed at exploring the unconscious without the help of rationality and logical thinking. In fact, the Surrealist Manifesto, published in 1924, was written by literati Louis Aragon, Philippe Soupault and André Breton, who were intrigued by the expression of the deepest human thoughts and their exploration by the famous psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud. It was the latter who was recognized as the first inspirer of the movement and, in particular, his 1899 book entitled The Interpretation of Dreams pushed the surrealists to understand the mechanisms of the unconscious through the study and analysis of the dream world. In addition, Freud's theories of free association also had a huge influence on the movement, which, thanks to the latter, was able to give voice to man's deepest insights. In short, surrealist artistic exploration was applied by allowing ideas to flow freely, without any rational filters, giving birth to forms, words, gestures, actions, lines, designs and colors that were expressed through natural automatism.
Regarding the artistic techniques and stylistic devices used by the surrealists to realize the above goals, three different methodological directions were developed: the first is frottage, gratage and collage, the goal of which was to create a new figurative language through the union of oil painting with materials forming relief figures; the second was the “method” of dreams, that is, dedicated to the study of the world of dreams, where, without a shadow of a doubt, Salvador Dali and Rene Magritte distinguished themselves; and the third was abstractionism, where works were created using the automatism of thought, like the paintings of Joan Miró. Thus, the main goal of surrealism is to explore oneself; in fact, it is precisely viewing the works of this movement that can encourage viewers to reason about their unconscious in order to understand their own mind. This search for self-awareness, which involves observing oneself differently, made the theories of the surrealists some of the most interesting in the 20th century.
Surrealism: Unraveling symbols, looking into the subconscious and creative techniques
"Surrealism is the door to a world where fantasy is freed and dreams become visual poetry." - André Breton
Surrealism is one of the most unusual and attractive movements in the art of the 20th century. The surrealists sought to express their inner experiences, dreams, fantasies and subconscious impulses with the help of unusual images and compositions that violated logic and reality. Surrealist works often contain symbols and metaphors that reflect the psychological states, ideas, emotions and views of the artists. Unraveling these symbols and metaphors is not an easy task, as they can have different meanings depending on the context, culture, personality and history of the artist. However, with the help of some clues and hints, one can try to get closer to understanding surreal art and its deeper meanings.
Before moving on to the keys, you need to remember the main aspects of surrealism:
- Subconscious and psychoanalysis
- Automatic creativity
- Unusual images and compositions
- Symbols and metaphors
- Experimenting with techniques
- Political and sociocultural aspects
- Games with reality
- Expressionism and abstraction
Knowing these aspects, it will be easy to unravel the meaning of the paintings. Now let's move on to the keys of surrealism:
One such key is knowledge of the psychoanalysis of Sigmund Freud, who had a great influence on the surrealists. Freud studied the subconscious, dreams, complexes, sexuality and other aspects of the human psyche. Surrealists used his theories and methods to explore their own subconscious desires, fears, traumas and conflicts. They also tried to express them through symbols and metaphors that were often sexual, violent, aggressive, or irrational. For example, in Salvador Dali’s painting “The Persistence of Memory” (1931) you can see a melted clock, which symbolizes the relativity of time, the subjectivity of perception and human powerlessness before death. You may also notice ants, which are associated with decay, decay and death. In Rene Magritte's The Son of Man (1964), you can see a man in a suit and tie hiding his face behind a green apple. This may be a metaphor for how a person loses his individuality and personality in a modern society that dictates rules and norms of behavior to him. The apple can also be reminiscent of the biblical story of temptation and the Fall, which is associated with knowledge and freedom of choice.
Another key to understanding surrealism is knowledge about the personal lives and biographies of the artists. Surrealists often drew inspiration from their own experiences, relationships, memories and interests. They also reflected their political, social, cultural and religious views in their works. For example, in Frida Kahlo's painting The Two Fridas (1939), you can see two versions of the artist herself holding hands. One of them is dressed in European clothes, and the other is dressed in Mexican clothes. This reflects the duality of Kahlo's personality, which was of mixed nationality (German father, Mexican mother) and culture. This is also due to her marriage to Diego Rivera, who was a European and a communist. Kahlo shows her love and suffering for Rivera through the heart that connects both figures and the scissors she uses to cut the vein leading from the heart to the portrait of Rivera she holds in her hand. In Max Ernst's "Europe after the Rain" (1940-1942), one can see a destroyed and devastated landscape, which is filled with strange creatures and objects. This reflects Ernst's impressions of the First and Second World Wars, in which he participated and which he experienced. Ernst criticizes violence, aggression and the madness of war, which lead to the destruction of civilization and nature.
The third key to understanding surrealism is knowledge of the techniques and methods that surrealists used to create their works. The surrealists experimented with different ways of expressing their subconscious, such as automatic writing, collage, decalcomania, frottage, grattage, paranoid-critical method and others. They also used various sources of inspiration such as science fiction, mythology, folklore, alchemy, the occult and others. These techniques and sources helped the surrealists create new and unexpected images and compositions that aroused surprise, interest, admiration or disgust in the viewer. For example, in Joan Miró's painting "The Birth of the World" (1925) you can see multi-colored spots, lines and figures on a light background. Miró created this painting using the technique of automatic painting, which consisted of the artist allowing his hand to move across the canvas without conscious control. Miro was also inspired by space and astronomy and atomic theories that were popular at the time. Miro tried to create his own world, which would be free from reality and logic. In Marcel Duchamp's painting Nude Descending Staircase No. 2 (1912), one can see a dynamic and abstract image of a woman moving down a staircase. Duchamp created this painting using the collage technique, which involved the artist gluing together different pieces of images to create a new whole. Duchamp was also inspired by cinema and futurism, which were new and fashionable at the time. Duchamp tried to show the movement, speed and rhythm of modern life.
Surrealism in contemporary art
“Art must be freed from the chains of reality in order to open the door to an unknown world of inner unrest.” - Joan Miro
The enormous success that surrealism has experienced in modern art is a manifestation of a more classical concept of existence, a linear one, in which time, represented as a wheel, redefines events and therefore artistic movements within related eras, following in an unceasing perpetual motion. In fact, surrealism, which emerged from the traumatic and unstable cultural climate after the First World War, is well reinterpreted in the dramas of our modernity, indelibly marked by conflicts, pandemics and economic crises, where it reappears, necessary and comforting, to take refuge in the “super-reality.” This desire for escapism can be found in the work of many contemporary surrealists, such as, for example, Mary Read Kelly, Penny Slinger, Nathaniel Mary Quinn, Jonathan Meese and Inka Essenhigh, as well as in the artistic studies of some Artmajeur artists. , such as Sailev, Robert Van Den Herik and Jean-Marie Gitar (Mr. STRANGE).
Despite the non-exotic nature of some ideas and direct references to Freud's psychoanalysis, surrealism fits well into the general logic of the development of avant-garde ideas. The rebellion against the mainstream represented by academicism and the classical concept of art led him to revise the artistic language, narrative logic and other foundations of traditional European culture. From Dadaism, surrealism adopted a passion for irrationalism, but unlike it, it was able to more consistently embody the artistic ideals of the movement without destroying its own meaning from the inside. Symbolism also had a huge influence on the art of the superreal world. Despite the conceptual differences, we can see similarities in their artistic language. After the completion of the main phase of the development of surrealism, the idea of liberating the subconscious through automatism and the rejection of the strict order of thinking was picked up by abstract expressionists and implemented in another aesthetic concept. The creative heritage of the surrealists includes many interesting and famous paintings. Their intricate plots, obtained with such difficulty in dreams, look as unusual as in the times of Magritte and Dali.