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ART HISTORY 4450 Surrealism
Salvador Dalí (1904-89) • •
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biography: son of prosperous notary training: Academy of Fine Arts (Madrid) – read Freud w/ enthusiasm – expelled for indiscipline (1923) met Gala Eluard when she visited him w/ her husband, poet Paul Eluard (1929) – became Dali's lover, muse, business manager, and chief inspiration WWII: clashed w/ Surrealists who were predominantly Marxist – fascination for Hitler – relations w/ Surrealist group became increasingly strained after 1934 – break finally came when D declared support for Franco in 1939 – Dali and Gala escaped from Europe, spending 1940-48 in the United States • Breton gave him nickname Avida Dollars (anagram of his name) in 1940
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Dalí • • •
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aesthetic: illusionistic space & textures narratives: distorted, abstracted, fractured credo: “Surrealism is destructive, but it destroys only what it considers to be shackles limiting our vision.” (Declaration, 1929) method: pure psychic automatism – “paranoiac-critical” • ability of the brain to perceive links between things which rationally are not linked • system for undermining waking logic and conventional systematic thinking • considers images of external world as unstable, transitory, or suspect – “uninterrupted becoming” • ultra-confusing activity rising out of obsessive idea • randomly selected from personal obsessions and fantasies
Dalí •
The Invisible Man (1929-31) –
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aesthetic: illusionistic • to materialize images of concrete irrationality w/ precision method: “paranoiac-critical” • a spontaneous method achieved simultaneously w/ automatism and other passive states • based on critical and systematic delirious associations • aims to systematize confusion and discredit completely real world system: undermines waking logic and conventional systematic thinking subject: sexual fears and anxieties forms: liquidly metamorphosize into another perspective: linear & aerial brushwork: blended; academic
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Dali’s The Persistence of Memory (1931)
Dalí •
The Dream (1931) – – –
method: “paranoiac-critical” aesthetic: illusionistic theme: Freudian • mother – Classically formulated – ants clustered over mouth death & decay – eyelids sealed, bulging • Oedipus – seated on Classical volute – amputated foot – bleeding face (re: blinded) – column grows from man’s back & turns into bearded face (Freudian father) • embracing males (background) – holds golden key symbol of unconscious – son’s sexual fantasies
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Dalí •
Premonition of Civil War (1936) – – – –
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alternative title: “Soft Construction w/ Boiled Beans” method: “paranoiac-critical” aesthetic: illusionistic narrative: allegorical • civil war “delirium of autostrangulation” • break w/ Surrealists came when Dali supported Spanish dictator, Franco, in 1936 figure: grotesque • dismembered & contorted • ecstatic grimace • petrifying fingers & toes landscape: lifeless
(Left) Dalí’s Surrealist Premonition of Civil War (1936) vs. (right) Goya’s Romantic Saturn Devouring His Son (c. 1815)
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Dali’s The Enigma of Hitler (1939)
Dalí
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Crucifixion; or Hypercubic Body – –
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date: 1954 relate to Renaissance/Baroque: • figure along CVA • aerial & linear perspective • naturalistic musculature, shadows, color, drapery variance from Renaissance • floating forms • misplaced nails & absence of wounds • figures’ reversed scale • averted facial features deprives of C’s human emotion
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Rene Magritte (1898-1967) • • • •
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nationality: Belgian biography: mother committed suicide training: Académie Royale des Beaux Arts in Brussels (1916-18) exhibition history: – 1927: first exhibition in Brussels; critics heaped abuse – depressed by failure, moved to Paris where he became friends w/ Breton aim: to challenge pre-conditioned perceptions of reality & react to everyday life contrary to expectation difference from other Surrealists: – more fascinated by puzzles and paradoxes than by nature of unconscious method: disjunction between context, size, or juxtaposition of object style: illusionistic; deliberate literalism narrative tone: cliché
Magritte’s False Mirror (1926)
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Magritte’s The Murderer Threatened (1927)
Magritte’s Lovers (1928)
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Magritte’s The Treachery of Images (1928-29)
Magritte’s The Palace of Curtains (1935)
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Joan Miró (1893-1983) •
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biography: Catalan – remained in Paris from 1936 to 1941 – returned to Barcelona; moved to NYC after WWII training: initially went to business school as well as art school – abandoned business world for art after suffering nervous breakdown aim: "assassination of painting" career: – 1918: Barcelona solo exhibition – 1921: settles in Paris – 1924: joined Surrealist group relation to Surrealism: – realm of dreams and fantasy – evokes subconscious recognition gained through automatism forms: schematized & whimsical iconography: sources from Catalan heritage
Miró’s Tilled Field (1923-24)
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Miro’s Carnival of the Harlequin (1925)
(Left) Detail from MIRO’s Carnival of Harlequin (1925) vs. (right) detail from MATISSE’s Harmony in Red (1910)
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Miró’s Dog Barking at the Moon (1926)
Miró’s Still-life w/ Old Shoe (1937)
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Miró
• In Love w/a Woman (1941) – subtitle: Ciphers & Constellations – aim: to cast viewer adrift in one’s own unconscious mind – subject: woman as muse – forms: schematized & whimsical • flattened volumes • abstracted likenesses • playful associations – color: vibrant & complimentary – light/shadow: absent – spatial order: incoherent
Paul Klee (1879-1940) • • • • • • •
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biography: Swiss painter who spent most of adult life in Germany until expelled by Nazis in 1933 career: taught at the German Bauhaus process: “psychic improvisation” influences: related fields of natural history, anatomy and anthropology – nature characterized by permutation scale: small mixed media: watercolor washes often combined w/ elaborate line drawings aesthetic: coloré tradition – wrote extensively about it; lectures Writings on Form and Design Theory – conceived as moving around central axis dominated by primary colors settings: mysterious dream world tone: satirical & ironic; gently humorous iconography: Jung’s “collective unconscious” – archaic signs and patterns – allusions to dreams, music, and poetry narratives: simultaneous, independent themes – distillation of personal experiences
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Klee •
Twittering Machine (1922) – – – – –
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scene: evokes abbreviated pastoral that fuses natural w/ industrial world tone: contrasting sensibilities of humor and monstrosity technique: automatic drawing technique of Surrealists aesthetic: comparisons to caricature & children's art forms: imaginative likeness to nature • wiry, nervous line • creatures bear resemblance to birds only in beaks and feathered silhouettes • closer to deformations of nature spatial order: flat color: pastel washes light/shadow: subordinated to color
Klee’s Ad Parnassum (1932)
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Klee
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Embrace (1940) – – –
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process: psychic improvisation • relate to “automatism” forms: abstract spatial order: flattened perspective • use of “negative” space • ambigous setting composition: dynamic color: muted light/shadow: quasi-atmospheric brushwork: gestural; unrefined
IMAGE INDEX • •
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MAN RAY. Salvador Dali (1929), photograph. DALÍ, Salvador. The Invisible Man (1929-31), Oil on canvas, 140 x 81 cm., Reina Sofia National Museum, Madrid. DALÍ, Salvador. The Persistence of Memory (1931), Oil on canvas, 9 1/2 x 13 in., Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York. DALÍ, Salvador. The Dream (1931), Oil on canvas, 96 x 96.cm, John L. Severance Fund, Cleveland Museum of Art. DALÍ, Salvador. Soft Construction with Boiled Beans: Premonition of Civil War (1936), Oil on canvas, 39 3/8 x 39 in., Philadelphia Museum of Art. (Left) Dalí’s Surrealist Premonition of Civil War (1936); and (right) Goya’s Romantic Saturn Devouring His Son (c. 1815) DALÍ, Salvador. The Enigma of Hitler (1939), Oil on panel, 46 x 55 cm., Salvador Dali Museum, St Petersburg, FL. DALI. Crucifixion (“Hypercubic Body”) (1954), Oil on canvas, 194.5 x 124 cm., Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
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IMAGE INDEX • • •
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Photograph of MAGRITTE. MAGRITTE, René. The False Mirror (1926). MAGRITTE, René. The Menaced Assassin (1927), Oil on canvas, 59 1/4 x 76 7/8 in., The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York. MAGRITTE, René. The Lovers (1928), Oil on canvas, 21 3/8 x 28 7/8 in., Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York. MAGRITTE, René. The Treachery of Images (1928-29), Oil on canvas, 25 x 37 in., Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA. MAGRITTE, René. The Palace of Curtains, III (1928-29), Oil on canvas, 32 x 45 7/8 in., Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York.
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MIRÓ, Joan. Self-Portrait (c. 1925). MIRÓ, Joan. The Tilled Field (1923–24), Oil on canvas, 26 x 36 1/2 in., Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York. MIRÓ. Carnival of Harlequin (1924-25), Oil on canvas, 66 x 93 cm ., Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, N.Y. (Left) Detail from MIRO’s Carnival of Harlequin; and (right) detail from MATISSE’s Harmony in Red (1910). MIRÓ, Joan. Dog Barking at the Moon (1926), Oil on canvas, 73 x 92 cm., The Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA. MIRÓ, Joan. Still-Life with Old Shoe (1937), Museum of Modern Arts, New York, NY. MIRÓ, Joan. Ciphers and Constellations, in Love with a Woman. (1941), Gouache and terpentine on paper. Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL.
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IMAGE INDEX • •
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Photograph of Paul KLEE. KLEE, Paul. Twittering Machine. (1922), Transfer drawing, oil, ink, and watercolor on paper mounted on board with gouache and ink border and ink inscription, 25 1/4 x 19 in., Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York. KLEE, Paul. Ad Parnassum (1932), Oil on canvas, 39 x 49 in., Kunstmuseum, Bern. KLEE, Paul. Embrace (1939), Paste color, watercolor, and oil on paper, 9 1/2 x 12 1/4 in., Collection Dr. Bernhard Sprengel, Hanover, Germany.
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