The Role of Visionary Nature Photographers to Mediate Between the Earth and Humanity

from Surrealism in Geology—The Surreal in the Real: The Concrete Irrational in Rocks & Ice

Surreal in the Real: The Concrete Irrational in Rocks & Ice

In his preface to Sigurjónsson’s magnificent book Yfirsyn, Icelandic novelist and critic Guðmundur Andri Thorsson (b. 1957) is so moved by the exquisite compositional sensibility and stark originality of Sigurjónsson in his medium of aerial photography that he writes te following:

“Man doesn’t have the imagination to think of shapes that don’t exist in nature.

“Yet while nature possesses all conceivable shapes and colours within itself and while man cannot imagine more than a fraction of all the colours and shapes and combinations which exist in the universal space, man’s perception of nature comes from within. the shapes seem to have parallels in man’s inner life…

“It is the role of visionaries, such as photographers and other artists working directly in the visual media, to open our eyes to a new way of seeing familiar phenomena: the ocean is not just sea, water is not only wet, the sky not only blue, a mountain not simply a variation on a vertical curve but a world of infinity.”

Summary of GEOLOGY AND SURREALISM—The Surreal in the Real: The Concrete Irrational in Rocks & Ice

Salvador Dalí’s “Concrete Irrational”

Dalí realized that to achieve his vision in painting, he would have to develop a technique of nearly photographic accuracy in depicting his subjects. He studied the art of early 19th Century military painters, especially that of Ernest Meisonnier (1819–1891), who was very popular during his lifetime, but less respected after that. However, Dalí looked to him and his “style pompier” as a model of painterly accuracy—along with Old Masters such as Vermeer, Dürer, and Breugel.

Perfecting that in his own painting eventually enabled him to depict his utterly novel and often shocking dreamlike visions, which he characterized as the “concrete irrational.” (Note the geological landscape elements in the paintings, below.)

I realized that “concrete irrational” literally characterizes the kind of figuration that I find in rocks and ice, especially since I have studied Dalí’s work and that of other Surrealists extensively. It is my personal version of pareidolia.

My Concrete Irrational Pareidolia in Rocks and Ice

Due to the influence of Surrealism, my renditions of pareidolia are more fanciful than traditional versions, extending into suggested figurations that evoke humor, fear, eroticism, popular culture, and scientific images. Here is a selection of them that fall into a number of different categories. I’ll tell you where they’re from and answer any questions during the lecture.