reportage
Modernity and the perception of reality: surrealism as utopia Have you ever had an idea that popped into your head and it felt like something lightened inside you? That is what happened to me in the past few days, after I remembered of these two marvelous namesake paintings “The Human Condition” from René Magritte.
MAGRITTE, René. [The Human Condition]. 1933. Oil on canvas. 100 cm x 81 cm (39 in x 32 in) Location: National Gallery of Art, Washington DC.
E
ager to dive deep into the various possible meanings of the painting, I searched more about Surrealism, the political and intellectual movement which the artworks of René Magritte were part of. Surrealism had a big influence from the political ideas of Karl Marx and the psychological theory and dream studies of Sigmund Freud, and it had its origins in Dadaism and the metaphysical paint of Giorgio de Chirico. Dating from the beginning of the twentieth century, it was initially characterized by the search of the automatic writing, supposed to free without limits the imagination, to entirely liberate the subconscious into the text written. In the year of 1924, in the beautiful
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MAGRITTE, René. [The Human Condition]. 1935. Oil on canvas. 100 cm x 81 cm (39 in x 32 in) Location: Simon Spierer Collection, Geneva, Switzerland.
and prestigious city of lights, Paris, the Manifesto of Surrealism was published by the French writer and poet André Breton, it focused on the freedom and spontaneity of creativity. Thus, human feelings and instincts would be the starting point of a new artistic language. The psychic impulse was the most important feature since it would be able to open space to release and translate into art what they believed to be the truer expression of the human beings: the images of the subconscious. However, to be capable of doing this, it was necessary that the artist had an introspective perspective of himself and reached a point of spirit equilibrium where the outside and inside reality was perceived equally, without conflict.
