2. • Surrealism originated in the late 1910s and early '20s as a literary
movement that experimented with a new mode of expression called
automatic writing, or automatism.
• Officially consecrated in Paris in 1924 with the publication of the
Manifesto of Surrealism by the poet and critic André Breton (1896–1966),
• Surrealists were influenced by theories and dream studies of Sigmund
Freud (1856–1939) and the political ideas of Karl Marx (1818–1883).
• Using Freudian methods of free association, poetry and art drew upon
the private world of the mind, to produce surprising, unexpected
imagery.
• The cerebral and irrational tenets of Surrealism find their ancestry in the
clever and whimsical disregard for tradition fostered by Dadaism a
decade earlier.
3. • The visual artists who first employed Surrealist techniques and imagery
were the Max Ernst (1891–1976), André Masson (1896–1987), Joan Miró
(1893–1983), and Man Ray (1890–1976).
• Masson's drawings of 1924 are curving, continuous lines out of which
emerge strange and symbolic figures that are products of an uninhibited
mind. Breton considered Masson's drawings similar to his automatism in
poetry.
• The Potato of 1928 by Miró uses comparable organic forms and twisted
lines to create an imaginative world of fantastic figures.
4. • Surrealism embraced art, literature,
psychoanalysis, philosophy, and
politics. The Surrealists aimed to
liberate the human imagination
through an aesthetic investigation
the inner self.
• The focus on dreams reflected a
familiarity with the writing of
Sigmund Freud, the founder of
psychoanalysis.
• The organized Surrealist movement
in Europe dissolved with at the
beginning of World War II. Breton,
Dalí, Ernst, Masson, and others,
including the Chilean artist Matta
(1911–2002), left Europe for New York.
André Breton, Valentine. Hugo,
Greta Knutson, and Tristan Tzara
Exquisite Corpse. c. 1930. Ink on
paper 9-1⁄4 × 12-1⁄4”. Morton G.
Neumann Family Collection
Breton and the Background
to Surrealism
5. The Two Strands of Surrealism
• The two strands of surrealism
• are abstract or biomorphic
• and figurative.
• Abstract Surrealism uses natural, organic forms instead of geometric
shapes.
• Figurative surrealism depicts realistic imagery in an unreal place or
form,
Political Context and Membership
• Members of Surrealism had strong political views.
• After World War I, André Breton founded his first journal, Literature.
Members of this circle included Louis Aragon, Marc Chagall, Marcel
Duchamp, Paul Eluard, Max Ernst, René Magritte, Francis Picabia,
Pablo Picasso, Yves Tanguey, and Tristan Tzara.
• Breton also edited La Revolution surrealiste and Le Surrealisme au
service de la revolution.
6. • First sculptures created by Hans Arp
were relief woodcuts.
• He assembled the woodcuts like collage
- carving the shape first (and painting it)
and then mounting it on another piece
of wood.
• Arp made these woodcuts throughout
his career, combining aspects of
painting, collage, sculpture and relief.
• Biomorphic elements gradually entered
his work. An example of this is Head
with Three Annoying Objects., 1930.
• He continued on to create a whole
series of forms - known as
biomorphic/organic abstraction - in
wood and plaster, some were later cast
in bronze.
Jean (Hans) Arp. Head with Three
Annoying Objects. 1930 (cast
1950). Bronze. 14-1⁄8 × 10-1⁄4 × 7-
1⁄2”. Estate of Jean Arp.
“Art is Fruit”: Arp’s Later
Career
7. Max Ernst. Two Children Are
Threatened by a Nightingale. 1924.
Oil on wood with wood
construction. 27-1⁄2 × 22-1⁄2 × 4-
1⁄2”. The Museum of Modern Art,
New York.
Hybrid Menageries: Ernst’s
Surrealist Techniques
Max Ernst was an innovative artist who
created dreamlike imager.
Ernst, who fought in World War I,
emerged deeply traumatized. These
feelings played an important role in his
artwork.
Like Duchamp, later in his life Ernst
devoted considerable time to playing
and studying chess which he revered as
an art form.
His work with the unconscious, and
experimentation in both subject and
technique remain influential.
8. • About 1937, Ernst began to
experiment with two
unpredictable processes called
decalcomania frottage, and
grattage.
• Decalcomania is the technique
of pressing a sheet of paper
onto a painted surface and
peeling it off again, while
grattage is the process of
scraping pigment across a
canvas that is laid on top of a
textured surface.
Max Ernst. The Horde. 1927
Oil on canvas. 44-7⁄8 × 57-1⁄2”
Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam.
9. • Frottage is the French word for the technique in which the artist takes a
pencil or other drawing tool and makes a rubbing over the textured
surface of such things as wood grain, fabric, or leaves as a form of
spontaneous creation.
• He used a combination of these techniques to create paintings depicting
anthropomorphic figures in a deserted postapocalyptic landscapes,
recurrent themes in Surrealist art.
• Ernst started to use frottage, grattage and decalcomania to help his
flow of imagery from his unconscious mind.
Max Ernst Europe after
the Rain. 1940–42 Oil on
canvas. 21-1⁄2 × 58-1⁄8”
Wadsworth Atheneum,
Hartford, Connecticut
10. • Surrealism and Painting is
also the title of a book by
Breton.
• In Ernst’s piece, the
amorphous creature
create an abstract painting,
possibly employing
automatism.
Max Ernst. Surrealism and Painting
1942. Oil on canvas . 77 × 92”
Menil Collection Houston, Texas
11. Referred to as the "most Surrealist
of us all" by André Breton, Joan Miró
i Ferrà was born on April 20, 1893 in
Barcelona.
His great interest in automatism
earned him recognition as a
surrealist artist.
Some of his work, however, shows
inspiration from the Dada movement.
Joan Miró. The Poetess from the
series Constellations. December
31, 1940. Gouache and oil wash
on Paper. 15 × 18”. Private
collection
“Night, Music, And Stars”: Miro and
Organic-Abstract Surrealism
12. Miro studied at the Barcelona
School of Fine Arts, and then
moved to Paris in 1923 where he
met Max Ernst.
It was this collaboration that
produced the surrealist painting
technique known as grattage,
where paint is scraped off of the
canvas with a trowel.
Although he exhibited with the
Surrealists, and was friends with
many of them, he never subscribed
to their movement, and did not
sign the Surrealist Manifesto.
Joan Miró. Dog Barking at the Moon.
1926. Oil on canvas. 28-3⁄4 × 36-1⁄4”
Philadelphia Museum of Art
13. Miro did not participate in the radical political
activities of the Surrealists, who were also very
interested in the psychological ideas of Freud.
By 1929, Miro finished the first phase of his art-
making, and he began to question his work
during the following 10 years.
Joan Miró. Object. 1936. Assemblage: stuffed
parrot on wooden perch, stuffed silk stocking
with velvet garter and doll’s paper shoe
suspended in hollow wooden frame, derby hat,
hanging cork ball, celluloid fish, and engraved
map 31-7⁄8 × 11-7⁄8 × 10-1⁄4”. The Museum of
Modern Art, New York
14. • By 1929, Miro began experimenting with materials - doing collages,
using pictures of ordinary objects such as household utensils, machines,
and real nails, string, etc.
• This period of experimentation helped him to concentrate on the abstract
qualities of objects, rather than their associated meanings or emotions,
allowing for more formal freedom.
• These "neutral" subjects with little significance take the attention away
from subject matter and toward the forms and content in the image.
• Miro's influenced artists which include Robert Motherwell, Alexander
Calder, Arshile Gorky, Jackson Pollock, Roberto Matta, and Mark Rothko,
15. • Masson's paintings of
around 1924 are curving,
continuous lines out of
which emerge strange and
symbolic figures that are
products of an uninhibited
mind.
• Breton considered
Masson's drawings similar
to his automatism in poetry.
• The Potato of 1928 by Miró
uses comparable organic
forms and twisted lines to
create an imaginative world
of fantastic figures.
André Masson Battle of Fishes 1926
Sand, gesso, oil, pencil, and charcoal
on canvas 14-1⁄4 × 28-3⁄4”
The Museum of Modern Art, New York
Methodical Anarchy:
André Masson
16. Yves Tanguy
• was born in 1900 in Brittany, France.
• began his career in the merchant marines
and was drafted into the army during the
World War I.
• He never got formal training in painting.
• He said that the idea of becoming an artist
came to him after he saw a picture by De
Chirico in 1923.
• His friend, the poet Jacques Prévert (1900-
77), introduced him into the circle of the
Surrealists.
• In his work Yves Tanguy linked the Surrealist
"principle of chance" with a technique of
painting in glazes of color in the Old Master
manner.
Yves Tanguy. Maman,
Papa est blessé! (Mama,
Papa Is Wounded!).
1927. Oil on canvas. 36-
1⁄4 × 28-3⁄4”. The
Museum of Modern Art,
New York
Enigmatic LAndscapes:
Tanguy and Dali
17. Dali
• In 1929, Dalí to Paris and made his
first Surrealist paintings.
• He expanded on Magritte's dream
imagery with his own hallucinatory
visions.
• In The Accommodations of Desire of
1929, Dalí employs Freudian
symbols.
• In 1930, Breton praised Dalí's
representations of the unconscious
in the Second Manifesto of
Surrealism.
• They became the main collaborators
on the review Minotaure (1933–39), a
primarily Surrealist-oriented
publication founded in Paris.
Salvador Dalí. Accommodations
of Desire. 1929. Oil and collage
on panel. 8-5⁄8 × 13-3⁄4”.
Metropolitan Museum of Art
18. • Breton, Dalí, Ernst, Masson, and others, including the Chilean artist
Roberto Matta (1911–2002), who first joined the Surrealists in 1937, left
Europe for New York.
• The movement found renewal in the United States at Peggy
Guggenheim's (1898–1979) gallery, and the Julien Levy Gallery.
Salvador Dalí. Persistance de
la Mémoire (The Persistence
of Memory). 1931. Oil on
canvas. 9-1⁄2 × 13”
The Museum of Modern Art,
New. York.
19. In 1940, Breton organized the
fourth International Surrealist
Exhibition in Mexico City, which
included the Mexicans
Frida Kahlo (1907–1954) and
Diego Rivera (1886–1957)
(although neither artist officially
joined the movement).
Salvador Dalí. Gala and the Angelus
of Millet Immediately Preceding the
Arrival of the Conic Anamorphoses.
1933. Oil on panel. 9-3⁄8 × 7-3⁄8”
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa
20. Salvador Dalí. Soft Construction
with Boiled Beans: Premonitions
of Civil War. 1936. Oil on canvas
39-1⁄4 × 39”. Philadelphia
Museum of Art
21. René Magritte.
In 1927, Magritte moved to Paris and
became a leading figure in the visual
Surrealist movement.
Magritte distinguished between an
object and its image. He had first
presented this lesson in his teasing The
Use of Wos I (1928-1929), in which the
inscription "this is not a pipe" is written
beneath a painted image of one.
His semantic investigation of the
connection between language and visual
source is evident in his Key of Dreams
series of the 1930s in which objects
depicted do not conform with the labels
below them.
René Magritte. The Treachery (or
Perfidy) of Images. 1928–29. Oil on
canvas, 23-1⁄4 × 31-1⁄2”. Los
Angeles County Museum of Art
Surrealism beyond France and Spain: Magritte,
Delvaux, Bellmer, Matta, and Lam
22. • Contextual and associative meaning are at
the heart of Magritte's art.
• Influenced by de Chirico's paintings
between 1910 and 1920, Magritte painted
objects juxtaposed in dreamlike scenes.
• Magritte’s work defined a split between
the visual automatism employed by
Masson and Miró and a new form of
illusionistic Surrealism practiced by
Salvador Dalí (1904–1989), the Belgian
Paul Delvaux (1897–1994), and the French-
American Yves Tanguy (1900–1955
• Movie images and techniques were an
influence on Magritte
René Magritte. The Human
Condition. 1933. Oil on canvas
39-3⁄8 × 31-7⁄8”
National Gallery of Art
Washington, D.C.
23. Identified with the Belgian Surrealist
movement, Paul Delvaux was influenced by
René Magritte, and by the Italian Metaphysical
and proto-Surrealist painter Giorgio de
Chirico.
Delvaux relied on provocative juxtapositions
of situations to create imaginative
dreamscapes.
From de Chirico he adopted the use of
dramatic settings, and classical architecture.
Delvaux has a keen sense of theater, evoking
a classical world that, never existed.
Architectural elements are reminiscent of
Greek and Roman temples. None represent
any known buildings.
Paul delvaux. Entrance to the
City.1940. Oil canvas. 63” x
70-7/8”. Private Collection.
24. Roberto Matta. Disasters of
Mysticism. 1942. Oil on
canvas. 38-1/4” x 51-3/4”.
Private collection.
Roberto Matta was born in Chile in
1912. Originally he was trained in his
native country as an architect. He
went to Paris in 1932 to work in the
studio of Le Corbousier.
Matta joined the Surrealists in 1937.
Surrealist exhibit that opened in Paris
in 1938. Because of the threat of war,
Matta left for New York in the same
year.
The idea of automatism was a key
element of the Surrealist movement in
order to allow the imagery and
associations to form independently.
Matta and Lam
25. Wifredo Lam
• is the most renowned
painter from Cuba
• sought to portray and
revive the enduring Afro-
Cuban spirit and culture.
• Was Inspired by the
developments of the 20th
century, Lam created a
unique style.
Wifredo Lam, The Jungle, 1942-43,
gouache on paper mounted on canvas,
94-1/4 x 90-1/2 inches. The Museum of
Modern Art.
26. Fur-Lined Teacup Object is
Oppenheim's most famous
work. and one of the icons of
the Surrealist movement.
It provoked the viewer into
imagining what the fur lined
cup might feel like to drink
from and forces the
disagreeable response. Meret Oppenheim. Object (Le Déjeuner
en fourrure) (Luncheon in Fur). 1936
Fur-covered cup diameter 4-3⁄8”, saucer,
diameter 9-3⁄8”, spoon, length 8”
Overall height 2-7⁄8”. The Museum of
Modern Art New York.
Women and Surrealism: Oppenheim, Cahun, Maar,
Tanning, and Corrington
27. Some Roses and Their
Phantoms, 1952, surprise the
viewer with creatures-like
discolored, shriveled and
dried flowers .
At first glance they defy
resemblance to flowers. They
point more to the animal
world.
Dorothea Tanning. Some Roses and
Their Phantoms. 1952. Oil on canvas
29-7⁄8 × 40”. Tate, London
28. Leonora Carrington was a key
figure in the Surrealist
movement.
She escaped from the Nazis
during World War II.
Her paintings depict detailed
compositions of fantastical
creatures based on personal
symbolism.
She skilfully avoids the
Surrealist stereotyping of
women.
Leonora Carrington. Self-Portrait (The
White Horse Inn). 1936–37. Oil on
canvas. 25-1⁄2 × 32-1⁄8”. The
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
29. Never Quite “One of Ours:
Picasso and Surrealism
Painting and the Graphic Art,
Mid 1920’s to 30’s
Seated Bather was painted by
Pablo Picasso in early 1930.
The colors and representation
display show how he combined
cubism with the surrealism. The
parts of the woman's head are
separated in pieces.
Pablo Picasso. Seated Bather. Early
1930. Oil on canvas. 64-1⁄4 × 51”. The
Museum of Modern Art, New York
30. Sculpture, late 1930s to 1940s
• González had been trained by his father in decorative metal-craft, which
had been the family business.
• During the First World War, González mastered oxyacetylene welding at
the Renault factory, which was producing weapons for the French
military.
• In 1925-1926 Gonzales worked as a studio assistant for Brancusi.
• In 1928, Picasso asked Gonzales for help in creating several metal
sculptures that would need to be welded.
• González was excited about the idea, and since Picasso did not have a
space equipped for welding, their historic collaboration started in
González’s studio. In the beginning they created sculptures based on
Cubist collage methods.
31. Pablo Picasso. Woman in the garden
1929-1930. Iron soldered and painted
white. Height 6’ 10-3/4”.
Muse Picasso , Paris.
• The two made highly abstracted
heads and figures from sheets of iron
and other metals which they cut and
joined by welding to form highly
abstracted heads and figures.
• Picasso’s collaborations with
Gonzales led to making a series of
unprecedented life size figures and
heads.
• Woman in the Garden is
representative of Picasso’s
imaginative freedom.
32. • Bull's Head is a found object
made from seat and handlebars
of a bicycle.
• Its meaning is derived from the
context in which these parts are
used.
• The alteration of their context, or
their form modifies their meaning
and significance.
• Bull's Head , is both childlike and
highly sophisticated in its
simplicity, it stands as an
assertion of the transforming
power of the human imagination”
(Eric Gibson, The Wall Street
Journal –April 16, 2011)
Ipablo Picasso.
Bull's Head. 1943.. Bicycle
saddle and handlebars.
33.5 x 43.5 x 19 cm, Musée
Picasso, Paris
33. Pioneer of a New Iron Age: Julio
González
• The figure, has cactus-like spikes fingers. It
symbolizes the republican cause during the
Spanish Civil War.
• During the late 1930s, González's influenced
the avant-garde sculpture. The human figure
symbolizes the Spanish peasant and his the
ability to survive harsh conditions.
• González used planes in different angles to
create an illusion of depth while keeping the
actual depth shallow.
• Because of his low key personality and low
public profile, he had little recognition during
his lifetime.
• His sculpture first become widely known
through the retrospective exhibition at the
Musé National d’Art Moderne, Paris (1952),
Julio González. Cactus
Man I. 1939. Bronze
(cast from original
iron). Height 26”. Musée
National d”Art
Moderne, Centre d’Art
at de Culture Georges
Pompidou, Paris.
34. • In the 1930s Giacometti created
sculptures in a style that
summed up his interests in
perception, alienation and
anxiety.
• An Existentialist, after the war
Giacometti created a style that
summed up his philosophical
interests.
• Although his artistic interests
extended into painting and
drawing, Gicometti is most
famous for his sculpture.
• Giacometti used the human
figure to emphasize the motif of
suffering, which was a popular
symbol of post-war trauma.
Alberto Giacometti Femme égorgée
(Woman with Her Throat Cut). 1932 (cast
1949) Bronze. 8 × 34-1⁄2 × 25”.The
Museum of Modern Art, New York
Surrealism’s Sculptural Language:
Giacometti’s Early Career
35. • Giacometti is best remembered for his
figurative work, which helped make the motif
of the suffering human figure a popular
symbol of post-war trauma.
• Although his output extends into painting
and drawing, Giacometti is most famous for
his sculpture.
• The work of Alberto Giacometti embody the
existential doubts of the period he lived in.
• The philosophers Maurice Merleau-Ponty and
Jean-Paul Sartre recognized the existential
doubts in Giacometti’s.
Alberto Giacometti. Objet
invisible (Mains Tenant le
Vide) (Invisible
Object/Hands Holding the
Void). 1934. Plaster. height
61-1⁄2”
Yale University Art Gallery
New Haven
36. • Henry Moore, the most
important British sculptor of
the 20th century, employed
motifs of the mother and
child, and the Reclining
Figure, and often used
abstract form to draw
analogies between the
human body and the
landscape.
• The foundation of Moore's
approach was direct
carving, mostly in stone. He
also cast many of his
sculptures in bronze.
Henry Moore. Reclining Figure. 1939. Elm
wood. 3’ 1” × 6’ 7” × 2’ 6.The Detroit
Institute of Arts
Surrealism’s Sculpture in Britain: Moore
37. Atget’s Paris
Eugène Atget, a French
photographer, is best known for
his photographs of the streets of
Paris.
His photographs are notable for
their diffuse light he captured.
They also document the rapid
modernization of Paris.
Eugène Atget. Magasin
avenue des Gobelins. 1925
Albumen-silver print
9-3⁄8 × 7”. The Museum of
Modern Art, New York
Bizare Juxtapositions:
Photography and Surrealism
38. Man Ray’s created
carefully composed
prints that altered
thre reality and
created a new one.
Andrè Kertèsz is
considered by many
to be the single
greatest
photographer of the
20th century.
Man Ray. Observatory
Time—The Lovers. 1936.
Halftone reproduction.
Published in Harper’s
Bazaar November 1936
André Kertész.
Distortion No. 4
1933. Gelatin-silver
print.
Man Ray, Kertész, Tabard and
the Manipulated image
39. An English Perspective: Brandt
Bill Brandt was a German-born British
photographer and photojournalist.
He is renown for his for documenting
20th-century British life, and for his
nudes.
Brandt worked briefly with Man Ray in
Paris. In 1929.
In the late 1930s, when he workeda as
a photojournalist, Brandt
photographed industrial cities and
coal-mining districtsin northern
England,
Bill Brandt. Portrait of a Young
Girl. Eaton Place, London. 1955
Gelatin-silver print. 17 × 14-3⁄4”
