1. Concepts of Modernity
Current manifestations in the visual arts
Week 2 March 7 2011
Poetics of the unconscious- Personal Expression
Modernity lecture
CAI202
Lecturer Caroline Rannersberger
caroline.rannersberger@cdu.edu.au

2. • Recap of modernism
• Context of modernity in 21st century
• Snapshot of Expressionism
• Surrealism in Europe
• Contemporary painting and the poetic
of the unconscious
• Surrealism and Australian modernism

3. Sources
Poetics of the unconscious- Personal Expression
(A focus on Surrealism)
Harrison, Charles, and Paul Wood, eds. Art in Theory1900-1990. Oxford: Blackwell, 1993:pp.440-
450: (4)André Breton: Surrealism and Painting; (5)André Breton from the Second Manifesto of
Surrealism
Hughes, Robert. The Shock of the New. London: BBC
Books, 1991: Chapter Five: The Threshold of Liberty
Artists: Max Ernst, Giorgio de Chirico, Henri Rousseau,Joan Miró, René Magritte, as well as
contemporary Australian artists.
Extension: Find contemporary Australia artists working with similar ideas/methods.
Refer Art Almanac http://www.art-almanac.com.au/ for overview of artists and follow the links to
public/commercial galleries. Also refer electronic/hard copy art journals: Art Monthly, Art & Australia,
Artlink, etc available in the CDU library/online database.

4. Recap: modernism and modern way of thinking
•Enlightenment and enlightened thinking
•(contrast counter enlightenment: Isaiah Berlin 1901-1997)
•science, reason, truth= the basis of knowledge
•be free from established systems of thinking/ grand
narratives
•break from the past and its romantic, emotive belief in god
and religion

5. 21st century = the banality of modernity
•Critique of the rise of industry and economic
development and its manifestations of banality
•Indictment of the banality that characterizes
modern life
•21stC slick, pretty, traditional surfaces
critiquing aspects of modernism
•See through the superficiality and into a
cultural analysis

6. Francisco Goya: ‘Father of modernity’ 1746-1828
•Francisco José de Goya y
Lucientes (30 March 1746 –
16 April 1828)
•Spanish romantic painter
and printmaker
•last of the Old Masters
•first of the moderns
Francisco Goya, "The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters,"
published 1799

7. Thought/ the unconscious = new reality
Goya (Spanish romantic 18th/19thC):
El sueño de la razón produce monstruos:
When reasons dream, monsters are born (Hughes,p.213)
thought creates a parallel world = dreams
the irrational =human nature
mental derangement gives way to the dark side of
the mind / locus of irrefutable truths about society
Adapted from: 1 Hughes, Robert. The Shock of the New. London: BBC Books, 1991.pp 212-216

8. Poetics of the unconscious-
Personal Expression
•Is manifested in modernist movements
including:
•Expressionism
(means of personal /emotive expression
through painterly methods)
•Surrealism
(means of unconscious expression through
rejection of realism and the rational)

9. Expressionsim:
A snapshot

10. The Scream; Edvard Munch 1863-1944
Edvard Munch; The Scream (or The Cry)
1893; 150 Kb; Casein/waxed crayon and
tempera on paper (cardboard), 91 x 73.5
cm (35 7/8 x 29"); Nasjonalgalleriet
(National Gallery), Oslo
Norwegian painter and printmaker;
symbolist
“the study of the soul, that is to say the
study of my own self” José María Faerna,
Munch, Harry N. Abrams, New York,
1995, p. 16
icon of existential anguish; personal
expression and the unconscious;
intense, evocative paintings influence on
German Expressionism early 20th
century

11. The Scream; Edvard Munch 1863-1944
"I was walking down the road
with two friends when the sun
set; suddenly, the sky turned as
red as blood. I stopped and
leaned against the fence,
feeling unspeakably tired.
Tongues of fire and blood
stretched over the bluish black
fjord. My friends went on
walking, while I lagged behind,
shivering with fear. Then I
heard the enormous, infinite
scream of nature."
(Faerna, 1995, p. 1)

12. German Expressionist Painting
1905-1914
“Man is crying out for his soul, the whole
period becomes a single urgent cry.
And art cries too, into the deep darkness,
crying for help, crying for the spirit.
That is Expressionism”
(Hermann Bahr, Expressionism, Munich,
1916)

13. German Expressionists: Egon Schiele
1890-1918
Born Austria
Self portrait 1912
Oil on wood, 42.3x33.8cm

14. German Expressionists: Egon Schiele
1890-1918
Mä nnlicher Akt, Selbstporträ t
1910
55,7 × 36,8 cmBleistift, Tempera
aquarelliert auf Papier

15. Expressionists include:
Germans:Max Beckmann,
Otto Dix,
George Grosz,
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, August Macke,
Emil Nolde,
Max Pechstein;
the Austrian Oskar Kokoschka,
the Czech Alfred Kubin
the Norwegian Edvard Munch
the Russian Wassily Kandinsky

16. Surrealism

17. André Breton 1896-1966:
First Manifesto of Surrealism 1924
‘SURREALISM,n. Psychic automatism in its pure
state, but which one proposes to express –
verbally by written means of the word, or in any
other manner - the actual functioning of thought.
Dictated by thought, in the absence of any control
exercised by reason, exempt from any aesthetic or
moral concern’.
Harrison, Charles, and Paul Wood, eds. Art in Theory 1900-1990. Oxford: Blackwell, 1993.p. 438

18. André Breton 1896-1966:
From ‘Surrealism and Painting’ 1928
‘Utter bankruptcy of art criticism, a bankruptcy that
is really comic:...whether Chagall happens to be
considered a surrealist or not, are matters for
grocers’ assistants’.
Harrison, Charles, and Paul Wood, eds. Art in Theory 1900-1990. Oxford: Blackwell, 1993.pp. 445

19. André Breton 1896-1966:
First Manifesto of Surrealism 1924
‘This summer the roses are blue; the wood is of
glass. The earth, draped in its verdant cloak,
makes as little impression upon me as a
ghost...Existence is elsewhere’.
Harrison, Charles, and Paul Wood, eds. Art in Theory 1900-1990. Oxford: Blackwell, 1993.p. 439

20. André Breton 1896-1966:
First Manifesto of Surrealism 1924
‘The case against the realistic attitude demands to
be examined, following the case against the
materialistic attitude’.
‘We are still living under the reign of logic...But in
this day and age logical methods are applicable
only to solving problems of secondary interest’.
Harrison, Charles, and Paul Wood, eds. Art in Theory 1900-1990. Oxford: Blackwell, 1993.p. 433

21. André Breton 1896-1966:
First Manifesto of Surrealism 1924
‘Freud very rightly brought his critical faculties to
bear upon the dream’.
‘I have no choice but to consider [the waking state]
a phenomenon of interference’.
‘The mind of the man who dreams is fully satisfied
by what happens to him’.
Harrison, Charles, and Paul Wood, eds. Art in Theory 1900-1990. Oxford: Blackwell, 1993.p. 435

22. Surrealism: Henri Rousseau (1844-1910)
The Dream 1910; Oil on canvas 80.5x117.5 inches
Hughes, Robert. The Shock of the New. London: BBC Books, 1991. p. 229

23. Surrealism: 3 kinds of expression: Primitive
Child art, the art of the mad and primitive (naif) art
Rousseau, ‘the customs man’ : Primitive art, but:
Rousseau to Picasso: ‘We are the two greatest living painters, I in the
modern manner you in the Egyptian’
Hughes: ‘The clarity of Rousseau’s vision further heightened its compulsive,
dreamlike quality: there the image is, all at once, with no ambiguities, done
(as he would have insisted) from life.’
Hughes, Robert. The Shock of the New. London: BBC Books, 1991. p. 227-9

24. Surrealism: 3 kinds of expression: child art
Joan Miró 1893-1983
Child art =outlet of the uncensored, polymorphous self
Child art = special cultural form which can disclose the
nature of the mind
Seen through the mimicry of a child’s freedom by adults
The best pure painter of the Surrealists (Hughes)
Resisted the movement, but they joined him
For the assassination of painting; a dislike for the
bourgeois
Hughes, Robert. The Shock of the New. London: BBC Books, 1991. p. 231

25. Surrealism: Joan Miró 1893-1983
The tilled field 1923-4; oil on canvas; 26x36.5 inches
Metamorphosis: ‘Everything in this landscape has the power to become something
else’ (Hughes)
Hughes, Robert. The Shock of the New. London: BBC Books, 1991. p. 231-2

26. Surrealism: Joan Miró 1893-1983
The harlequin’s carnival 1924-5; oil on canvas; 26x36.5 inches
‘Miro claimed that hallucinations brought on by hunger and staring at the cracks in
the plaster during those lean Paris years helped to loosen his imagery, as
mescaline might’ (Hughes)
Hughes, Robert. The Shock of the New. London: BBC Books, 1991. p. 235

27. Surrealism: Joan Miró 1893-1983
The harlequin’s carnival 1924-5; oil on canvas; 26x36.5 inches
Miro: ‘There are tiny forms in vast empty spaces. Empty space, empty horizons,
empty plains, everything that is stripped has always impressed me’
Hughes, Robert. The Shock of the New. London: BBC Books, 1991. p. 235

28. André Breton 1896-1966:
From ‘Surrealism and Painting’ 1928
‘In such a domain, [what I believe with my eyes], I
dispose of a power of illusion whose limits, if I am
not careful, I cease to perceive’.
‘Let us not forget that in this epoch it is reality itself
that is in question’
Harrison, Charles, and Paul Wood, eds. Art in Theory 1900-1990. Oxford: Blackwell, 1993.pp. 441,442

29. René François Ghislain Magritte (1898 – 1967)
Magritte's La Trahison des Images (The Treachery of Images) (1928-9) or
Ceci n'est pas une pipe (This is not a pipe). Oil on canvas 23.5x37 inches

30. André Breton 1896-1966:
From‘Surrealism and Painting’ 1928
‘Picasso, creator of toys for adults, has caused
man to grow up, and sometimes under the guise
of exasperating him, has put an end to his puerile
fidgeting’.
‘I believe that men will long continue to feel the
need of following to its source the magical river
flowing from their eyes, bathing with the same
hallucinatory light and shade both the things that
are and the things that are not.’
Harrison, Charles, and Paul Wood, eds. Art in Theory 1900-1990. Oxford: Blackwell, 1993.pp. 444

31. Pablo Picasso: Concepts of surrealism
Guernica 1937; Oil on Canvas; 349 cm × 776 cm (137.4 in × 305.5 in)
‘...this bull is a bull and this horse is a horse... If you give a meaning to certain things in my
paintings it may be very true, but it is not my idea to give this meaning. What ideas and
conclusions you have got I obtained too, but instinctively, unconsciously. I make the painting for
the painting. I paint the objects for what they are.’
http://www.pbs.org/treasuresoftheworld/a_nav/guernica_nav/gnav_level_1/5meaning_guerfrm.html

32. Pablo Picasso: Concepts of surrealism
‘Picasso was never a member of the surrealist circle but was rightly admired
by Surrealism for his sense of metamorphosis...’
Hughes, Robert. The Shock of the New. London: BBC Books, 1991. p.252

33. André Breton 1896-1966:
From ‘Second Manifesto of Surrealism’ 1929
Surrealism: ‘a special part of its function is to
examine with a critical eye the notions of reality
and unreality, reason and irrationality, reflection
and impulse, knowledge and fatal ignorance,
usefulness and uselessness’.
Harrison, Charles, and Paul Wood, eds. Art in Theory 1900-1990. Oxford: Blackwell, 1993.pp. 446-7 (Second Manifesto of Surrealism 1929)

34. Max Ernst
Europe after the rain 1940-2; Oil on canvas 21.5x58.25inches
Hughes: ‘A panorama of a fungoid landscape seen as though in the aftermath of an
annihilating, biblical deluge. Ernst got away to America when the German armies rolled into
France.’
Frottage/decalcomania method of lifting off paint and putting it down creates illusionary effect
of reality.
Hughes, Robert. The Shock of the New. London: BBC Books, 1991. p.255

35. Max Ernst
Europe after the rain 1940-2; Oil on canvas 21.5x58.25inches
‘Here [in early collage works] I discover elements of a figuration so remote that its very
absurdity provokes in me a sudden intensification of my faculties of sight - a hallucinatory
succession of contradictory images...’
Ernst in Hughes, Robert. The Shock of the New. London: BBC Books, 1991. p.224-5

36. The poetic unconscious
and contemporary
thought/painting

37. André Breton 1896-1966:
From‘Surrealism and Painting’ 1928
1920s
‘The region where the charming vapours of the as
yet unknown, with which they are to fall in love,
condense, will appear to them in a lightning flash.’
Harrison, Charles, and Paul Wood, eds. Art in Theory 1900-1990. Oxford: Blackwell, 1993.pp. 444
2009
Jean-Luc Nancy identified a need to ‘rediscover, in
an as yet unknown mode, what those who lived in
myths knew in a totally different mode: there is a
universal communication and participation of
beings, that is to say of bodies in the world’.
Nancy, Jean-Luc. "Making Sense." In Making Sense. University of Cambridge, UK, 2009. (Key note speaker, Making Sense Conference)

38. André Breton 1896-1966:
From ‘Second Manifesto of Surrealism’ 1929: Short Circuits
‘Just as in the physical world,a short circuit occurs
when the two ‘poles’ of a machine are joined by a
conductor of little or no resistance....Surrealism
has done everything it can and more to increase
these short circuits’.
Harrison, Charles, and Paul Wood, eds. Art in Theory 1900-1990. Oxford: Blackwell, 1993.pp. 449 (Second Manifesto of Surrealism 1929)

39. Short Circuits and Slavoj Žižek 2006
‘Žižek is interested in the "parallax gap" separating
two points between which no synthesis or
mediation is possible, linked by an "impossible
short circuit" of levels that can never meet. From
this consideration of parallax, Žižek begins a
rehabilitation of dialectical materialism. ’
Ž ižek, Slavoj. Parallax View. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 2006.

40. Parallax: Sigmar Polke
Seeing rays 2006; mixed mediums on fabric; 541⁄4 x 46 inches
Draws from an engraving by 17thC Johann Zahn that depicts two
gentlemen observing the sky from different vantage points

41. Surrealism and
Australian
modernism/modernity

42. Surrealism and Australian modernism
Albert Tucker (1914 – 1999)
Bushrangers and parrots 1960
Ivan Durrant: ‘Pearce, as painted by Albert Tucker, is the summary of all and
more that is bad in humans. He is the ultimate destructive intruder... Just
look at those viciously protruding, cutting and slicing shark teeth; what a
brutal axe-head, alien monster and the devil himself!’
Albert Tucker Exhibition: The Intruder - The perfect Allegory, curated by Ivan Durant, June 1- August 10 2009
Art Monthly Australia; Issue 229, May 2010 pp.27-29

43. André Breton 1896-1966:
From ‘Second Manifesto of Surrealism’ 1929
Truth:‘A day will come when we no longer allow
ourselves to use [the truth] in such a cavalier
fashion,...with its palpable proofs of existence
other than the one we think we are living’.
Harrison, Charles, and Paul Wood, eds. Art in Theory 1900-1990. Oxford: Blackwell, 1993.pp. 450 (Second Manifesto of Surrealism 1929)

44. Surrealism and Australian modernism
Angry Penguins 1940s
Angry Penguins, an Australian literary and artistic
avant- garde movement of the 1940s
Early Australian exponents of surrealism and
expressionism
John Perceval,, Arthur Boyd Sidney Nolan,Danila
Vassileff, Albert Tucker, Joy Hester
The Ern Malley hoax

45. Surrealism and Australian modernism
Angry Penguins 1940s

46. Wamud Namok AO / Margie West 2008
Truth:‘According to Australian curator Margie
West, discussed in relation to Wamud Namok, the
metaphysical world embodies spirits which exist
“not just as metaphysical notions but as palpable
manifestations in the material world”.
West, Margie. "Bardayal Nadjamerrek: Wild Honey Painter." Art & Australia 46 Spring, no. 1 (2008): 120-25.

47. Truth and Myth/ The Metaphysical: Wamud Namok AO
Wamud Namok AO Dulklorrkelorrkeng and Wakkewakken; 2005Bark painting;
natural earth pigments on stringy bark; 83x 151cm
“[...] I can see you all, I can see you here in my country you Wakkewakken
[legless honey spirits]”
Wamud Namok in West, Margie. "Bardayal Nadjamerrek: Wild Honey Painter." Art & Australia 46 Spring, no. 1 (2008): 120-25.