Surrealism

Surrealism aimed to revolutionise human experience, rejecting a rational vision of life in favour of one that asserted the value of the unconscious and dreams. The movement’s poets and artists found magic and strange beauty in the unexpected and the uncanny, the disregarded and the unconventional.

The word ‘surrealist’ (suggesting ‘beyond reality’) was coined by the French avant-garde poet Guillaume Apollinaire in a play written in 1903 and performed in 1917.

Many surrealist artists used automatic drawing or writing to unlock ideas and images from their unconscious minds, and others sought to depict dream worlds or hidden psychological tensions.

Attractive to writers, artists, photographers and filmmakers from around the world who shared this aggressive rejection of conventional artistic and moral values, surrealism quickly became an international movement. It exerted enormous impact on the cultural life of many countries in the interwar years and later.

Many argue that surrealism, as an identifiable cultural movement, ended with the death of Breton in 1966. Others believe that it remains a vital and relevant force today.

the first one goes by the name of persistence of memory and the second is the temptation of St. antony both of them by painted by Salvador Dali

Breton gave surrealism its first formal definition in the manifesto of 1924

Surrealism- noun, masculine. pure psychic automatism by which one intends to express verbally, in writing or by other method, the real functioning of the mind. dictation by thought, in the absence of any control exercised by reason, and beyond any esthetic or moral preoccupation.

ENCYCL. Philos. Surrealism is based on the belief in the superior reality of certain forms of associattion heretofore neglected, in the omnipotence of dreams, in the undirected play of thoughts.

problems that i faced when i first came to australia

job

slangs

accomodation

difficulties with a particular course

switching to another course and dropping the current course

WHAT IS SURREALISM?

A cultural movement started back in 1920’s is well known for its artwork and rich background which came after the Dadaism and World War 1. Artworks in this period were solely based on the idea in the unconscious mind of the artists which included illogical scenes, illustrations, used creatures from the daily life and gave them a monstrous form to depict various precisions. Established in Paris by Andre Breton the founder or the foremost artist of this movement made it very clear with his artwork that it was an explicit and very straight forward art form. Some famous artist who contributed in this form where Salvador Dali, Pablo Picasso, Andre Breton, their work spread all over the globe impacting visual art, films, music and other industries. It also left an impact on the social and political thinking of many countries. It had an element of surprise combined with that of philosophical ideas.

COMMUNICATION THROUGH SURREALISM

So lets talk about how this art style completely changed the format of how artists in the earlier period used to communicate or deliver a message through their artwork. If we take a look at the paintings of this period, they mostly delivered the secrets and sexual desires of the unconscious mind. Salvador Dali strong connotation for such things his paintings sometimes left people with vague ideas, they all had imaginative quality and supernatural effect in them which was unexplainable at times. Colors widely used were dark shades or the warm color like dark brown, gold which gave them even more depth and meaning. If we take the examples of his famous artworks like “Persistence of memory” or “Temptations of St. Anthony” both of them have this weird art style with everyday animals but molded in a monstrous form, all it shows is the temptations of a mortal being. They have a very similar pattern to the images that appear in our unconscious minds which cannot be exactly defined but have a concentric meaning. So the same thing I have tried to apply in my final artwork where I wanted to communicate the feelings or the desires that I had in mind when I came here but some or the other way they got tangled and things got complicated. How the elements of my daily life got converted into these surrealistic ideas (Sangjamrus, 2015). The center theme of my problem that I’m trying to communicate with this method is about a personal issue with a course. How this course was completely different to things that I have learnt and practiced in the past i.e.(my under graduation) to the things that were taught me in that very course, so I tried to communicate my problems using this art style where two different elements collaborate. I have used a real time image to merge with some clip art images and give it a surrealistic form.

CULTURE VIA SURREALISM

Surrealism revolved around the aspects of political agendas back in 19th century and even now. Breton used the means of surrealism to tackle issues like exploitation, freedom of art, sexuality, poverty and communism. Let’s see a few examples how culture got affected by surrealism. Back in 1910 after returning from Mexico Breton exposed the brutality that military did on their people, he explicitly shows how in the name of old traditional rituals these Colombians and Mexicans co-existed and ran havoc on the people of the country. Breton cites photos and other proofs to expose them and finally end their reign. Next example is from Haiti where people suffered from poverty, he gave an inaugural speech addressing it as the autonomous black nation which could reach great heights if they were given proper work and they would put in some hard work in it. This was a major cause of humanity and wealth. At the same time Paris had this issue of sexuality and malleability so to address this problem he used a painting from Haitian culture and depicted it in a form of a voodoo god who is juggling with the mixed desires of the society and gave it a Christianity logo to empathize with the people affected by this. He used photographic medium to testify the horrors induced by the Nazis after World War 1. In the same way I would like to portray my idea of jobs and slangs in Australia, every international student has faced this problem where they couldn’t find a job and found it difficult to understand the Australian slangs. Jobs are directly connected to the culture of the countries as back in my home country jobs were pretty different and part time job culture didn’t actually exist, here almost every job requires a proper experience of about 2-3 years which is really tough to get because as I said earlier I come from a country where there was no culture of part time jobs. And I think it really important for an individual to get accustomed to the traditions and the cultures of the country you’re living in, one should indulge themselves in all the activities and try to learn new things as this will increase the social acceptance of that person on the other side they will also develop new connections and bond which will eventually help them to survive in the long run (WALDEN, 2017).

FUNTIONS OF SURREALISM

As described by Salvador Dali these are minimum mechanical functioning things that arise from the desires, fantasies and the thoughts that arise in the sub conscious minds of a human being. These things are not derived by the preoccupations instead they have their amorous place in every individuals head. In today’s world we are drawn towards the materialistic things than those of real things. Different elements or objects that are used in exhibitions or art galleries to represent surrealism are chair, drawings, paintings, manuscripts, wood and plaster all these things help to dematerialize the desires of human beings. Lets take an example back from 1936 at Charles Ratton Gallery where surrealism was used to transfigure and transmute objects with the help of reality itself. Later on real space was used for the same purpose and it a was named as “installations” (SURREALISM AND THE OBJECT, 2013) .Now if i talk about the problem related to this field is dropping of a course at my university which can also be identified as an object. I personally consider this as a materialistic thing a product that I paid for so according to that I should be given complete power of whether to study or drop the particular course but as per the clause and rules of the university you cannot drop it after the census date even though it is their responsibility to guide me along the process but I got no help from the university, which again brings us back to the point stated by Dali that for years he kept on making the sculptures that came into his mind without changing a thing in them which means that I don’t want to build any more arks for the university I have tried physical and morally to embellish this relationship.

ENVIRONMENT: ASPECT OF SURREALISM

We human beings are corrupted by social conventions and municipal displacements. There should be a sympathetic and analogical relationship between human and nature but we have imposed ourselves as the scientific and more superior beings. Our thinking process is now based on our ambitions and goals without any empathy towards nature. According to Breton survival, accumulation and competition are the major and dominant features of our lives, we surge for power and are ready to eliminate anything that comes in between that. In the surrealism this state is known as anti-ecological or self-cannibalism, this modern world seems to condemn itself by destroying the ecosystem, flora and fauna and all other life forms. Environmental factor also works on the materialist and pessimistic nature of humankind that denotes cosmic progress towards advancement and decline on ecological front. Place and culture are also part of geo environment which brings me to my last difficulty which is accommodation, when I first arrived here I needed a place to stay so without any further delay a went for a student accommodation which was being promoted on my university’s official site but later on I realized that its bit to expensive but till then I had signed a bond/ agreement with them for few thousand dollars and now I couldn’t leave that place till the time my agreement was placed, so according to me these things fall under the category of desires and urge to mint more money no matter if that’s in a way making people suffer. These industries, education system, they’re all here to make money without even considering the loss other person faces because of their attitude. We humans got so busy and focused on these temporary happiness or pleasure that we don’t want to seek the eternal bliss and in this process we ignore the most important factor of the human cycle (Roberts, 2016).

References

Islam, M. N. ( 2013, October 21). Modern Literary Theory.

Sangjamrus, R. (2015, 29 September). The Melting Watch. Surrealism : Art for Communication.

SURREALISM AND THE OBJECT. ( 2013, 30 OCTOBER). Retrieved from centrepompidou.fr: https://www.centrepompidou.fr/media/document/40/c9/40c9e91ceb04c7e21e43668403b01151/normal.pdf

WALDEN, L. (2017, JANUARY 19). SURREALISM: A GLOBAL CULTURAL MOVEMENT WITH LOCAL POLITICAL AGENCY. Cultural & Area Studies, History, Politics, International Relations & Law, The Arts & Literature.

<Surrealism_The_Ecological_Imperative.pdf>.

#daily #whatitslike #surrealism