By H. BREWSTER JONES
GETTING down to hard facts about Surrealism, an exhibition of which —and its devotees—recently horrified London art critics, it really is no more than exploiting impressions of experiences in the dream world. At a first glance, the average example of Surrealistic art gives the impression of the random drawings of an unbalanced mind, incapable of rational thought or logical design. The artists, though—some people would call them the perpetrators—say that they rely entirely upon their subconscious impulses for their drawing—in spite of the fact that they sometimes resort to the practice of pasting a hotch-potch of cuttings together to form a picture. Like the Cubists, the Surrealists cling to the theory that a painting need not be an exact representation of anything in nature, but is essentially a "creation of the artist."
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SURREALISM, however, claims a modicum of Romanticism, and we find that there is an expressive quality in the work of certain of its disciples which saves them from being branded merely as eccentrics who acknowledge no tradition. Herbert Read, in an introduction to "Art Now," a book on the theory of modern painting and sculpture, says that the main doctrine of the school of Surrealism is that there exists a world more real than the normal world—the world of the unconscious mind. To him, Freud, the famous psycho-analyst, is the real founder of the school. In Paris the adherents of Surrealism have already been described as a religious sect, with M. Andre Breton, an author, as their leader. This Andre Breton, as far back as 1924, defined the expression Surrealism as connoting, "Pure psychic automatism, by which it is intended to express, verbally, in writing, or by other means, the real process of thought. It is thought's dictation, all exercise of reason and every aesthetic or moral preoccupation being absent." It is, no doubt, M. Breton's belief in the higher reality of certain forms of association hitherto neglected, in the omnipotence of dreaming, in the unbiassed play of thought, which has influenced painters such as Arp, Joan Miro, De Chirico, Paul Klee, Max Ernst, Salvador Dali, and Pierre Roy to employ such experiences as mediums for their artistic expression. The poetry of Cary Ross must also claim this influence. Most of us have some difficulty in unravelling the nebulous impressions received during our fitful slumber. Surrealists seem to have no such difficulty, however, and as Constant Lambert amusingly points out in his chapter on "Surrealism and No-Classicism" in "Music Ho!" it may be that, in the near future, there will be schools of dreaming where you will be taught to do the thing properly.
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SURREALISM in its application to art has been defined as "the free grouping together of incongruous and non-associated images," either drawn from dreams or the sub-conscious mind. Music seems to be incapable of such exploitation, although Lambert finds a Surrealistic suggestion in the use of jazz glissandoes in "Pulcinella" of Stravinsky, which has much the same effect upon him as "a photograph of a negro with a cocktail shaker pasted into the background of an Alma Tadema production." This form of montage applied to music and painting is crude in the extreme compared with its use on the film, where by expert choice of "shots." remarkable results are achieved. The primary aim of the Cine-Surrealist movement is similar to that of the identical cult in those plastic and literary arts in which it has been cultivated, and that is "the expression of dreams and thought tangents of an imaginative person provoked by material surroundings and placed on paper or canvas." The advantage of its use in a film production is the fluid continuity, with its swift transference of thought, obtainable by the stringing together of a series of expressions of state of mind. Continental films — particularly Soviet Russian films —exploit this technique of montage to the full, realising that the film lends itself naturally to an expression which demands "imaginative velocity and a sensitivity to the fantasy of the commonplace."
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ALTHOUGH the Surrealist expects us to view the mental life as existing on two planes, "one definite and visible in outline and detail, the other—perhaps the greater part of life—submerged, vague, indeterminate," and claims much of his inspiration from a state of mind which Andre Breton describes as being haunted, there is much that the man in the street can understand in such an argument for juxtaposition of opposites as the following:— "A statue," Breton says, "which is quite devoid of interest in its proper place, becomes an object of wonder if put in a ditch. And so with life in general; it is too dull in its proper place." How true it is that we all seek novelty and surprise—but, fortunately for most people, a saving sense of humor comes to their rescue when a point of absurdity has been reached. However, Surrealism is here for posterity to judge.
Advertiser (Adelaide, SA : 1931 - 1954), Saturday 27 June 1936, page 11
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