Talk:Surrealism/Archive 1

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Contents

Changes?

It appears as if someone doesn't like changes being made to this entry. Why? -B

Giacometti

I don't know whether Giacometti belongs with the surrealists: he is much more closely linked with Existentialism - he was very close friends with Jean Paul Sartre - and although he had a deal with Paul Loeb (the Surrealists' principle dealer) and his work became known between 1929 - 1932 as surrealist, the work of this period is much more concerned with eroticism and symbolism than surrealism itself. But this is just my 2 sous worth... sjc

Edit summary

  • Edited misleading material on Dada.
  • Added qualification of Andre Breton's definition of surrealism.
  • Expansion of Dada discussion: negative Dada & positive surrealism.
  • Added material for further reading
  • Added "parsemage".* Added external link to the Surrealist Movement in the United States.
  • Added external link to Paris Surrealist Group.

--Daniel C. Boyer

Misleading and incomplete statement

It was a movement which transformed post-World War I visual art, writing, poetry and film -- this is highly misleading and incomplete! --Daniel C. Boyer

Oops. I've just refactored that into the opening sentence. If it's "often misinterpreted as an artistic movement", then what IS it? (in 10 words or less ;) ). We need a clear opening that gives the context, before we launch into how Breton initiated it -- Tarquin 07:01 Jul 31, 2002 (PDT)

Art movement?

The bald statement that surrealism is not an art movement kind of flies against the common definition of art movement. It wasn't *simply* an art movement, but it certainly wasn't *not* an art movement.

It is, not was, not an art movement. There have been many members who have not been artists, who have not ever done any painting, drawing, collage, etc. (except -- if this -- for participating in exquisite corpse); moreover, there have been participants in the movement who have been neither artists nor poets. The surrealist project is not to change art but to transform the world. (This is proved again and again in primary-source surrealist writings, Breton saying that though the preparations are, roughly speaking, "artistic in nature," the day would come when surrealism would not be in this stage of preparation any more. This has now come to be, to a greater or lesser extent, with the Madrid group currently not doing art any more; the group's contribution to a recent exhibition was burning currency.) I do not believe that this "bald statement... flies against the common definition of art movement" but in any case it is the truth. --Daniel C. Boyer 07:36 Aug 26, 2002 (PDT)

Statements that the Surrealist movement ended in the 1930s is not "false". In fact, it's the generally accepted position

Generally accepted as the position may be, it is based on demonstrably, factually false information. There was absolutely nothing that happened in the 1930s that could be called the "end of the movement." This belief (and people who say surrealism is dead have a notably difficult time agreeing on the date of its demise) is based on nothing more than a desire to collapse "we wish surrealism were dead" into "surrealism is dead." --Daniel C. Boyer

that Surrealism refers to the specific Paris-based collective.

Which continues today. See the link to GPMS. --user:Daniel C. Boyer

The concept of Surrealism being an ongoing movement is the minority position; might be useful to discern "Surrealism" from "surrealism".

There is no distinction other than in the minds of persons determined to falsify what surrealism is. --Daniel C. Boyer 07:36 Aug 26, 2002 (PDT)
--The Cunctator
Read this paragraph:
Although it is often falsely stated that surrealism ended either during or shortly after the Second World War, or with the death of Breton in 1966, the 1960s in fact saw a dramatic expansion of international surrealism, including the founding of the Surrealist Movement in the United States? by Franklin? and Penelope Rosemont?. For instance, in 1986 the Surrealist Group in Stockholm? was founded.
Explain to me why it is false and why the "generally-accepted position" can dispute these facts. --Daniel C. Boyer 07:49 Aug 26, 2002 (PDT)
You have totally failed to respond to my challenge. --Daniel C. Boyer 10:12 Aug 26, 2002 (PDT)

The assertion "it is falsely stated that surrealism ended..." depends on a certain definition of "surrealism". If I define "nationalism" as a 19th-century construct, then I can assert that claims that nationalism existed before the 19th century are false claims.

But this is circular reasoning. You essentially imply that because you define surrealism as an art movement between the wars my saying that that is false is only because you are defining surrealism as existing between the wars and therefore I am using a different definition of surrealism. This is nothing more than tautology. --Daniel C. Boyer 10:12 Aug 26, 2002 (PDT)

Those people who say that surrealism ended around WWII have a certain definition for surrealism.

But that definition of surrealism is not the one that surrealism has chosen for itself.
(See the definition of "surrealism" under "philosophy" in the Manifesto of Surrealism). --Daniel C. Boyer 11:55 Aug 26, 2002 (PDT)
"Those people" -- who are not surrealists -- would impose upon surrealism a definition other than the one Breton laid out in the Manifestoes. You see why I am asserting the "conspiracy theory" that the people who say surrealism ended are doing so out of a wish to see surrealism dead? Read the Manifestoes! Read What is Surrealism: Selected Writings of Andre Breton! Go to http://www.surrealism-usa.org! Make the slightest attempt to find out what surrealism really is!) --Daniel C. Boyer 10:12 Aug 26, 2002 (PDT)

Under that definition, their statement is not false. For example, the Encyclopedia Britannica is a pretty reasonable source--it may have debatable claims, but very rarely false information (that is, information that is objectively refutable).

But this is one of those "very rare" instances. --Daniel C. Boyer 10:12 Aug 26, 2002 (PDT)

EB defines surrealism as "a movement in visual art and literature, flourishing in Europe between World Wars I and II."

Notice the use of the subjective word "flourishing". This is to cover up the continued existence of surrealism: it still existed, implies Britannica, but it wasn't flourishing. (This is completely out of harmony with the facts, but since the word "flourishing" is so subjective it can't effectively be countered. But please admit that Britannica doesn't here say that surrealism ended. And it further recongised Franklin Rosemont because he wrote an article on surrealism in literature for them online. --Daniel C. Boyer 10:21 Aug 26, 2002 (PDT)

Believing their definition derives from a wish to see surrealism dead smells like a conspiracy theory.

Nearly all art movements are philosophical in nature; they have a grander purpose than creating works of art. They all want to change the world. You wrote: "The surrealist project is not to change art but to transform the world." But the purpose of art is to transform the world.

But surrealism does not and has never aimed to do this primarily by means of art and indeed at the earliest period of surrealism it was well-known that "there is no such thing as surrealist painting" (this was developed later). How do you explain the many surrealist documents, statements, tracts and books in which art is never mentioned; the many surrealist interventions that have nothing to do with art; the essential nature of surrealism as superseding aesthetics; the many surrealists who have never had anything to do with art; the statements by surrealist theorist after surrealist theorist about superseding art (the Madrid Group, Miro's "murder of painting" period, &c.)? --Daniel C. Boyer 10:12 Aug 26, 2002 (PDT)

By changing art one transforms the world.

This was never what surrealism intended to do and if you had ever read anything about surrealism you would know it. --Daniel C. Boyer 10:15 Aug 26, 2002 (PDT)
See this sentence from the Esperanto article: "Laŭ vortoj de Breton en 1935: “Transformigi la mondon", diris Markso, "ŝanĝi la vivon", diris Rimbaud?: ĉi tiuj du gvid-diraĵoj por ni estas unu sola”." --Daniel C. Boyer

This talk page is getting surrealistic... --The artist formerly known as Poor Eddie

More precisely, I think the vacuous truth article is surrealistic and this talk page is vacuous! --Ed Poor
Why? --Daniel C. Boyer

"the school of art or literature that aims at producing irrational fantasies or hallucinatory and dream-like effects": Here we go again! This is completely false! The very question of "aims" flies in the face of the automatism that is of critical importance to surrealism (see Breton's definition). --Daniel C. Boyer 17:47 Sep 27, 2002 (UTC)

Newsradio

Describing "Newsradio" as "surreal" shows the abuse the word "surreal" has been subjected to; by describing things that are less and less "strange" as "surreal" the word has been gradually drained of meaning. --Daniel C. Boyer

The "News Radio" link may have been "fixed," but why is News Radio in this article at all? --Daniel C. Boyer 14:33 Oct 2, 2002 (UTC)

Translators?

Added a reference under "Must read". One problem, I don't remember who translated these works from French to understandable English nor when. But it is great, it is marvellous, it is wonderful. Remember what Breton said: "The marvellous is beautiful. Anything that is marvellous is beautiful, in fact only the marvellous is beautiful."
Sigg3.net

That is; I need someone to help me with this.

Full names

Need full names of these guys: Valentine, Hugo, Oppenheim, Tanguy - Greg Godwin

Chat

Surrealism is so.. Je ne sais quoi.. Have any of you read Nadja by André Breton? --Sigg3.net

  • Yes; much other work by him too... --Daniel C. Boyer 21:11 Jan 11, 2003 (UTC)
    • Seriously: are you Daniel C. Boyer, or am I just a hopeless nerd? Or both?--Sigg3.net
      • I am Daniel C. Boyer; you are possibly a hopeless nerd, or there may be some hope for you. Or you could be completely non-nerd-like. --Daniel C. Boyer 20:11 Jan 28, 2003 (UTC)

NPOV sentence regarding eastern religions

"Yet the attempts of the French Surrealists to relate to the religions of the far east was a confused failure." --This sentence is totally un-NPOV and should be removed. --Daniel C. Boyer

Trivial pop culture infuence

"Yet after World War II, many of the once-startling effects of surrealism moved into popular culture, so that even advertisements commonly display "justaposed realities" such as Breton once cultivated. Today, as noted later on in this essay, one can see the surrealist influence in TV shows, music, theater..." . --This demonstrates an extremely superficial understanding of surrealism that is characteristic of much of this article. Thought this point is to some degree controversial, what has been characteristic of surrealism from the earliest period is it being a sort of "moving target," constantly staying one step ahead of bourgeois-realist attempts to incorporate it into the ruling-class canon. Perhaps the surautomatism article could give potential editors some idea of this. Suffice it to say, once again, that surrealism is not an artistic movement, and the idea of "bizarre juxtapositions" is very far from being the be-all or end-all of surrealism. --Daniel C. Boyer

Not art, again

"The surrealist artists made up the most popular artistic movement of Paris throughout the 1920s and 1930s": Once again! Surrealism is not an artistic movement! --Daniel C. Boyer

I think Daniel C. (sounds like a rapper:) here is right. In the Manifestoes of Surrealism, Breton describes Surrealism as a method to reach beyond (or between) the real and unreal: the surreal (over-real). --Sigg3.net

Not aesthetics

"The word Surrealism was first used to describe an aesthetic movement that emphasises the critical and imaginative powers of the unconscious": this is an absolutely gross distortion of surrealism. If you would read the Manifesto of Surrealism it is plain as day that aesthetics is utterly irrelevant to surrealism; this is even mentioned in Breton's definition of the movement. The repeated dishonest attempts to reduce surrealism to a school of art and literature one does not have to go far to see their genesis in a hatred of the implications of surrealism outside of art and literature. This interpretation of the movement holds sway, particularly in the United States, in the face of almost every primary source, every writing and statement and action that has ever come from genuine surrealism. --Daniel C. Boyer 18:50 20 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Recommended-->Related

Angela is to be commended on her change from "recommended" to "related" reading. --Daniel C. Boyer 20:46, 9 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Thanks. :) Angela. 22:45, 5 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Math

The mention of automatic mathematics should be edited rather than simply deleted. I didn't approach this by the best way, but so-called "automatic mathematics" is a part of surrealism, is significant... --Daniel C. Boyer 20:40, 24 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Surrealist ID help?

Can anyone help me ID the artist whom created the sculpture in the following photos? I've loved him since 10th grade Art History and ran across his work again at the Pompidou in Paris (I'm from the US) a couple weeks ago and cannot for the life of me remember what his name was! Thanks for any help you can give. If this is an inappropriate forum for this request, let me know and I'll remove it. However on the other hand, if someone can give me the name, I can upload the photos and put them on the surrealism page.
[1] [2]
--zandperl 01:29, 3 Dec 2003 (UTC)

This is Hans Bellmer. --Daniel C. Boyer 23:50, 3 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Thanks, I figured it out too--I googled "surrealist doll."  :) The pic's up on Hans Bellmer. --zandperl 02:53, 7 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Norwegian Surrealism

I noticed the short note on what Surrealism is considered to be in the US: namely pictures of Salvador Dali. I was wondering wether I should add something about how Surrealism reached Norway, what it was like (if it still is around) and what lack of impact it imposed on Norwegian culture. There is this one lady, at least, that should be mentioned. --Sigg3.net 15:45, 4 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Yes; this would be very worthwhile. --Daniel C. Boyer 17:55, 4 Dec 2003 (UTC)
I´ll get to it as soon as I get back home. --Sigg3.net

Policy on quotes

I think a few quotes (from the translated book, at least) from Andre Breton's Manifestoes of Surrealism should be provided in this article. His own words lit my dark ideas of this subject, at least. What is the policy on this? -- Sigg3.net 16:45, 5 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Mostly quotes should go to Wikiquote but some could be included here as long as you don't mean huge lists of them. Such things are generally covered by fair use so you don't need to worry about copyright infringement. Angela. 22:45, 5 Dec 2003 (UTC)
I could set up a couple, and a link to wikiquote:Breton or something.. == Sigg3.net 23:58, 5 Dec 2003 (UTC)
That's sounds the best idea. http://wikiquote.org/wiki/Andre%20Breton would be the correct address to link to. Angela. 00:03, 6 Dec 2003 (UTC)
Thanks. - Sigg3.net 18:55, 6 Dec 2003 (UTC)

After reading this page I am still unclear as to what surrealism is/was. I mean, this page says who did it, and even a bit of why, but doesn't really say what they did. There is apparently already a large amount of controversy over this page so I'd rather not be bold and make changes, and there has been a lot of work to get it to its current state. --zandperl 03:02, 7 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Here's a definition I found in the "Manifestoes of Surrealism" (ISBN on article page) by André Breton: "SURREALISM, n. Psychic automatism in its pure state, by which one proposes to express-verbally, by means of the written word, or in any other matter-the actual functioning of thought. Dictated by thought, in the absence of any control excercised by reason, exempt from any moral concern." - Sigg3.net 03:22, 5 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Further on, you've the encyclopedia definition: "ENCYCLOPEDIA. Philosphy. Surrealism is based on the belief in the superior reality of certain forms of neglected associations, in the omnipotence of dream, in the disinterested play of thought. It tends to ruin once and for all all other psychic mechanisms and to substitute itself for them in solving all the principal problems of life. The following have performed acts of ABSOLUTE SURREALISM: Aragon, Baron, Boiffard, Breton, Carrive, Crevel, Delteil, Desnos, Eluard, Gérard, Limbour, Malkine, Morise, Naville, Noll, Péret, Picon, Soupault, Vitrac." - Sigg3.net 03:24, 5 Feb 2004 (UTC)