Surrealist Art Movement
Surrealism is a literary movement that started in the late 1910s through early 1920s, and its popularity comes because of its best writings and visual arts of its group members. This cultural movement grew between the first and the Second World War after the early Dadaism movement. Aesthetically, this form of art triggered the interpretation of destroying rationalism despite of its emphasis on positive expression (Grosenick 94). It is popular for making entirely a surreal experience by mingling both conscious and unconscious kingdoms of peoples’ experience as well as realistic dreams and fantasies. Most artists take surrealism to be a philosophical movement and art as just a tool because surrealists draw their philosophy from the belief that the unconscious causes social problems in the real world. This art movement normally featured as a movement of surprises and juxtapositions for its tendency of creating unexpected objects (Balakian 212).
Surrealism movement in the aim of searching for unconscious expressions has brought philosophers, thinkers and artists together. Max Ernst one of the founding fathers of Surrealist art movement as well as Salvador Dali, the Surrealist painter. Salvador Dali was one of the greatest artists who contributed in expansion of Surrealism art movement. He was popular for his peculiar images and the most realistic painting styles that resisted rational interpretations. He was the best academician and physical painter whose character exactly matched his work and philosophy. He made a lobster telephone which had a scary red lobster that replaced an ordinary black handset. His other outrageous inventions are where he made an individual with a lobster in the head and a cruel costume that is a lobster G-string.
Surrealism started their experiments in an automatic writing mode in the aim of releasing unrestrained subconscious imagination. In 1924, Surrealism became an international political and intellectual movement making it fanciful and clever as compared to Dadaism movement (Grosenick 114). Surrealism poets at first felt superior to visual artists because they considered their drawing, painting and sculpting activities to be odd expressions. However, some did not ignore them because of provocative, erotic and analytic qualities of artwork. They authenticated their full support for visual art replicating some artwork and organized exhibitions for paintings and drawings. Surrealists’ artwork was full of surprises of creating unexpected pieces of work. The group members of surrealist were satisfied that their work was artifact in that they express the philosophical movement (Levy 148). Breton, a surrealism poet made a clear statement that there was no other revolutionary movement to compare with the Surrealism. Surrealism grew mainly because of the activities the Dada carried out after the First World War. It first started in Paris and later spread to other countries to become a movement known by all. Its spread affected many activities practiced in various countries including political thoughts, social theory and philosophy among others.
The dispersion of the group members who were working from Paris was because of the First World War. Later, some of these writers and artists involved themselves with Dada believing that, it is its extreme rational thought that has contributed to the World war (Levy 163). The Dadaists used their performances, artwork, and writings among others in the protest against arts but resumed their activities later after the war. Due Breton’s admiration of arts, he joined Dada activities after he went back to Paris. Together with his followers, they started to experiment their writing with automatic writing whereby they wrote articles without bowdlerizing their thoughts and later published their work in the magazine. This made them research more on automatism and wrote more articles with it.
As Breton and his group continued with their writing, they managed to attract more writers and artists who made them believe more in automatism being a better way of changing the society than use of Dada. The group continued to grow as more writers and artists joined the movement. They however, developed their philosophy believing that Surrealism would definitely advocate the fact that ordinary expressions are important and their arrangement should welcome any type of thinking. Their utmost priority was unconscious whereby they developed some methods of liberating various imaginations.
Surrealists embraced this idea but rejected any sort of underlying madness from which Salvador explained that he was not mad. In respect to political, cultural and social aspect, the group revolutionized all human experiences. This aimed at setting people free limited customs and structures as well as false rationality and strengthening a long-lived socio revolution. In 1924, the group’s objectives got to the limelight because of the manifesto written by Breton. While writing he came up with a clear definition of Surrealism as an automatism where one is free to express himself by any manner including writing or verbal. After the release of their manifesto, they went ahead and published their journal that proved to be outrageous and more of revolution. Although they focused on writing, arts among other works were also included in the journal.
By mid-1920s, meetings of members of the group occurred in cafes where they shared common games and ideas of developing new techniques for instance automotive drawing. Initially, Breton was uncertain about usefulness of visual arts in the movement because they were not open to chances. They later discovered new techniques and overcame the caution. This attracted more visual artists on and after the Second World War. More over, writers from Dada movement also joined the movement. Later in the late 1920s, other groups such as musicians, artists and poets joined the movement hence expanding the Surrealism movement. Most of the artists used their political powers to expand their work, which led to great expansion of the entire movement.
Salvador Dali
Salvador Dali is a member of Surrealism movement who was the harbinger of Surrealism’s expansion in 1930s. Dali was popular for his embodiment of Surrealism in art, appearance, act and his true publicity. He had a personality that matched his realistic painting styles of images, which are highly recognized but got a wrong interpretation. He ranked the best academician and physical painter whose work perfectly matched his public persona as well as his philosophy (McNeese 27). Dali involved some Surrealists in politics where he kept advocating for good relationship between arts and politics. He was always adamant about Surrealism being in a political context and declined to condemn fascism in the matter. This triggered conflict between him and other colleagues who were not for his opinion.
Salvador Dali is trendy for his hilarious objects that he made in Surrealist movement such as Lobster telephone and Mae West lips sofa. James who owned a certain percentage of Dali’s best works mostly supported Dali. James had a number of Dali’s objects in his rooms that they both referred to as Surrealist objects. Lobster telephone was unforgettable object that displayed how wicked Dali was and his desire for baffling the public (McNeese 31). Edward James had Dali’s Lobster Telephone in all his galleries in four countries showing his great support to Dali.
All surrealists thought Salvador Dali’s thinking was anathema, whereby they rejected it and considered it unreasonable. In his inappropriateness, he combined telephones and lobsters in most of his works. Lobster telephone is the best known work that was made of plastic, plaster and metal which was found only in few versions. The most familiar one is the one that has a rotary dial and a conventional black base and a red lobster that replaced an ordinary black handset. Other surrealists felt that it Dali was expressive his pervasiveness by combining an ordinary object meant for personal communication with a terrifying, aggressive creature. Dali also came up with other outrageous inventions which include people with lobsters on their head and cruelly costumes with G-strings of Lobster. This portrayed his approach of idiosyncratically interpreting Freudian theory which he referred to as critical paranoia. His lobster was a symbol of aphrodisiac, a cannibalistic woman, a castrating father or may be something else. all Dali’s work is still speculated even after explaining his real meaning although he was showing his desire to pass the message of fuller sense of life. Politically, Dali was expelled in 1934 by Breton for his commercialism where he moved to United States to continue with his work of commercial culture. Later in the 1950s Dali turned to be a Christian but still remained in the history of arts.
Salvador Dali’s art cannot be compared with other piece of arts because his was an extraordinary hilarious work. as compared to Emily Carr’s art of landscape painting mainly the forest which expressed her love for nature, Dali seems to portray his pervasiveness in work.
Conclusion
Surrealism is a literary movement that started in the late 1910s through early 1920s, and was first to use automatic writing and art to produce the best writings and visual arts of its group members. Surrealism grew after Dadaism in between the first and the Second World War. It is a movement full of surprises and juxtapositions in its manner of creating unexpected products. This movement mainly comprised of thinkers, philosophers and artists in the aim of searching for unconscious expressions. In 1930s, Salvador Dali made the greatest contribution in the extension of Surrealism. He is the most important Surrealist who is popular for his outshining work that includes Lobster Telephone among others. His thinking was thought to be anathema by other surrealists because of his outrageous inventions. He made a lobster in an individual head as well as a Lobster G-string. Edward James proved to be supportive to Dali’s work by purchasing his four Lobster telephone and displayed them in his galleries in various countries. He also bought his other products, which he kept in his room.
References
Grosenick, Uta, Surrealism. New York: Infobase Publishing Ltd., 2008. 88- 247
Balakian, Anna, Surrealism: Artists, Chicago: University of Chicago, 2010. 115-312
Levy, Silvano, Surrealism: surrealist Visuality, Edinburgh: Edinburg University Press, 2005. 77-173
Vancouver Art Gallery, Handbook: Vancouver Art Gallery, Canada: Vancouver Art Gallery, 2008. 78-415
McNeese, Tim, Salvador Dali, New York: InfoBase publishing Ltd, 2006. 14-
