Surrealsim Essay, Research Paper

Surrealism split into two groups in the 1930’s. These two groups were

the Automatists and the Veristic Surrealists. Although they were similiar,

they had many differances. It was said that Automatism was the only type of

surrealism accepted by critical reviews after the was (Aronson 125). The

basis of each group was a different, but their stand points remained the same,

art through the subconscienceness.

The artists in the automatists group interpreted surrealism as reffering

to a suppression of the consciousness in favor of the subconsciousness

(Alder 209). This group was more focused on feeling than analysis. They

understood automatism to be the automatic way in which the subconscious

reach the conscience (Alder 209). In plain words they didn’t focus on the

real but feelings. Their paintings were far more abstract than the veristic.

The idea of free expression of feelings had always dominated the the history

of art. The automists on the other hand wanted nothing to do with it. They

argued that images should not be burdened with “meaning”. Focusing on the

subconscious, the automatists, thought abstractionism was the only way to

bring life to images. Following the Dada tradition, these artists also linked

scandal, insult, and irrevernce toward the upper class with freedom. They

continued to believe that lack of form was a way to rebel against them.

Some famous painters in the Automatists group were: Yves Tanguy,

Roberto Matta, and Joan Miro. Join Miro was a well renowed Automatist.

He joined the surrealists in 1928. Miro treated his empty canvas as a

production. He would often work in layers, sometimes starting with washes

and applying paint with sponges. Some of his most fomous work would be:

The Ploughed Earth, The Harlequin Carnival, and Dog barking at the Moon.

“By his ‘pure psychic automatism’ Miro might ‘pass as the most surrealist of

us all.’”(Oesterreicher-Mollow, 65)

The second group of the surrealists were the Veristic surrealists. The

veristic surrealists were quite different than the automatists. As Sister Mary

Beckett had said, “they wanted to represent images as a link between the

abstract spiritual realities, and the real forms of the material world”( 287).

The veristic surrealist were much more detailed and used a lot of symbolism.

To them, an object stooh as a metaphor for something deep within them.

Through the metaphors they created, people could understand, not by

looking at objects but looking into them. The Veristic surrealist hoped to

find a way to follow the images of the subconscious until the conscience

could understand their meaning(Arnason, 341). Sister Mark Beckett also

said, “The language of the subconscious is the image, and the consciousness

had to learn to decode the language so it could translate it into its own

language of words”(288).

Their were mant famous painters who were considered veristic

surrealists. Among some of the most famous were:Salvaor Dali, Paul

Delvaux, and Max Ernst. One of the most widely known surrealist was

Salvador Dali. Dali only joined the surrealist movement at hthe end of the

1920’s. He considered the methods of the surrealism too passive, and

sought to apply his astonishing technical abilities to the unconscious and

deseased mental conditions. In 1932, he studied the writtings of Jacques

Lacan’s “On Paranoia in its Relationship to the personality” (Oesterreicher-

Mollow, 24), and developed a method which he claimed enabled him to

become mentally ill for a period, and to enduce delusions, and states of

frenzy. He read descriptions of abnormal mental conditions, combined with

problems and intuitions of his own unconscious, and painted this as a kind

of dream photography. Some of Dali’s famous paintings include: The

Temptation of Saint Anthony, The Persistence of Memory, and

Metamorphosis of Narcissus. In Dali’s painting Metamorphosis of

Narcissus, he refers to the ancient Greek myth of Narcissus. It was about a

young man who fell in love with his own reflection and was transformed into

a beautiful flower. At your first look you may only see a body of a man, but

if you look deeper, the image will become a hand holding an egg.

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