Surrealism A natural result of Freuds work exploring

Surrealism A “natural” result of Freud’s work exploring the unconscious and dreams. A “natural” progression from Symbolism—Moreau and Munch—even earlier from our friend, Fuseli—The Nightmare. And perhaps…even Bosch…

The Hearing Forest and the Seeing Field Hieronymus Bosch pen drawing

John Henry Fuseli The Nightmare 1781 oil on canvas

Symbolism According to Stokstad, Symbolism is an intellectual movement in late-nineteenth-century art and literature. Symbolism seeks a deeper and more mysterious reality than the one we encounter in everyday life. Symbolism originated in France but had a profound impact in the art of other European countries, where it often merged with expressionist tendencies. Artists transformed appearances in order to give pictorial form to psychic experiences, and they often compared their works to dreams.

Gustave Moreau Oedipus and the Sphinx 1864 oil on canvas, 206 x 105 cm

Edvard Munch The Scream 1893

Edvard Munch Vampire 1895

Gustave Klimt The Three Ages of Woman 1905

Henri Rousseau Le Reve 1910

Surrealism Is about a fascination with dreams and mystery and melancholy and fear. Surrealist images are constructed from the contradiction between reality and the irrational but seemingly possible. Even nightmarish images have an element of “the possible” about them. This quality of realism makes surrealist images compelling and, at times, extremely disturbing.

Giorgio de Chirico Melancholy and Mystery of a Street 1914 “yearning, melancholy, narcissism, historical nostalgia…”

Giorgio de Chirico The Disquieting Muses 1915

Max Ernst The Elephant Celebes 1921 “Ernst could compress a lot of psychic violence in a small space…icy derangement…”

Max Ernst Two Children Are Menaced by a Nightingale 1924

Meret Oppenheim Luncheon in Fur 1936

Salvador Dalí The Persistence of Memory 1931

Salvador Dalí Metamorphosis of Narcissus 1937

Dalí, Metamorphosis of Narcissus, 1937 http: //www. youtube. com/watch? v=HUZDPWLTZ 0 g&list=EC 4 A 46 CC 78 02913517 Salvador Dalí, The Persistence of Memory, 1931 http: //www. youtube. com/watch? v=6 mpf. BJNQm. U&list=EC 4 A 46 CC 7802913517&index=47

Rene Magritte The Treachery of Images 1928 -1929 “It is a picture of a pipe, but as a picture, an image, its reality is different from a pipe’s” (Hamilton, 409).

Rene Magritte Not to be Reproduced (Portrait of Edward James) 1937 In his work Magritte patiently insists that similarity does not imply identity and that relations between objects, their images, and their names need not conform to the laws of common sense causality. By refusing to mistake life for art, or art for nature, he contradicted nature with deadpan naturalism and affirmed the essential character of the work of art as superior to illusion. His visual logic is irrefutable and absurd.

Rene Magritte Threshold of Liberty 1937

Rene Magritte Golconda 1953

Rene Magritte The Son of Man 1964

Joan Miro The Harlequin’s Carnival 1924 -1925

Joan Miró's The Hope of a Condemned Man http: //www. youtube. com/watch? v=85 a. Zji. CQZq 0 http: //www. wikipaintings. org/en/joan-miro