Surrealism

[André Breton]? was the self-appointed leader of this complex artistic movement that had its beginning around 1924. Surrealism is typically manifested in works of art, usually visual. It is characterised as an art form which emanates through the use of dreams (representational painting, for example, that distorts the familiar) and "automatism" (spontaneous creative production -- originally conceived as writing -- without (conscious) moral or aesthetic self-censorship). It was a movement which transformed post-World War I visual art, writing, film, and poetry, capturing in the process many Dadaists?.

This was the "in crowd" of Paris in the 20s and early 30s: [Louis Aragon]?, [Marcel Duchamp]?, Rene Magritte, Miro, [Max Ernst]?, Dali, Giacometti, Valentine, Hugo, Oppenheim, [Man Ray]?, Tanguy, Prevert, Queneau, to name but a few).

The movement successively drifted left, adherence to the Moscow communist party line became a requirement, and Breton (who would later denounce that same party line) purged those who disagreed with him as the movement gradually splintered and drifted apart, only to reunite in exile in New York in the early forties during World War Two.

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 Chicago Surrealist Group by [Franklin] and [Penelope Rosemont]. Surrealism continues today around much of the world.

Must read: Andre Breton, "Conversations: The Autobiography of Surrealism" (Gallimard 1952) (Paragon House English rev. ed. 1993).

/Talk