Rene Magritte Personal Values 1952

http://virtualart.admin.tomsk.ru/magritte/p-magritte16.htm Rene Magritte Personal Values 1952

http://users3.ev1.net/~rooftopyawp/dalisleep.html Salvador Dali Sleep 1937

Surrealism

At the beginning of the 20th century the study of psychology – the workings of the mind – was developing. In 1919 Dr Sigmund Freud published a book called The Interpretation of Dreams, which claimed that dreams symbolically express our underlying desires. • Freud identified a part of the human mind where memories and our most basic instincts are stored and, because we are mostly unaware of it, called it the unconscious. • This book became central to the Surrealist movement. http://ebookee.org/The-Interpretation-of-Dreams-The-Complete-and-Definitive-Text_465810.html

The Manifesto of Surrealism • A group of artists and writers drew on ideas of Dada & Sigmund Freud and began the Surrealist movement. In 1924, Andre Breton wrote his Manifesto of Surrealism explaining their aims and beliefs. http://lizwroth.wordpress.com/2010/05/13/jaime-bien-les-surrealists/

Definition of Surrealism according to Breton: SURREALISM, n. Pure psychic automatism, by which we propose to express, verbally, in writing, or by any other means, the real process of thought. Thought dictated in the absence of all control exerted by reason, and outside all aesthetic or moral preoccupations. http://andrebreton.org/photogallery.html

The Definition of Surrealism http://www.mattesonart.com/paris-the-heart-of-surrealism-1924.aspx In French, Surrealism means ‘above realism’ or ‘beyond reality’ – in other words, ‘more than real’.

Techniques of the Surrealists • The Surrealist artists adopted various techniques to unlock the unconscious mind, casting aside traditional methods of creating art and challenging usual ways of production. • E.g. Exquisite Corpse http://www.tcf.ua.edu/Classes/Jbutler/T340/SurrealismLecture.htm

Surrealism -- Two Directions Group 1: Veristic Surrealism Max Ernst, Salvador Dali & Rene Magritte painted dream-like images – technically skilful, their works are often illogical. - Dali called his pictures ‘hand-painted dream photographs’ http://kemperartmuseum.wustl.edu/collection/explore/artwork/541 The Eye of Silence by Max Ernst 1943-44

Surrealism -- Two Directions Group 2: Automatism Automatism – the Surrealist term for Freud’s technique of free association, which he used to reveal the unconscious minds of his patients. Joan Miro and Andre Masson were amongst this group, which worked instinctively: not thinking about what was being created, but letting the unconscious take over. Any material could be used and the resulting colours and shapes should express underlying feelings and emotions. Harlequin’s Carnival by Joan Miro 1924-5 Card Trick by Andre Masson 1923

RENE MAGRITTE 1898 -- 1967 • Belgian painter, one of the leading Surrealists • Painted illogical images with startling clarity. • ~ Magritte’s style: • - Placed everyday objects in absurd settings • - Juxtaposed familiar sights in unnatural contexts

Magritte: * Painted things as they look to us, but in situations where neither they nor we could occur and then added titles which accompany them in the way that names correspond to objects without either illustrating or explaining them. Personal Values Golconde

Rene Magritte The Difficult Crossing 1926 • What do you see? • What do you think about that? • What does it make you wonder?

Rene Magritte The Reckless Sleeper 1927 • What do you see? • What do you think about that? • What does it make you wonder?

Rene Magritte The Red Model 1934 • What do you see? • What do you think about that? • What does it make you wonder?

Rene Magritte Time Transfixed 1938 • What do you see? • What do you think about that? • What does it make you wonder?

Rene Magritte Homesickness 1940 • What do you see? • What do you think about that? • What does it make you wonder?

Rene Magritte Personal Values 1952 • What do you see? • What do you think about that? • What does it make you wonder?

Rene Magritte Signature in Blank 1965 • What do you see? • What do you think about that? • What does it make you wonder? http://www.bsu.edu/classes/prince/eng102/magritte.htm

Rene Magritte The False Eye 1928 http://www.learner.org/courses/globalart/work/102/index.html

Rene Magritte Treason of images (This is not a pipe) 1929

Treason of images (This is not a pipe) 1929 On a oil painting, wrote in large letters “this is not a pipe”, which, of course, it isn’t. It is a picture of a pipe, but as a picture, an image, its reality is different from a pipe’s.

Rene Magritte The Human Condition 1934

* A canvas stands on an easel in front of a view through a window. - Canvas has a picture of what we assume to be the view. * Illustrates the contradiction between three-dimensional space which objects actually occupy and the two-dimensional plane of the canvas used to represent them. * Pun in the painting: Since Renaissance, pictures had been purported to be ‘windows’ opening on to reality. ~ Easel and canvas are realistically painted. ~ Intensifies the question: is the landscape real or painted? The Human Condition 1934

The Human Condition 1934 * On the aims of this painting: “I placed in front of a window a painting representing exactly that part of the landscape hidden from view by the painting. So the tree in the painting obscured the tree behind it outside. It existed for the spectator simultaneously in his mind and outside in the real landscape. This is how we see the world -- as being outside ourselves, even though it is only a mental picture of what we experience inside ourselves.” - Magritte

Rene Magritte The Human Condition 1935

Rene Magritte The Son of Man 1964 Magritte said that the painting just shows us about humanity. He says that everything we see hides some other thing yet we still want to see what is hidden by what we see. There is always some sort of interest in what is hidden and what the visible does not show us. This brings about some sort of conflict between the visible that is present and the visible that is hidden.

Some ways which Magritte used to give the ‘shocking’ quality in his works? * Eliminated conventional expectations 1. Exploit astonishing discrepancies of scale. 2. Deny the law of gravity. 3. Endow an item with a different material /substance that in reality is not associated with the original

SALVADOR DALi 1904 -- 1989 - Spanish painter. ~ Aim: To project the world of dreams as convincingly as possible. - From childhood, he was subjected to hallucinations & acts of sudden & uncontrollable violence.

* 1929: Joined the Surrealists. * Important works created between 1929 to 1939. - Developed his ‘paranoiac-critical’ method. ~ Proposed ‘a paranoiac and active advance of mind’ which would release from the unconscious, images of force and power that they in turn would react upon it, thereby affecting the deepest sources of individual & social action. The Invisible Man 1929-31

Salvador Dali The Persistence of Memory 1931 24 cm x 33 cm http://momawas.moma.org/collection/depts/paint_sculpt/blowups/paint_sculpt_016.html

http://www.verotika.org/dali1.html The Metamorphosis of Narcissus 1937 51 cm x 76 cm

Soft Construction with Boiled Beans: Premonition of Civil War 1936 http://www.nowsurrealgalleries.co.uk/view_pic.php3?pid=576&aid=44

Cannibalism in Autumn 1936 http://www.duke.edu/web/lit132/dali_art.html

Sleep 1937 http://users3.ev1.net/~rooftopyawp/dalisleep.html

~ The surprise effect of Dali’s work depends on his presentation of incongruities in a meticulous, miniature-like technique. - Dali’s paintings were a direct transcription of things envisioned in a dream-like or trance-like state. Time Transfixed 1938 http://www.artic.edu/artaccess/AA_Modern/pages/MOD_6.shtml#

Rene Magritte Personal Values 1952