A Surrealist state of mind: 100 years of Surrealism
Reading time: 2 mins
2024 marked the centenary of André Breton’s Surrealist Manifesto. In the last few years we have seen a resurgence of the movement, both in the art market and when influencing new creativity. Though, did Surrealism ever leave artistic expression? Here we look at how Surrealism has inspired literature, film and art since its inception.
From Dada, Surrealism is born
Before Surrealism came Dada. An anti-establishment art movement that emerged in 1915 within the context of the Great War and Marxist Theory, its members (which included Marcel Duchamp, Man Ray, Sophie Taeuber-Arp, Jean Arp and Max Ernst) created protest art that included nonsensical performance pieces, collage and Duchamp’s ‘readymades’ such as Fountain (1917).
By 1921, some members began to feel what they perceived as negative limitations of the movement, and, with André Breton leading the way into a new school of thought, Surrealism was born. Expanding upon nonsensical ideas, artists and writers explored the possibilities of trance and dream-like states of mind. Automatism, a type of automatic writing and drawing was used by such artists as Jean Arp, Joan Miró and Salvador Dalí to produce imagery directly from their unconscious.
Literature and Film
Books such as Franz Kafka’s ‘Metamorphosis' (1915) and Willian S. Burroughs ‘Naked Lunch’ (1959) offer examples of Surrealist literature. Described by Penguin Books as ‘Nightmarish and fiercely funny, a taboo-breaking masterpiece that follows the character of Bill Lee through Interzone: a surreal, orgiastic wasteland of drugs, depravity, political plots, paranoia, sadistic medical experiments and endless, gnawing addiction’, Burroughs’ novel shocked and appalled audiences of the day.
In 1991, the film adaptation written and directed by David Cronenberg was released. A surrealist science fiction drama, it became a cult classic acclaimed for its surrealist visual and thematic elements. It’s also interesting to observe how the artwork for this now collectible film poster (below) resembles the paintings of the artist, René Magritte.
This year saw the release of Kate Winslet’s cinematic production Lee, a biopic about the high fashion model turned photographer Lee Miller. After a very successful if not short lived modelling career in New York, Miller moved to Paris in 1929 to work with the artist and photographer, Man Ray. It wasn’t long before she opened her own studio as a commercial portrait and fashion photographer, going on to obtain a freelance position for Vogue. She’s known for her Surrealist images created at this time, using the technique known as Solarisation.
Set in 1944, the film focuses on Miller’s time working as a correspondent accredited to the US Army, where she was one of only a few female photojournalists to cover the front-line war in Europe. With Winslet starring in the title role, the film brings much needed recognition to one of the many female artists of the movement, whom history has either forgotten or decided were merely muses of their male counterparts.
Surrealism in fashion
Around the same time as Lee was set, the influence of Surrealism in fashion illustration is easy to see in this dream-like and highly detailed illustration (below), created for Vogue’s August 1937 cover by Miguel Covarrubias.
Digital developments in automatism and surrealist imagery
In the 1960s, the late artist Roman Verostko (Sept 1929–Jun 2024) pioneered code-generated imagery, known as Algorithmic Art. Verostko developed his own software to control a pen plotter, which is a mechanical device that holds a pen or brush that is linked to a computer that controls its movement. Viewed by the artist as computer automatism, the process mimics that of the Surrealists’ automated drawing technique. (You can view one of Verostko’s drawings in The V&A’s collection here)
Fast forward to today and there is an emerging number of painters who are creating complex coding for AI software to produce specific reference photos filled with their chosen inspiration and meaning – the outcome only can be described as surreal, experimental and forward thinking.
Sources and further reading
- Why Surrealism Matters, Mark Polizotti, 2024, https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300257090/why-surrealism-matters/
- https://www.leemiller.co.uk/
- Movements in Modern Art: Surrealism, Fiona Bradley, 1997
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