2. Surrealism – a style of art and literature developed principally in the 20 th century, stressing the subconscious or non-rational significance of imagery arrived at by the exploitation of chance effects and unexpected juxtapositions.
3. Marcel DuChamp. The Fountain. Ready-made Sculpture, 1917. The roots of Surrealism can be found in the ANTI-art movement, DADAism, and WWI.
4. Man Ray [American Dadaist / Surrealist Photographer and Painter, 1890-1976] “ It has never been my object to record my dreams, just the determination to realize them." Man Ray. Fireworks. 1910, Rayography.
5. Man Ray. The Violin of Ingres. 1924, Rayography. "There is no progress in art, any more than there is progress in making love. There are simply different ways of doing it."
7. Max Ernst [German-born French Surrealist Painter, 1891-1976] Max Ernst. The Temptation of St. Anthony. 1945. Oil on Canvas. “ Painting is not for me either decorative amusement, or the plastic invention of felt reality; it must be every time: invention, discovery, revelation.”
8. Text Text “ You can drink the images with your eyes.” Max Ernst. Europe After the Rain II. 1940 - 42. Oil on Canvas.
9. Max Ernst and his wife, Dorothea Tanning . “ All good ideas arrive by chance.”
10. [Belgian Surrealist Painter, 1898-1967] Rene Magritte. The Eye. 1932, Oil on Canvas. “ Art evokes the mystery without which the world would not exist.”
11. Rene Magritte. The Human Condition. 1933. Oil on Canvas. “ The mind loves the unknown. It loves images whose meaning is unknown, since the meaning of the mind itself is unknown. ”
12. Rene Magritte. The Son of Man. 1964, Oil on Canvas. “ If the dream is a translation of waking life, waking life is also a translation of the dream.” “ There is an interest in what is hidden and what the visible does not show us.”
13. [Spanish Surrealist Painter, 1904-1989] Salvador Dali. The Persistence of Memory. 1931, Oil on Canvas.
14. Salvador Dali. Self-Portrait. Oil on Canvas. “ Each morning when I awake, I experience again a supreme pleasure - that of being Salvador Dali.”
15. Salvador Dali. Geopoliticus Child Watching the Birth of the New Man. 19 44. Oil on Canvas. “ There is only one difference between a madman and me. The madman thinks he is sane. I know I am mad.”
16. Salvador Dali. Mae West 1935, Oil on Canvas. “ What is a television apparatus to man, who has only to shut his eyes to see the most inaccessible regions of the seen and the never seen, who has only to imagine in order to pierce through walls and cause all the planetary Baghdads of his dreams to rise from the dust.”
17. The Burning Giraffe. 1937, Oil on Canvas. “ Surrealism is destructive, but it destroys only what it considers to be shackles limiting our vision. “
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Editor's Notes
Duchamp created it and signed this piece as R.Mutt to go into an exhibit by the Society of independent artists. All work was to be shown, however the Fountain was hidden during the show.The original was lost and Duchamp didn’t create a reproduction of this until the 1950s.
Max Ernst and Dorothea Tanning
his work frequently displays a juxtaposition of ordinary objects in an unusual context, giving new meanings to familiar things.
Magritte points out that no matter how closely, through realism-art, we come to depicting an item accurately, we never do catch the item itself—we cannot smoke tobacco with a picture of a pipe. “In a recent painting, I have shown an apple in front of a person's face At least it partially hides the face. Well then, here we have the apparent visible, the apple, hiding the hidden visible, the person's face. This process occurs endlessly. Each thing we see hides another, we always want to see what is being hidden by what we see. There is an interest in what is hidden and what the visible does not show us. This interest can take the form of a fairly intense feeling, a kind of contest, I could say, between the hidden visible and apparent visible” – Rene Magritte.
The general interpretation of the work is that the soft watches are a rejection of the assumption that time is rigid or deterministic. This idea is supported by other images in the work, such as the wide expanding landscape, and the other limp watches, shown being devoured by insects.
Salvador Dali was known for his eccentric appearance and behavior. In 1936, Dalí took part in the London International Surrealist Exhibition . His lecture, entitled Fantomes paranoiaques authentiques , was delivered while wearing a deep-sea diving suit and helmet. [28] He had arrived carrying a billiard cue and leading a pair of Russian wolfhounds, and had to have the helmet unscrewed as he gasped for breath. He commented that "I just wanted to show that I was 'plunging deeply' into the human mind."
The drawers refer to what is “hidden” or the subconscious in man. The burning giraffe is a symbol of strife or war.
