Consciousness, Literature and the Arts
Archive
Volume 4 Number 1, April 2003
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Reviewed by
Anyone
who has ever wondered about Surrealism's continued influence over the art world
will delight in Willard Bohn's The Rise of
Surrealism: Cubism, Dada, and the
Pursuit of the Marvelous. He
examines how Surrealism was transformed from an obscure Dadaist splinter group
into the movement still valued today, highlights why Cubism, Metaphysical Art
and Dada as well as Surrealism became international movements, and captures the
staying power of Surrealism as well. Throughout
Bohn aids the reader in perceiving why Surrealist work continues to titillate
the mind and imagination. Moreover, this author's decision to look closely at
the contributions of key figures associated with André Breton and the
Surrealist movement makes this well-researched study easy to read. This author's
talent with words further enhances each introduced topic.
While not a comprehensive history or a theoretical study per
se, the various chapters do integrate selected key ideas pertaining to the
Surrealist history, theory, and legacy.
Sadly
a short review cannot adequately cover how the visible poetry of painters is
woven together with the verbal painting writers practiced. Suffice to say that this succinct and compact publication
includes the role of the fourth dimension in Surrealist conception generally,
Apollinaire's treatment of the fourth dimension in relation to Weber's views,
portraiture as practiced by Marius de Zayas and Francis Picabia, the
disillusionment with Dada that encouraged Surrealism, the paradoxical images of
de Chirico, and the relationship between Breton and Apollinaire, among other
things. The various threads on Guillaume Apollinaire are
particularly well done. Delineating
Apollinaire's respect for the imagination and his concentration on the internal,
experiential nature of reality, the book successfully breathes life into this
thoroughly modern artist (and those he influenced). I particularly liked the way
Bohn spoke of Apollinaire's respect for creative power, which he believed was
directly dependent on an artist's ability to imagine.
Perhaps the most compelling sections are those that compare Breton and
Apollinaire, two figures that continue to stimulate scholarly debates. Although
Breton is generally characterized today as the founder of Surrealism, the term
surrealism first appeared in a 1916 Apollinaire publication.
It is also found in a letter he wrote to André Breton in the same year.
In fact, Breton acknowledged that he chose the name
"Surrealism" in homage to Apollinaire, who died prematurely in 1918.
Bohn adds it was no doubt out of respect for him as well.
Thus while some critics distinguish Breton's Surrealism from that of
Apollinaire, this author convincingly argues that there are both commonalities
and differences we must weigh when contrasting their work. Bohn also explains
this in terms of the Surrealist project(s). Breton wrote in his Manifeste
du surréalisme that
Surrealism
sought to liberate the unconscious, and to tap its powerful forces via automatic
writing, automatic speech, and the analysis of dreams.
The superior reality (or surreality) embodied by these forms of
association was that of the unconscious itself, the exploration of which
promised to expand our total awareness. Looming
over the entire project, le merveilleux
("the marvelous") embodied "l'irrémédiable
inquiétude humaine" (the incurable human malaise) (MS, p. 321).
As such, it was recognizable by the revelatory shudder it evoked in those
who experienced it. (p. 129)
Apollinare,
while exploiting many of these ideas did not ascribe to precisely the same view
as Breton. It was Breton's
intention to decipher dreams and the unconscious based on a Freudian approach.
Apollinaire, instead, focused on an unmapped conception.
In sum, Bohn, concentrating on several crucial texts, argues that a
careful weighing of their ideas allows us to achieve a more balanced
understanding of how what we now term Surrealism actually took form.
Also
of note is Bohn's talent in placing the highlighted artists in terms of some
general ideas associated with Surrealism. Nietzsche's influence is mentioned
several times. For example, Bohn
notes this philosopher's impact on Weber and how Nietzsche's distinction between
Apollonian and Dionysian impulses in art influenced de Chirico.
To oversimplify, in Nietzsche's view the two art deities of the Greeks
— Apollo and Dionysus — represent two kinds
(and processes) of art. Defined as
polarities, the Apollonian is said to correspond to a classical approach, while
the Dionysian is more romantic by nature.
Bohn states that de Chirico saw himself more in terms of the Apollonian
tradition, although his paradoxical pictures yield Dionysian elements. Some
theoretical threads, in my view, were too narrowly contrived, however.
For example, Freud was important to the Surrealists and Bohn, to his
credit, competently applies Freudian concepts to the projects discussed.
Yet, there is no consideration of how "Freudian" the Surrealist
work actually is. It seems this is worth some consideration in light of Sigmund
Freud's 1932 letter to André Breton in which he confessed that although he
recognized that he had received many testimonies of interest from Breton and his
group, he was not able to clarify for himself what Surrealism is and what it
wanted from him.
Finally,
it is important to underscore that the surveyed topics did effectively
interrelate the marked pictorial bias within Surrealist poetry, pictorial
equivalents to automatic writing, conflated (or illogical) metaphoric
associations, and strange pictorial associations among objects.
These characterizations, employed by the Surrealists to assert their
belief that the image possessed the power to alter our view of the world around
us, also serve to undermine our belief in the foundations within our reality.
Explaining that, for the Surrealists, reality was at best an illusion and
at worst a cruel deception, the author, in my opinion, doesn't adequately
address the negative connotations that grew up with this movement.
To be sure, as he explains, strategies these artists derived expanded
interest in the subconscious and in 'deconstructing' reality.
Yet, while the freedom to explore further is beneficial, a lack of 'rootedness'
and firm footing accompanied the sense of an illusory reality.
To my mind, the various ways the ongoing process of deconstruction
undermined the sense of foundation known in earlier epochs is a side of
Surrealism worthy of more attention. With
radical transformations increasingly a part of the global environment, no doubt
future research will broaden inquiry into the negative ramifications of the
illusory reality conception so much a part of the Surrealist legacy.
In
summary, this critical survey presents a well-developed, cohesive overview of
competing artistic models and the various strategies for creating avant-garde
work. Offering a concise and yet
robust examination of key figures such as Guillaume Apollinaire, de Chirico, Max
Weber, Marius de Zayas, Francis Picabia, Bohn also provides an in-depth
inspection of the close bond between art and poetry. It is a marvelous book, very much in the spirit of the
Surrealist movement he portrays.
Reviewed
by Amy Ione (ione@diatrope.com). Ione,
an artist and a writer, is currently the Director of the Diatrope Institute.
More information about her work is available at www.diatrope.com/ione.