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The Theoretical Backgrounds of Surrealism

Charles E. Gauss

The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Vol. 2, No. 8. (Autumn, 1943), pp. 37-44.

S URREALISM has now led an uninhibited and boisterous adolescence

among us for twenty years. As the exploration of a particular point

of view which is in revolt against the accepted traditional standards

of art and criticism, surrealist art has faced the general snobbism of

aesthetician and critic. Yet, because it is a phenomenon whose rise and i r n a

portance in inter-war culture is both interesting and astonishing, this new

movement demands sympathetic study. Though Surrealism, being of such

a vexing and anti-rationalistic nature, seems recalcitrant to analysis, its proponents

have issued numerous manifestoes and theoretical expositions of its

point of view which the aesthetician would do well to regard more closely

than he has heretofore. The study of these would reveal the complex of

intellectual antecedents which the surrealist has drawn together in his point

of view thereby giving the critic a better perspective of judgment, and would

also place before the aesthetician certain questions on the nature of his

science which he should candidly face if his science is to be of any value.

It is with these ends in view that I intend to inspect briefly the scriptural texts

of the two leading surrealists, Andre Breton and Salvator Dali, to extract

the fundamental propositions of their theory.

The fundamental turn of thought distinctive of Surrealism is first described

by Andre Breton in his Manifeste du Surre'alisme of 1924. Here he

contrasts the "realist attitude" and the "materialist attitude." By the first

he means an absolute rationalism which has the fixed limits of discursive reason,

is always in agreement with comrnon sense, and hence confines itself to the

tautological possibilities of traditional logic. It is inspired by the tradition

of Positivism from St. Thomas to Anatole France and as such is hostile

to flights of the imagination.' Its error is that "under color of civilization,

under pretext of progress, all that rightly or wrongly may be regarded as

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1．Cf. A. Breton, Manjfeste dir Srrwi~l!smep, p. 15-16.

fantasy or superstitution has been banished from the mind, all uncustomary

searching after truth has been pros~ribed."~ Contrasted with this is the

materialist attitude, ruled by the true logic which attempts to burst out of

"immediate utility" and to realize unrestricted ends. Its pathway for the

discovery of truth is that of the imagination, The domain of the imagination

is identified with the psychic life itself as distinguished from the reality of

ordinary appearance which is the raw material for the action of our rationalization.

The analysis of Freud is recognized as a great step in the opening

up of this vaster field and his contention that "the depths of our minds

harbor strange forces capable of increasing those on the surface, or of successfully

contending with themv3 is accepted by the surrealists. The world of the

imagination is identified with the subconsciousness and is most easily apprehended

in the dream stage. Since the stage itself "is continuous and

carries traces of organization" and the waking state is only "a phenomenon

of interference" obeying the suggestions which come to it from our unconscious

depths,' a methodological examination of the first should yield the

explanation for both. Thus we are brought to the central thesis of Surrealism

which M. Breton expresses: "I believe in the future transmutation of those

two seemingly contradictory states, dream and reality, into a sort of absolute

reality, or surreality, so to peak."^ The logic of Surrealism is the logic of

Hegelianism; the two contradictory states are synthesized into a new conception

which contains them both. The mental world of veridical data and the

world of the imagination, of dreams and illusions, are both absorbed by a

deeper mental realm named the surreal. Such is the philosophical position of

Surrealism. The things of the outer world, though real in the sense that

they have their own independent existence, lose this reality in our thoughts

and enter into new relationships which are psychical, not physical. To the

surrealist "a tomato is also a child's balloon" and in this relationship the

word "like" is "suppressed."' Certainly by such a program our suspicions

of the world of the marvelous and the strange are put in disrepute, and the

world known by common sense and reason is "surclassC."

Having found a point of reference between the conscious and the un-

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2 Ibid., p. 21 ; translation by David Gascoyne in wha is Surrealism? (Criterion

Miscellany No. 4 3 ) , London, 1936, hereinafter referred to as CM.

Ibid., p. 22, tr. CM.

Ibid., pp. 24, 25 and 26.

Ibid., p. 27; tr. CM.

A. Breton, "Exhibition X ...... Y ..... ," CM, p. 25.

conscious which defines the nature of their relationship to each other, Surrealism

is next faced with the problem of how one reaches the surreal, how

does he discover it. It is the problem of knowledge applied to a special

iontext. Surrealism as a philosophical position now gives way to Surrealism

as an activity. The important thing is to get rid of any semblance of rational

control over our activity, for how can we get to the surreal which is beyond

the rational if we cannot free ourselves from the rational? Breton describes

the first method of activity freed from rational control, that of psychic autorndtim.

This is the attempt to record the s~rearno f uninhibited verbal imagery

for oneself as a psychoanalyst would that of a patient. One places himself

in as passive a state as possible and writes down rapidly his irrational flow

of thought. The method is easily transferred to a form of drawing, where

it becomes "doodling." The chance pasting of collage pieces or the fortuitous

creation of a surrealist object or of an exquisite corpse are simply extensions

of this method. The place of the artist as an impartial investigator of the

surreal is thus assured in Surrealism. Truth and reality are open not alone

to the scientist and the experimenter. The Romantic notion of the artist as

seer is continued by these latter-day Romantics but with a strange and ironic

twist. Since the surrealist point of view and surrealist activity are possible

in all fields, paintings, poetry, and experiment merge and the essential differences

between the various arts ceases to be of any consequence. Surrealist

works are not important as poems, as pictures, as objects, but as being the

residue left when we have stript down our souls to the bare framework of

the unconscious which is beneath all our selves and from which we never

escape.

The problem of expression, as M. Breton says in his second manifesto

of 1930, is the principal problem of Surrealism.' It can only be through

expression (freed of the controls of reason) that one can pierce to the depths

of surreality. Yet, since one must look within for this surreality, it becomes

clear that it is a psychic, hidden "real" self, a Freudian "id." It is a synthesis

that exists within our olvn spirits.' Down in this inner psychic life of each one

of us we come to the human crucible itself which is an overindividual state.

Here is not only the man himself but mankind. By surrealist activity we get

"a key to go on opening indefinitely that box of never ending drawers which

is called man."s Here is the foundation upon which we must build our morals,

――――――――――――――――――――――――――――――

A. Breton, Second itlanzjerte du Surrhali~rne, p. 42, also pp. 26-27

*]bid., pp. 51-52.

Ibid., p. 35.

our art, our ways of thought, our life of actions, here exists not only the

surreality we seek but the sur-truth and the sur-beauty, the new reclassified

values, that are opened to our gaze. If the foundation is shifting sands instead

of rock all the values by which we judge the house we build will be different

from what we have held before.

In Le Surrkalisme et la Peiuture of 1928, M. Breton presents the purposes

and problems of surrealist activity as expressed in the plastic arts. In art

the realist attitude becomes academicism and naturalism. It is the art of

exact narration, of photographic external appearances, stemming from the

belief that artists "are only capable of reproducing more or less fortunately

the image of that which moves them. . . . The mistake lies in thinking that

the model can only be taken from the exterior world . . . The plastic work of

art, in order to respond to the undisputed necessity of thoroughly revising all

values, will either refer to a pz/r.e/~ interior model or cease to exist."'@ Such is

the full statement of the surrealist philosophy of art. All art other than surrealist

is an art of imitation of some thing which exists in the real world and

which does not need the work of art to insure its existence. A work of art

should not be a mere substitute for a thing, but should be the vehicle by which

the artist and spectator are brought before a sign which is the thing itself, that

is, up against the center of the world where thought and things meet. A work

of art derives its value not from its language symbols but from the surreal which

is behind them. The model for the work is in the psychic life of the artist

himself. A complete reversal of critical values is thus entailed. The value of a

work of art does not lie in biographical detail or formal elements, but in the

fact of its being an object in which the surreal comes to light. The surreal object

demands the surrealists activity if we are to be brought face to face with it.

The beauty of surrealist art will be "convulsive," it will produce in

the spectator "a state of physical disturbance characterized by the sensation

of a wind brushing across my forehead and capable of causing me really to

shiver.""

Surrealist artistic activity is no different from other surrealist activity

in its purpose. Its aim is to probe the depths of man, to find the Freudian

"id." This is the realm of the erotic and the marvelous which has occasionally

escaped into our daily life through dreams, and through actions

performed when we refuse the restrictions of rational reflection. Surrealist art

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lo A. Breton, Le SurrPalirme et la Peinture, pp. 12-13.

" A. Breton, "Beauty will be Convulsive" CM, p. 37.

investigates this realm and sets up a pathway which will cotlnect it as directly

as possible (by a short circuit) with the world of daily life.

For Salvator Dali the whole ambition of the artist is to "materialize the

images of concrete irrationality." l2 He must record the interior model as

faithfully and as clearly as any realist or academic painter would copy his

exterior model. If the artist at the moment he paints his pictures does not

understand them it is not because they have no meaning, "on the contrary,

their meaning is so profound . . . that it escapes the most simple analysis of

logical intuition." l3 One cannot analyze the language of the unconscious.

Dali says:

"The subconscious has a symbolic language that is truly a universal language, for

it . . . speaks with the vocabulary of the great vital constants, sexual instinct, feeling of

death, physical notion of the enigma of space-these vital constants are universally

echoed in every human. To understand an uerthetic picture, training in appreciation

is necessary, cultural and intellectual preparation. For Surrealism the only requisite is

a receptive and intuitive human being.""

This passage, more clearly than any other, shows the great shift in values

presupposed by Surrealism, and declares the overindividual content of the

surreal.

He also points out another kind of surrealist activity to add to the

original one of psychic automatism of Andri. Breton. This he calls "paranoiaccritical

activity."'The images of reality are susceptible of false interpretations

in terms of some mental delusion. A picture of a horse may be seen as

that of a woman also, or even further as a lion. Which of these it may be, or

how many such images an individual may see depends upon his degree of

paranoiac capacity. The images of reality depend upon this capacity as well,'"

for reality may be as easily dissociated and put in question as illusion. As

Breton has said, "a tomato is a child's balloon" and in this relationship the

word "like" is "suppressed." Such a world is ego-centered, and however

much one may claim the objective and the subjective are telescoped, it is the

subjective element which is in the ascendancy. The rational is brought into

line with the irrational, the world of common sense with that of illusion.

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l2 S. Dali, The Conquest of the Irrational, cf. pp. 12- 13.

l3 Idem.

l4 S. Dali. Address delivered at M. M. A., N. Y., 1934. J. Levy, Survealrsm, p. 7.

l5 S. Dali, The Conquest of the Irrational, pp. 17-18.

S. Dali, "The Stinking Ass," This Quavter, Sept. 1932, pp. 49-50.

When a work of art is a paranoiac phenomenon it is no longer the aesthetic

object of the older beauty but is purely a psychiatrical index of one's unconscious

activity.

The theoretical backgrounds of the philosophical position of Surrealism

lie in the principle of dialectic, and of surrealist activity in psychoanalytic

method. By an indiscriminate confusion of metaphysics, a dubious logical

method, and a radical psychological position, Surrealism becomes a structure

of serious and homicidal nonsense creating for itself a position of artificial

respectability.

The principle of dialectic is applied to synthesizing the opposition

between the real state and the dream state; it is a search for the surreality

in which the two are joined. But this is not the dialectic of Hegel. Reality

and rationality do not logically generate their antithesis. There is no necessary

movement from a given thesis to its opposite, and given both tAO 发表于 2007-03-12 04:32:59 | 阅读 ()