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'''''[[Surrealism''''' is an artistic]], however, cultural and intellectual movement oriented toward offered the liberation of the mind by emphasizing the critical young Lacan an alternative route to psychoanalysis and imaginative faculties of the "crucial link to his [[unconscious mindclinical]]" and the attainment of a state different from, "more than", and ultimately "truer" than everyday reality: the "sur-real", or "more than real". In his [[Surrealist Manifestopractice]] of 1924, in [[André Bretonpsychiatry]] defines Surrealism as:.

:Psychic automatism in its pure state, by which one proposes to express -- verbally, by means of The Surrealists fully embraced [[psychoanalysis]] and during his medical studies Lacan developed strong [[links]] with the written word, or in any other manner -- the actual functioning of thought. Dictated by the thought, in the absence of any control exercised by reason, exempt from any aesthetic or moral concernmovement.

At various times individual surrealists aligned themselves with [[communism]] and [[anarchism]] to advance radical political and social change, arguing that only transformed institutions of work, the family, and education could make possible a general participation to the surreal.  The word "[[surreal]]" is often used colloquially to describe unexpected juxtapositions or use of [[non-sequitur]]s in art or dialog, particularly where such juxtapositions are presented as self-consistent [http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/Surrealism].   ==Philosophy==Surrealist philosophy emerged around [[1920]], partly as an outgrowth of [[Dada]], with French writer [[André Breton]] as its initial principal theorist. In Breton's [[Surrealist Manifesto]] of [[1924]] he defines Surrealism as: :'' '''Dictionary''': Surrealism, n. Pure psychic automatism, by which one proposes to express, either verbally, or in writing, or by any other manner, the real functioning of thought. Dictation of thought in the absence of all control exercised by reason, outside of all aesthetic and moral preoccupation. '' '''Encyclopedia''': Surrealism. Philosophy. Surrealism is based on the belief in the superior reality of certain forms of previously neglected associations, in the omnipotence of dream, in the disinterested play of thought. It tends to ruin once and for all other psychic mechanisms and to substitute itself for them in solving all the principal problems of life."Breton would later qualify the first of these definitions by saying "in the absence of ''conscious'' moral or aesthetic self-censorship", and by his admission, through subsequent developments, that these definitions were capable of considerable expansion. Like those involved in Dada, adherents of Surrealism thought that the horrors of [[World War I]] were the culmination of the [[Industrial Revolution]] and the result of the rational mind. Consequently, irrational thought and dream-states were seen as the natural antidote to those social problems. While [[Dada]] rejected categories and labels and was rooted in negative response to the [[World War I|First World War]], Surrealism advocates the idea that ordinary and depictive expressions are vital and important, but that the sense of their arrangement must be open to the full range of imagination according to the [[Dialectic#Hegelian dialectic|Hegelian Dialectic]]. The Marxist dialectic and other theories, such as [[Freud]]ian theory, also played a significant role in some of the development of surrealist theory and, as in the work of such theorists as [[Walter Benjaminliterary]] and [[Herbert Marcuse]], surrealism contributed to the development of Marxian theory itself. The Surrealist diagnosis of the "problem" of the [[realism (arts)|realism]] and [[capitalism|capitalist]] civilization is a restrictive overlay of false rationality, including social and academic convention, on the free functioning of the instinctual urges of the human mind. Surrealist philosophy connects with the theories of psychiatrist [[Sigmund Freud]]. Freud asserted that [[unconscious mind|unconscious]] thoughts (the thoughts of which one is not aware) motivate human behavior, and he advocated [[free association]] (uncensored expression) and [[dream analysis]] to reveal unconscious thoughts. It is through the practice of automatism, dream interpretation, and numerous other surrealist methods that Surrealists believe the wellspring of imagination and creativity can be accessed.Surrealism also embraces [[idiosyncrasy]], while rejecting the idea of an underlying madness or darkness of the mind. [[Salvador Dalí]], who is considered to have been quite idiosyncratic, explained it as "The only difference between myself and a madman is I am not MAD!"Surrealists look to so-called "[[Primitivism (art)|primitive art]]" as an example of expression that is not self-censored. The radical aim of Surrealism is to revolutionize human experience, including its personal, cultural, social, and political aspects, by freeing people from what is seen as false rationality, and restrictive customs and structures. As [[André Breton|Breton]] proclaimed, the true aim of Surrealism is "long live the social revolution, and it alone!". To this goal, at various times Surrealists have aligned with [[Communism|communism]] and [[Anarchism|anarchism]]. Not all Surrealists subscribe to all facets of the philosophy. Historically many were not interested in political matters, and this lack of interest created rifts in the Surrealism artistic movement. By the turn of the 21st century, Surrealist philosophy varied amongst Surrealist groups around the globe. Some Surrealist theorists have stated that Surrealism has somehow "gone beyond" or "superseded" philosophy, or that philosophy has been "outclassed" by Surrealism. == History of Surrealism==[[Image:La Revolution Surrealiste cover.jpg|thumb|right|Cover of emerged after the first issue of ''First [[La Révolution surréaliste]]'', December 1924.]] <!--this capitalization of the title seems to be the standard--> In 1917, [[Guillaume Apollinaire]] coined the term "surrealism" in the program notes describing the ballet ''[[Parade (ballet)|Parade]]'' which was a collaborative work by [[Jean Cocteau]], [[Erik Satie]], [[Pablo Picasso]] and [[Léonide Massine]]: :''From this new alliance, for until now stage sets and costumes on one side and choreography on the other had only a sham bond between them, there has come about, in 'Parade', a kind of super-realism ('sur-réalisme'), in which I see the starting point of a series of manifestations of this new spirit ('esprit nouveau').' The Surrealist movement mainly originated in the [[Dada]] movement. While the movement's most important center was Paris, it spread throughout Europe and to North America, [[Japan]] and the Caribbean during the course of the [[1920s]], [[1930s]] and [[1940s]], by the [[1960sWorld]] to [[Africa]], [[South America]] and much of [[Asia]] and by the [[1980s]] to [[Australia]]. There have even been some manifestations of surrealism in [[Russia]] and [[China]]. Some historians mark the end of the movement at [[World War II]], some with the death of [[André Breton]], some with the death of [[Salvador Dalí]], while others believe that Surrealism continues as an identifiable movement. === Split from Dada ===Breton's [[Surrealist Manifesto]] of [[1924]] and the publication of the magazine ''[[La Révolution surréaliste]]'' (''The Surrealist Revolution'') marked the split from the more [[Dada]] oriented Surrealists centred around [[Tristan Tzara]]. Five years earlier, Breton and [[Philippe Soupault]] wrote the first "[[Surrealist automatism|automatic book]]" (spontaneously written), ''[[Les Champs Magnétiques]]''. By December of 1924, the publication ''[[La Révolution surréaliste]]'' edited by [[Pierre Naville]] and [[Benjamin Péret]] and later by Breton, was started. Also, a [[Bureau of Surrealist Research]] began in Paris and was at one time, under the direction of [[Antonin Artaud]]. In 1926, [[Louis Aragon]] wrote ''[[Le Paysan de Paris]]'', following the appearance of many Surrealist books, poems, pamphlets, automatic texts and theoretical works published by the Surrealists, including those by its founding [[René Crevelfigure]]. Many of the popular artists in [[Paris]] throughout the [[1920s]] and [[1930s]] were Surrealists, including [[René Magritte]], [[Joan Miró]], [[Max Ernst]], [[Salvador Dalí]], [[Alberto Giacometti]], [[Valentine Hugo]], [[Méret Oppenheim]], [[Man Ray]], [[Toyen]] and [[Yves Tanguy]]. Though Breton adored [[Pablo Picasso]] and [[Marcel Duchamp]] and courted them to join the movement, they did not join. The Surrealists developed [[Surrealist techniques|techniques]] such as [[automatic drawing]] (developed by [[André Masson]]), [[automatic painting]], [[decalcomania]], [[Frottage (surrealist technique)|Frottage]], [[Surrealist techniques#Fumage|fumage]], [[Surrealist techniques#Grattage|grattage]] and [[Surrealist techniques#Parsemage|parsemage]] that became significant parts of Surrealist practice. ([[Automatism and the computer|Automatism]] was later adapted to the computer.) [[Surrealist games|Games]] such as the [[exquisite corpse]] also assumed a great importance in Surrealism. Although sometimes considered exclusively French, Surrealism was international from the beginning, with both the Belgian and [[Czech and Slovak Surrealist Group|Czech groups]] developing early; the Czech group continues uninterrupted to this day. Some of what have been described as the most significant [[Surrealist theory|Surrealist theorists]] such as [[Karel Teige]] from Czechoslovakia, [[Shuzo Takiguchi]] from Japan, [[Octavio Paz]] from Mexico, also [[Aimé Césaire]] and [[René Menil]] from Martinique, who both started the Surrealist journal ''[[Tropiques]]'' in 1940, have hailed from other countries. The most radical of Surrealist methods have also originated in countries other than France, for example, the technique of [[Surrealist techniques#Cubomania|cubomania]] was invented by Romanian Surrealist [[Gherasim Luca]]. === Interwar Surrealism: Centrality of Breton ===[[Image:Breton eluard.gif|thumb|right|200px|[[Paul Éluard]] writer and poet [[André Breton]]. ([[Man Ray]]. Private collection.)]] Breton, as the leader of the Surrealist movement, not only published its most thorough explanations of its techniques, aims and ideas, but was the individual who drew in, and expelled, writers, artists and thinkers. Through the interwar period he formed the focus of Surrealist activity in Paris, and his writings were enormously influential in spreading Surrealism as a body of thought, in such works ''Nadja'' ([[1928]]), the ''Second Surrealist Manifesto'' ([[1930]]), ''Communicating Vessels'' ([[1932]]), and ''Mad Love'' ([[1937]]1896-1966). To further the revolutionary aim of Surrealism, in 1927 [[André Breton|Breton]] and others joined the [[Communist Party]]. Breton was ousted from the Party in 1933. The late 1920s were turbulent for the group as several individuals closely associated familiar with Breton left, and several prominent artists entered. Surrealism continued to expand in public visibility. The high water mark, in Breton's own estimation, was the 1936 [[London International Surrealist Exhibition]]. In 1938, Breton (on visit to Mexico) and [[Leon Trotsky]] co-authored a ''[[Manifesto for an independent revolutionary art]]''[http://www.marxists.org/subject/art/lit_crit/works/rivera/manifesto.htm] on the need for a permanent revolution, and attacked [[Stalinism]] and [[Socialist realism]], as the "negation of freedom". Surrealism also attracted writers from the United Kingdom to Paris including [[David Gascoyne]], who became friends with [[Paul Éluard]] and [[Max Ernst]], and translated [[André Breton|Breton]] and [[Salvador Dalí|Dalí]] into English. In 1935 he authored ''A Short Study of Surrealism'', and then returned to England during the World War II, where he roomed with [[Lucian Freud]] and continued to write in the Surrealist style for the remainder of his life. [[Acéphale]] was one splinter group that formed (mid-1930s). The group was comprised of some of those disaffected by what they claimed was or what they saw as Breton's increasing rigidity, and structured as a "secret society". Led by [[Georges Bataille|Bataille]], they published ''Da Costa Encyclopedia'' meant to coincide with the [[1947]] Surrealist exhibition in Paris. === Surrealism during World War II ===The rise of [[Adolf Hitler]] and the events of 1939 through 1945 in Europe, for a time overshadowed almost all else. However, after the war, Breton continued to write and espouse the importance of liberating of the human mind. For example in ''The Tower of Light'' in ([[1952]]). In [[1941]], Breton went to the United States, where he cofounded the short lived magazine ''[[VVV (journal)|VVV]]'' with [[Max Ernst]], [[Marcel Duchamp]], and American artist [[David Hare (artist)|David Hare]]. VVV boasted high production values and a great deal of content; however, its content was increasingly in French, not English. It was American poet [[Charles Henri Ford]] and his magazine ''[[View (magazine)|View]]'' which offered Breton a channel for promoting Surrealism in the United States. Ford and Breton had an on/off relationship. Breton felt that Ford should work more specifically for Surrealism and Ford, for his part, resented what he felt to be Breton's attempts to make him "toe the line". Nevertheless, ''View'' published an interview between Breton and [[Nicolas Calas]], as well as special issues on [[Yves Tanguy|Tanguy]] dreams and [[Max Ernst|Ernst]] and in [[1945]], on Marcel Duchamp.  The ''[[View (magazine)|View]]'' special issue on Duchamp was crucial for the public understanding of Surrealism in America. It stressed his connections to Surrealist methods, offered interpretations of his work by Breton, as well as Breton's view that Duchamp represented the bridge between early modern movements, such as [[Futurism]] and [[Cubism]], to Surrealism. Breton's return to France after the Second World War, began developed a new phase technique of surrealist activity in Paris, one which attracted considerable attention. Membership in the Paris Surrealist Group and interest in it, climbed to above pre-war levels. Breton's critiques of [[rationalism]] and [[dualism]], found a new audience after the Second World War, as his argument that returning to old patterns of behavior would ensure a repeated cycle of conflict seemed increasingly prophetic to French intellectuals while the [[Cold War]] mounted. Bretonspontaneous's insistence that Surrealism was not an aesthetic movement, nor a series of techniques and tools, but instead the means for ongoing revolt against the reduction of humanity to market relationships, religious gestures and misery, meant that his ideas and stances were taken up by many, even those who had never heard of Breton, or read any of his work. The importance of living Surrealism was repeated by Breton and by those writing about him. === Post World War II Surrealism===There is no clear consensus about the end of the Surrealist movement: some art historians suggest that the movement was effectively disbanded by WWII (despite the expansion of membership in the Paris group and the creation of others after that date), others treat the movement as extending through the [[1950s]]. In 1959, [[Andre Breton]] organized an exhibiton in [[Spain]] called ''The Homage to Surrealism'' to celebrate the Fortieth Anniversary of Surrealism which exhibited works by [[Salvador Dalí]], [[Joan Miró]], [[Enrique Tábara]], and [[Eugenio Granell]]. Art historian [[Sarane Alexandrian]] ([[1970]]) states, "the death of André Breton in [[1966]] marked the end of Surrealism as an organized movement." (There have also been attempts to tie the obituary of the movement to the [[1989]] death of [[Salvador Dalí]].) However, this is in direct contradiction to Breton's statement that surrealism would continue after him, and the many manifestations of surrealism after his death.  For example, the Czech Surrealist Group in Prague, though driven underground in [[1968]], re-emerged in the [[1990s]]. Still other groups and individuals, not directly connected to Breton (though the relevance of such a connexion could certainly be questioned as the movement was never conceived of as being tied personally to Breton), have claimed the Surrealist label. == Surrealism in the arts ==In general usage, the term Surrealism is more often considered a movement in [[visual arts]] than the original cultural and philosophical movement. As with some other movements that had both philosophical and artistic dimensions, such as [[Romanticism|romanticism]] and [[Minimalism|minimalism]], the relationship between the two usages is complex and a matter of some debate outside the movement. Many Surrealist artists regarded their work as an give free expression of the philosophical movement first and foremost, and [[André Breton|Breton]] was explicit in his belief that Surrealism was above all a revolutionary movement. In addition, many surrealists and surrealist documents have declared that surrealism is not an [[art movement|artistic movement]] for a number of additional reasons, among which is the conception of the "artistic" manifestations of surrealism as just one form of manifestation among many, various conceptions of visual work being created which somehow "goes beyond" traditional conceptions of art or [[aesthetics]], or even the complete cessation of creative visual production. In addition, the art object/product - while an important part of the Surrealist process - is viewed as merely a "souvenir" of a vastly more critical journey, interesting only in so far as it is revelatory of that adventure. === Surrealism in visual arts =======Early visual arts Surrealism====Since so many of the artists involved in Surrealism came from the [[Dada]] movement, the demarcation between Surrealist and Dadaist art, as with the demarcation between Surrealism and [[Dada]] in general, is a line drawn differently by different scholars. The roots of Surrealism in the visual arts run to both [[Dada]] unconscious thoughts and [[Cubism]], as well as the abstraction of [[Wassily Kandinsky]] and [[Expressionism]], as well as [[Post-Impressionism]]. However, it was not the particulars of technique which marked the Surrealist movement in the visual arts, but the creation of objects from the imagination, from automatism, or from a number of [[Surrealist techniques]]. [[Image:MagrittePipe.jpg|thumb|left|200px|[[René Magritte]]'s "The Betrayal of Images" (1928-9)]] [[André Masson|Masson]]'s [[automatic drawing]]s of [[1923]], are often used as a convenient point of difference, since these reflect the influence of the idea of the [[unconscious mind]]wishes.

Another example is Alberto Giacometti's Similarly, Surrealist painters such as [[1925Dali]] ''Torso'', which marked his movement attempted to simplified forms and inspiration from pre-classical sculpture. However, a striking example of paint the line used to divide Dada and Surrealism among art experts is the pairing of [[1925]]'s ''[[Von minimax dadamax selbst konstruiertes maschinchenreality]]'' with ''of their [[Le Baiserdreams]], which they saw as more '' from [[1927real]] by Max Ernst. The first is generally held to have a distance, and erotic subtext, where as the second presents an erotic act openly and directly. In the second the influence of Miró and Picasso's drawing style is visible with than the use prosaic reality of fluid curving and intersecting lines and colour, where as the first takes a directness that would later be influential in movements such as [[Pop art]]our everyday world.

In [[1924]]1932, [[Joan Miró|Miro]] and within this context, [[André Masson|MassonLacan]] applied Surrealism theory to painting explicitly leading to the ''La Peinture Surrealiste'' Exposition at Gallerie Pierre in completed his doctoral [[1925thesis]], which included work by on [[Man Ray]], Masson, Klee Paranoid Psychosis and Miró among others. It confirmed that Surrealism had a component in Its Relations to the visual arts (though it had been initially debated whether this was possible), techniques from Dada, such as [[photomontagePersonality]] were used.

Around the same [[Galerie Surréalistetime]] opened on he entered [[March 26analysis]] with [[Rudolph Loewenstein]], the SPP's most famous [[training]] [[analyst]] (a recognized [[psychoanalyst]] who is qualified to train [1926[other]] with an exhibition by [[Man Rayanalysts]] within the [[Society]]).

====1930s====[[Image:The Persistence of Memory.jpg|thumb|240px|[[Salvador Dalí]]. ''[[The Persistence of Memory]]During this time, Lacan''. 1931s links with the Surrealists developed further.]]

He was a friend of [[DalíAndré Breton]] and [[Magritte]] created the most widely recognized images of the movement. Dalí joined the group in [[1929Salvador Dali]], and participated in the rapid establishment of was later to become the visual style between [[1930]] and painter [[1935Pablo Picasso]]'s (1881-1973) personal physician.

Surrealism as a visual movement had found a method: to expose psychological truth by stripping ordinary objects He attended the first [[public]] readings of their normal significance, [[James Joyce]]'s (1882-1941) [[Ulysses]] in order to create 1921 and was a compelling image that was beyond ordinary formal organization, well-known figure in order to evoke empathy from the viewercafés and bookshops of Paris's [[Left]] Bank.

[[1931]] marked a year when several Surrealist painters produced works which marked turning points in their stylistic evolution: MagritteIn 1933 Dali was to refer to Lacan's ''[[La Voix des airsdoctoral thesis]]'' is an example in the first issue of this process, where three large spheres representing bells hanging above a landscape. Another the Surrealist landscape from this same year is review [[Yves Tanguy|TanguyMinotaure]]'s ''[[Palais promontoire]]'', with its molten forms and liquid shapes. Liquid shapes became the trademark of Dalí, particularly in his ''[[The Persistence of Memory]]'', which features the image of clocks that sag as if they are made out of clothLacan himself was to make many contributions to this and other Surrealist publications.

The characteristics of this style: a combination of the depictiveLacan's doctoral thesis, the abstractthen, was written in a largely anti-[[psychoanalytic]] [[culture]] and the psychological, came to stand for the alienation which many people felt in the remained within established [[psychiatric]] [[Modernism|moderncategories]] periodand theories, combined with but at the sense same time it drew on the alternative resources of reaching more deeply into the psyche, to be "made whole with ones individuality"Surrealist movement.

Because surrealist writers seldom (if ever) appear to organize Begun as an investigation of poetic [[images]] and [[language]], their sources, their thoughts [[nature]], and the images they presentspecific features, surrealism is a movement of [[ideas]], some people find much of their work difficult artistic creation and [[action]] based explicitly on [[Freudian]] discoveries, which were used to develop an original [[theory]] of language and [[creativity]]. In later years it adopted [[Hegelian]] dialectics and [[Marxist]]-Leninist historical [[materialism]]. The "parse[[social]] and martial cataclysm"(Breton, 1934) provoked a [[revolt]] by an entire generation. This notion however is The movement was founded in Paris in 1924 by [[French]] poet André Breton, with the support of a group of poets and painters. The [[presence]] of Max Ernst, from [[Germany]], Man Ray, from the [[United States]], and Joan Miró, a superficial comprehensionCatalan, prompted no doubt by Bretongave the group its international flavor. Surrealism's initial emphasis on automatic writing [[goal]] was to "[[change]] [[life]]" (Arthur Rimbaud) by freeing humanity from the constraints of [[mental]] or social [[censorship]] as well as [[economic]] oppression: "[[Poetry]] is made by everyone. Not by one" (Lautréamont).The [[project]] made little [[sense]] to [[Freud]], who refused his patronage (Freud to Breton, 1933e [1932]; to Zweig, July 20, 1938 (1960a [1873-1939])). Breton visited Freud in [[Vienna]] in 1921 and corresponded with him in 1932 [[about]] <i>The [[Interpretation]] of Dreams</i>. In 1937 he asked him to contribute to a planned anthology (<i>Trajectoire du rêve</i>, 1938). Freud answered: "A collection of dreams without their [[associations]], without [[understanding]] the main route toward circumstances in which someone dreamed, doesn't mean anything to me, and I have a higher realityhard time understanding what it might mean to [[others]]" (Breton, 1938, I).These associations were generally omitted by the surrealists when they narrated their dreams. But - as They appear in André Breton's case itself <i>The [[Communicating]] Vases</i> (1932), but there the [[author]], denying the "[[dream]] [[navel]]" for the sake of Marxist- much Leninist materialism, felt he could use [[them]] to bring into focus all his dream [[thoughts]]. He claimed, contrary to Freud, that the dream was a creator, an instigator to action, and capable of what is presented as purely automatic is actually edited [[dialectically]] resolving the [[contradiction]] between [[desire]] and very reality. Surrealism ignored [[therapy]].There are several periods to the [[history]] of surrealism. Its "thought out[[prehistory]]"dates from 1916 (Breton discovers Freud) to 1924. This was the period of the review <i>Littérature</i> (1919). Together with Breton himself later admitted that , a group of young artists invented surrealist techniques intended to liberate the [[unconscious]]: automatic [[writing]] and drawing, hypnotic [[sleep]], hypnagogic visions, dream narratives, group creation, [[oral]] and written [[games]], collage, rubbings, decals, experimental [[photography]] and theater. The publication of the first <i>Surrealist Manifesto</i> (Breton, 1924) ushered in Surrealism's centrality formative period. The group had been overstateda journal of its own, <i>La Révolution surréaliste</i>. "We must be thankful for Freud's discoveries," wrote Breton, "the [[imagination]] may be on the point of winning back its rights."In 1927 André Breton, Louis [[Aragon]], PaulÉluard, and other elements were introduced[[Benjamin]] Peret joined the [[Communist]] Party. Breton did not, however, abandon Freud: "The Surrealism that, especially as we have seen, has adopted Marxist beliefs does not intend to treat lightly the growing involvement Freudian critique of visual artists in ideas" (Breton, 1930). Breton soon quit the movement forced Communist Party, which reproached him for his Freudianism. Surrealism embraced [[cinema]] (Luis Buñuel), the issue[[construction]] of [[objects]] ("[[Situation]] surréaliste de l'[[objet]], since "automatic painting" required Breton, 1935), and produced important works of art in every field.But in 1930, in his <i>Second Manifesto of Surrealism</i>, Breton acknowledged the [[existence]] of a rather more strenuous set profound crisis. The [[third]] period of approachesSurrealism was about to begin. Thus such elements as collage were A new review was introduced, arising partly from an ideal <i>Le Surréalisme au service de la Révolution</i>. In 1930 the review published two articles by the French-American psychoanalyst Jean FroisWittmann, in 1933 the Breton-Freud correspondence of 1932, a favorable critique of startling juxtapositions as revealed in Pierre Reverdy[[Jacques Lacan]]'s poetry[[doctoral dissertation]] by René Crevel, and, also by Crevel, an attack on an article in the <i>Revue française de [[psychanalyse]]</i>. And The review also published the first [[texts]] by Salvador Dali, where he developed the [[idea]] of "critical- [[paranoia]]," the use of the interpretative [[processes]] of paranoia for creative ends, and the exploration of the unconscious.In 1933 <i>Minotaure</i> appeared. Although it was not the [[official]] [[voice]] of the group, it was strongly influenced by it. The first issue included articles on the "contributions of psychoanalysis." Lacan and Dalí explained their conceptions of paranoia as an [[active]] [[psychic]] phenomenon, which Dalí compared with the [[passivity]] he associated with dreams and automatic writing. Several large-scale international exhibitions confirmed the growth of surrealism around the world, a phenomenon that accelerated during the Second World War following the exile of Breton, André Masson, and Max Ernst in the United States, and Benjamin Péret in [[Mexico]], and continued after the war.Breton, the principal theorist of the group, maintained a close [[association]] with Freudian [[thought]] throughout his career. He was most interested in the [[logic]] of the unconscious, in Magritte's case conflicts between the ego, the id, and the [[superego]], relating them to the [[process]] of artistic creation, to Freudian ideas of [[sexuality]], [[fantasy]], [[desire,]] [[repression]], the [[death]] [[instinct]], whose opposition to [[Eros]] he assumed to be [[dialectical]] (where there is no obvious recourse Breton, 1930), and especially to either automatic techniques or collageideas about [[representation]] and [[perception]] (Breton, 1933) . Beginning with his [[concept]] of "pure mental representation," situated "beyond [[true]] perception," he examined, in the very notion context of convulsive joining became the <i>Essais de psychanalyse</i> (1927), how the transition from the unconscious to the perception-[[consciousness]] [[system]] takes [[place]] in the creative [[individual]]. For Breton, as a tool for revelation reader of Freud, it was at the [[preconscious]] level that language and the traces of acoustic and [[visual]] perceptions were united and charged with [[affect]]. But Breton went further: he saw in these preconscious elements the raw [[material]] of creation, obtained by the removal of repression with the [[help]] of automatic writing and drawing. In creating a [[work]] of itselfart, the [[artist]] would make the individual [[universal]] (Breton, 1935). Surrealism was meant In a [[letter]] to Stefan Zweig, Freud, who had met Salvador Dalí in [[London]], also associated the fundamental elements of the work of the artist with the preconscious, but he added a [[principle]] of [[economy]]: "From the critical point of view it could still be always maintained that the [[notion]] of art defies expansion as long as the quantitative proportion of unconscious material and preconscious [[treatment]] does not remain within definite limits" (July 20, 1938). The specific task of the creative individual, the result of his "initiative" (Breton) is to manipulate the relation between unconscious and preconscious elements, and objectify them in flux - a work of art. Repression would have to be removed using "surrealist techniques" (Breton). Freud's meeting with Dalí seems to be more modern than modern the only time when Freud made an effort to [[understand]] the surrealist use of psychoanalysis and compare it with his own beliefs.There were other points of contact between [[surrealism and psychoanalysis]]: Adrien Borel discussed his surrealist experiences (1925); Salvador Dalí and René Crevel interviewed Jacques Lacan; Crevel, Antonin Artaud, and Robert Desnos were [[analyzed]] by René Allendy, which they later wrote about. André Embiricos, a surrealist poet and theoretician as well as a psychoanalyst, founded, together with [[Marie Bonaparte]], the Greek Psychoanalytic Society.[[Lacanian]] thought developed throughout the nineteen- sixties, and so , although it was natural there should be has a rapid shuffling [[number]] of affinities with surrealism, it has always remained distinct. In 1971 the philosophy as new challenges arosesurrealist painter and [[philosopher]] René Passeron, with his research team at the C.N.R.S., founded<i>Études poïétiques</i>, which analyzed the creative process and made use of Freudian theory. A number of [[psychoanalysts]] (André Berge, Jean-Bertrand Pontalis, Guy Rosolato) were interested in the surrealists. As Breton found in 1934, the scope of surrealism, through the upheaval of sensibility it entails, "is socially incalculable." As a movement it has frequently helped the spread of psychoanalysis.

Surrealists revived interest in [[Isidore Ducasse]], known by his pseudonym “Le Comte de Lautréamont” and for the line “beautiful as the chance meeting on a dissecting table ==more==The legacy of a sewing machine and an umbrella”, and [[Arthur Rimbaud]], two late [[19th century]] writers believed to be the precursors of Surrealism.surrealism

Examples of surrealist literature are I begin this chapter by explaining why the surrealists were so fascinated by Freud, and [[René Creveloutline]]the ways in which they explored the workings of the unconscious through the use of various techniques. After suggesting some of Lacan'sconnections and convergences with the surrealists, I consider the influence of [[Caillois]] on Lacan. In conclusion I describe the [[case]] of [[Aimee]], an early [[patient]] of Lacan's who was also a [[cause]] celebre for the surrealists. Lacan'Mrs [[discourse]] is deeply marked by his [[encounter]] with surrealism. Knife Miss ForkLacan's work, a storehouse of images, allusions and references to surrealism, cannot be fully [[understood]] without a [[knowledge]] of the aims and aspirations of the movement. As Bice Benvenuto has remarked, surrealism's overturning of the place of [[conscious]] [[reason]], its questioning of the reality of the [[object]], its cultivation of the absurd, and its emphasis on the omnipotence of desire, seem to have provided Lacan with many of his basic attitudes. 1 The surrealist movement had great [[intellectual]] breadth and verve and it is difficult for us now fully to understand its original aura of excitement and revolt. Surrealism was a highly politicised, inflammatory movement which had a radical concept of [[freedom]].2 Its aim was [[nothing]] less than the liberation, in art and in life, of the resources of the unconscious [[mind]]. The surrealists'spiritual ancestors were de [[Sade]], Baudelaire, Rimbaud and Lautreamont. Deeply influenced by the lessons of [[Marx]] and Freud, surrealists, like Andre Breton, [[Paul]] Eluard, Louis Aragonand others, saw the new [[revolution]] occurring simultaneously on two fronts: the one 17 18 Jacques Lacan [[political]] and [[external]], the other exploring the deepest recesses of the [[human]]mind and unfolding its truths in the work of art. Why were the surrealists so interested in Freud? And why were these artists so interested in the exploration of the [[relationship]] between the conscious and the unconscious? The surrealists believed that the [[value]] of a work of art lay in the effort of the artist to encompass the [[whole]] psychophysical field of which the conscious mind represented only one small part. They thought of human experiences in the [[form]] of a pyramid, the narrow peak of which is the limited range of the conscious [[state]], and the broad base the [[full]], subterranean strata of the unconscious.3 Andre Breton, the [[theoretical]] [[leader]] of the movement, believed that the surrealists's[[search]] for an extra-empirical reality was within the traditions of Western thought, ''Irene's Cunt''and he consistently demanded that the barriers which ignore the worlds of the [[primitive]], the [[André child]] and the mad person be broken down. Surrealism inherited from Dada a hostility towards conventional definitions of art. For Breton, surrealism was not merely an artistic style; it was closer to [[being]]a [[transcendental]] world-view.4 Surrealism attempted to go beyond and above all forms of realism and to attain the realm of pure, unmediated thought and perception. This interest in the transcendental lies at the heart of the surrealists'subsequent enthusiasm for [[Hegel]], who was seen as a potential ally in transcending the contradictions of bourgeois [[order]].sThe surrealists hoped for nothing less than the fusing of all the sources of human creativity - the dream, the unconscious, ''Sur la route de San Romano''the conscious, the [[Benjamin Peretirrational]]- into a heightened reality that might alter the very shape of the world as well as men's, and [[women]]'s understanding of that world. Freud published an essay in 1907 on Jensen'Death s novel Gradiva.6 In subjecting the novel to the psychoanalytic method, Freud showed the economy of the unconscious, its relationship to conscious action, and the [[role]] played by dream in this nexus. This essay provided many of the Pigs''themes of the surrealists: the [[mechanism]] of repression, the dynamism of the [[repressed]], the [[Antonin Artaudmyth]]of [[love]] and the primacy of desire. One of Freud'sconclusions was that both [[scientist]] and artist arrive ultimately at the same understanding of the unconscious; one proceeds through conscious observation of abnormal mental processes in others, ''Le Pese-Nerfs''.the other directs his or her attention to his or her own unconscious and gives it artistic

===Surrealism in music===The legacy of surrealism 19  :expression. The surrealists were quick to seize on Freud's conclusion that [[science]] and art confirm rather than contradict one [[another]] in their explication of the unconscious. They found in Freud'Main article: s essay an [[Surrealism (music)explicit]]justification for their own attempt to determine the tortuous relationship between artistic expression and the unconscious.'' In The surrealists were concerned with the replacing of the [[1920simage]] several composers were influenced derived from nature by Surrealismthat drawn from an interior [[model]]. The work of art was to [[exist]] not as an aesthetic end, but only as a means to the exploration and expression of an inner psychic reality. Surrealist work of the 1920s and 1930s relied, whether implicitly or by individuals in explicitly, on the Surrealist movementdiscoveries of Freud. Among these were The surrealists, preoccupied with the sources of creativity, probed the [[Bohuslav Martinuworking]]of the unconscious through many means. These included automatism, collage, [[André Sourisdream interpretation]], exploration of myth and the use of the [[Edgard Varèseparanoiac]]-critical method. Automatism, the practice of automatic writing, who stated that his work ''Arcana'' was drawn from one of the first techniques the surrealists used. This process became for them a dream sequenceform of [[self]]-administered psychoanalysis. Souris in particular was associated with Automatic writing consisted of writing down as rapidly as possible, without revision or [[control]] by the conscious, everything that has passed through the mind when the movement: he writer had a long, if sometimes spotty, relationship with been able to detach her- or himself sufficiently from the world [[outside]]. The possibility of applying the techniques of automatic writing to painting was envisaged at this time. They also studied [[hypnosis]] and mediumship and made transcripts of what trance [[Magrittesubjects]]said. Experiments of this kind produced a sort of intoxicated exhilaration. Writing, painting and worked on sculpture became aspects of one single [[Paul Nougeactivity]]: that of calling empirical 's publication ''Adieu Marie'reality'into question. French composer The surrealists often attempted to fuse the polarities of dream and reality, the unconscious and the conscious in a single image. They did this through the [[Pierre Bouleztechnique]] wrote a piece called ''explosante-fixe'' collage (1972the sticking together of disparate elements to make a picture), inspired by Breton's ''mad love''. Surrealists depended on the devices of [[Germaine Tailleferrecondensation]] of the French group Les Six wrote several works which could be considered to be inspired by Surrealism, including the 1948 Ballet "Paris-Magie" (scenario by [[Lise Deharmedisplacement]]and juxtaposition, who was closely linked to Breton)create a visual world analogous to but not reflecting any known perceptible reality. Max Ernst, for example, used old engravings and photo-mechanical reproductions as a means of violating conventional ideas about the Operas "La Petite Sirène" (book by Philippe Soupault) and "Le Maître" (book by Eugène Ionesco)[[rational]] [[structure]] of that same world. Tailleferre also wrote popular songs to texts by Claude MarciHis figurative paintings, stripped of [[logical]] connections, remind one of the wife processes of Henri Jeanson, whose portrait had been painted by Magritte in the 1930s. Even though Breton by [[1946dream-work]] responded rather negatively to . 20 Jacques Lacan Although automatism and collage were the subject of music with his essay first 'Freudian'Silence is Goldentechniques used by the surrealists,Freud'' later Surrealists have been interested in - and found parallels s major contribution to - Surrealism surrealism lay in his explication of the improvisation role of language in dream and dream interpretation. The [[jazzformal]] (as alluded to above)structure of the dream - the condensation that results in a density of imagery, displacement of the senses of time and the [[bluesspace]] (Surrealists such and the importance of figurative language - is reconstituted in the works of the movement. The surrealists argued for a view of the relationship between dream and waking in which both states are perceived as fluid, their [[Paul Garoncontents]] have written articles and full-length books on the subject)ceaselessly intermingled. Jazz and blues musicians have occasionally reciprocated this interest. For example, They foresaw the ultimate [[1976 World Surrealist Exhibitionachievement]] included such performances by of dream study as the integration of the two states, in [[Honeyboy Edwardsappearance]]so contradictory, of dream and reality into one sort of absolute reality which they called surreality. Surrealists have also been influenced Like Freud, the surrealists were fascinated by mythological themes such as [[reggaeOedipus]], [[Narcissus]] andothers. In the area of surrealist painting, later, where there [[hip hop music|rapexists]] no single and some rock or pop bands such as [[The Psychedelic Fursidentifiable]]. In addition to musicians who have been influenced by Surrealism (including some influence in rock — surrealist 'style' and where the title value of the work is determined almost exclusively on the basis of its [[1967content]] , myth becomes one way of organising and synthesising surrealist beliefs within a recognisable set of [[psychedelic music|psychedelicsymbols]] .7 From their [[Jefferson Airplanereading]] album ''of Freud the surrealists realised that automatism, dream and myth all shared common characteristics: condensation, a displacement of the sense of time and space, a similar [[Surrealistic Pillowsymbolism]]'' was obviously inspired by . Freud had viewed dreams as the movement), such residues of daily activity; myth as the experimental group collective heritage of centuries. For him the two modes of unconscious thought shared a symbolism that derived from their common origin in [[Nurse With Woundchildhood]] (whose album title ''Chance meeting on a dissecting table of a sewing machine and umbrella'' is taken from a line in , whether individual or [[Lautreamontcultural]]. 8 Another form of Freudian experimentation was the intentional simulation of states of mental abnormality. The most flamboyant and provocative exploitation of this technique was by Salvador Dali. Dali became fascinated by Millet's 'Angelus'Maldororand was quick to recognise that the work'')s universal appeal could not be fully eXplained by its overt content, two peasants bowing their heads as the Angelus peels from a distant tower. Surrealist music has included such explorations as those His earlier reading of Freud led Dali to an examination of the [[Hal Rammellatent]]. More importantly, the ideas of chance have been used by such modern musical artists as [[David Bowiesexual]] content of a work which he saw as 'the most [[Brian Enoerotic]] who - in turn - have sometimes mentioned either picture ever painted, a masterpiece of disguised sexual repression'.9 When a visitor to the Louvre drove a [[Dada|Dadaistshole]] or Surrealists in their through the canvas Dali became even more convinced of the work's disquieting quality.It was Jacques Lacan, a frequent contributor to Minotaure with articles on the

===Surrealism The legacy of surrealism 21 relationship between paranoia and artistic creativity, who interviewed the vandal. Lacan's interest in such 'deviants' should not surprise us. He worked for a year in film=== Surrealist a [[filmclinic]]s include ''attached to the [[Un chien andalouPrefecture de Police]], and his main task was to prepare psychiatric reports on criminals and vagrants. Unable satisfactorily to explain the enigmatic aspects of 'The Angelus' and , Dali set about examining the painting in the light of the paranoiac-critical method which he had developed earlier. It was during the 1930s that Dali developed his 'paranoiac-critical'method, a process by which he deliberately induced [[L'Âge d'Orpsychotic]]'' by [[Luis Buñuelhallucinatory]] states in ,himself for eXploitation in his art and life. We [[Dalíknow]]; Buñuel went on that this practice caught the attention of Lacan, who subsequently visited Dali, whereupon Dali further developed his theory. 10 Freud had used the [[psychoanalytical]] device of [[free association]] to trace the [[symbolic]] [[meaning]] of dream imagery to direct many moreits source in the unconscious. There is also Dali applied the same method to pictorial imagery, and particularly to that imagery which arises as a strong surrealist influence present result of the visual [[hallucinations]] which Dali had exploited since childhood. By using the external world as the source and stimulus for the [[delusion]] and by rendering the hallucinatory results with the clarity and precision of Dutch seventeenth-century still-life, Dali hoped to destroy all [[belief]] in the idea of a [[Alain Resnaisstable]]external'reality without recourse to abstraction, which would violate the essentially figurative structure of mental images. Lacan's connection with the surrealists One of the main characteristics of surrealist work is the juxtaposition of images and objects far removed from one another. Breton borrowed Lautreamont's idea of beauty: 'Beautiful as the unexpected meeting, on a dissection table, of a sewing [[Last Year at Marienbadmachine]]and an umbrella.'Breton' Surrealist and film theorist s analysis of his dreams contributed to the imagery of the poetry. The [[Robert Benayounexperience]] has written books on of what the surrealists called 'convulsive beauty' (of something that shakes the [[Tex Averysubject]]'s selfpossession, bringing exultation through a kind of shock), is rather like Freud's notion of the [[Woody Allenuncanny]], where shock, mixed with the sudden appearance of fate, engulfs the subject. All this implies a definite break with a purely instrumental or 22 Jacques Lacan representational view of language. For surrealist poets like Aragon, Breton and Eluard, language is not a nomenclature or a [[Buster Keatontransparent]] medium. Meaning is seen as being produced through the juxtaposition of images and the clash of associations rather than as deriving from some [[ideal]] correspondence between [[Marx Brotherssign]] and [[referent]]. Some have described One surrealist painter, Rene Magritte, quite consciously began to explore a theory of meaning, in the late 1920s, that was surprisingly close to contemporary [[David Lynchlinguistic]] as a Surrealist filmmakertheory. Some aspects of many Many of his films paintings are an investigation of the relationship between the process of Surrealist interestdepiction and the object depicted. His painting, 'Use of [[Speech]]', although his work which depicts a smoking pipe and is inscribed with the [[words]] 'Ceci n 'est pas une pipe' (This is not submersed a pipe), is a familiar one. This painting is, in surrealismpart, a comment on the non-correspondence between the visual image and the object it represents. I I An image of a pipe is not a pipe. In other words, the relationship between [[signifier]], [[signified]] and referent is shown to be [[arbitrary]]. Czech surrealist I am mentioning all this because it will help us to understand not only Lacan's views on language but his own [[particular]] use of it. Lacan's style, with its puns and [[word]] games, is part of a highly [[self-conscious]] intellectual [[Jan Svankmajertradition]] has also made . Just as Marcel Duchamp's 'ready-mades' challenged conventional assumptions about the nature of the art object, word play can be seen as a number challenge to the notion that language is transparent. Many of surrealist filmsLacan's contemporaries such as Duchamp, Leiris, Queneau, were masters of glossological games.There are many references to surrealism in Lacan's [[http://wwwEcrits]].12 The frequency with which Lacan alludes to surrealism is all the more striking in that it is not a major reference for the post-war avant-garde.illumin(Neither [[Barthes]], Sollers nor Kristeva has anything positive to say about it.co) Of the forty or so French literary authors included in the [[name]] [[index]], more than half belonged to the surrealist group at one time or another, or were claimed by the surrealists as their forebears.uk/svank/films/filmogacLacan has said that he felt a great personal connection with surrealist painting.htmlIn short, surrealism provides Lacan with a constant stock of allusions and illustrations, as when Magritte's window paintings are used in the 1962 [[seminar]]to illustrate the structure of [[phantasy]] (the idea that a phantasy is like a picture fitted into the opening of a window). 13 There is also an indirect reference to surrealism in Lacan's com-

The truest aspects legacy of Surrealism surrealism 23 ments on [[Hans]] [[Holbein]]'s painting '[[The Ambassadors]]' (1533), which is in the National Gallery, London. This work, one of the surrealists' favourite classical paintings, depicts two splendidly dressed men. In the foreground there is a strange, vaguely [[phallic]] object and, if one stands at a certain angle, one can see a skull appear, a continual reminder of the presence of death. This painting is a perfect example of the use of [[anamorphosis]] (a distorted image which will look normal if viewed from a certain angle or in a curved [[mirror]]) in film are often painting.14 Lacan writes that 'Holbein makes [[visible]] for us something that is simply the subject nihilated', and suggests that Dali belongs to the same tradition as Holbein, and it is true that anamorphosis is an important feature of Dali's paintings. IS Besides being on close [[terms]] with Dali, the young Lacan associated with the group surrounding Breton. While Lacan was publishing clinical articles on [[neurology]] in medical journals he was also contributing to surrealist reviews; it was, in fact, in surrealist circles that his doctoral thesis on paranoia received its most enthusiastic welcome. It is an irony that psychoanalysis met with considerable and lasting [[resistance]] in French medical circles and that it was in the literary milieu that it found in passing frames its first favourable reception. Some writers tried to absorb psychoanalysis into an established literary discourse by arguing that it could be fitted into a theory of literary [[introspection]]. For the surrealists, psychoanalysis had a larger film; very different function: it was a means with which to attack bourgeois values. They believed that the sudden emergence primary function of psychiatry was one of social repression. They agreed with the psychoanalytical view that the uncanny into [[distinction]] between the "normal" which may and abnormal is not self-evident. The first issue of the surrealist journal Minotaure contains work by Dali and Lacan. It has been said that there are definite parallels between their [[thinking]] at this time (Dali met Lacan in 1933). Certain of Dali's [[double]] or may not multiple images might be further explored illustrations of Lacan's views on the mirror [[phase]], and the [[narcissistic]] construction and function of the ego.16 (I will explain these ideas presently.) The ideas of Cail/ois Many important articles were published in Minotaure. We know that Lacan was greatly influenced by [[Roger Caillois]], a [[sociologist]] 24 Jacques Lacan and avant-garde writer, who published two long essays in the above journal, the first on the praying mantis, the rest second on the phenomenon of [[mimicry]]. He wrote about how some animals, such as the praying mantis, stick insects and others, camouflage themselves. At that time it was generally held that this mimeticism was [[good]] for the filmcreature and for the [[species]]. The original group spent hours going from film Caillois denies this; he argues that mimeticism is not good and he gives several arguments to illustrate why it is not successful. He writes about how these [[creatures]] subject themselves to filmthe structure of an image, often and how the structure to which they have to conform does not finishing one before seeking anotheractually foster their survival. Indeed, it has a catastrophic effect on them. The [[female]] mantis's sexual practices - in certain species, its consumption of its mate after or even during copulation - and its voracity made it the perfect [[symbol]] of the phallic [[mother]], fascinating, petrifying, partly [[castrating]]. It is not surprising that the image of the praying mantis is found everywhere in hopes the surrealist work of catching just such the period.17 In his subsequent exploration of mimicry Caillois writes that the mantis comes stunningly to resemble a machine when, even decapitated, it can continue to function and thus to mime life: In the [[absence]] of all centres of representation and of voluntary action, it can walk, regain its [[ephemeralbalance]] moments, have coitus, lay eggs, build a cocoon, and partly with , what is most astonishing, in the idea face of "stitching together" [[danger]] can fall into a film fake cadaverous immobility. I am expressing in their this indir~t manner what language can scarcely picture, or reason assimilate, namely death. IS Most [[scientific]] explanations for [[animal]] mimicry relate it to adaptive [[behaviour]]. It is usually argued that the insect takes on the coloration, the shape, the patterning of its [[environment]] in order to [[fool]] either its predator or its prey. Caillois shows that the adaption hypothesis founders on two counts. First, the fusion of the insect with its environment can and often does work against survival, as when the animal is mistakenly eaten by its own minds out kind or cannot be perceived by members of its species for purposes of mating. Second, this phenomenon, which functions exclusively in the realm of .~the disparate partsvisual, is largely irrelevant to predators' hunting habits, which e a matter of smell and motion.In Caillois's view, mimicry is a fun tion of the visual experience of the insect itself. Ty'ng mimicry to the animal's own perception of space, Caillois

===Surrealism The legacy of surrealism 25 hypothesises that the phenomenon is in comedy===fact a kind of insectoid [[psychosis]]. He argues that the life of any organism depends on the possibility of its maintaining its own distinctness, a boundary within which it is contained, the terms of what we could call its self-possession. Mimicry is the [[loss]] of this possession, because the animal that merges with its setting becomes dispossessed, derealised, as though yielding to a temptation exercised on it by the vast outsideness of space itself, a temptation to fusion. In case all this seems far-fetched, Callois reminds his readers of primitive sympathetic [[magic]] in which an [[illness]] is conceived of as a possession of the patient by some external force, one that dispossesses the [[victim]] of his or her own person, one that can be combated by drawing it off from the patient through the mimicry performed by a shaman in a [[rite]] of repossession. Caillois's essay on mimicry had a great influence within the psychoanalytic circles developing in Paris in the 1930s.19 Lacan expressed his debt to Caillois, particularly in his working out of the concept of the [[mirror phase]].20 This phase refers to the [[moment]] when the child assumes an [[imaginary]] [[unity]] with its [[body]] image, in the way that some animals [[alienate]] their true nature, in mimetically hiding in their surroundings. It is the child's first encounter with its image in a mirror which results in a fictional selfprojection that influences subsequent [[identity]] [[formation]]. Lacan's theory of [[subjectivity]] - in his early work - is partly derived from Caillois. Caillois's main thesis is that the organism is constructed by forces and [[structures]] beyond the control of the subject. Influenced by Caillois's ideas about how some insects are [[captured]] by the image, Lacan argues that the human being, like the praying mantis, is captivated by the image. At the time Lacan was interested in narcissistic [[identification]] and he drew on Caillois's work to argue that we are dominated by a structure of images and that this has a toxic, poisonous effect on the human subject.

Some branches of comedy (mostly ==See Also==* [[BritishAndré Breton]]* [[Maryse Choisy]]* [[René Held]]* [[Jacques-Marie Émile Lacan]]* [[Literature and psychoanalysis]]) are very surreal. Some examples include:

* ''==References==<references/># Biro, Adam, Passeron, René. (1982). Dictionnaire général du surréalisme et de ses environs. Freiberg, Switzerland: Office du Livre.# Breton, André. (1988). Œuvres complètes. Édition établie par Marguerite Bonnet. Paris: Gallimard, La Pléiade.# [[The Goon ShowFreud, Sigmund]]''. (1927). Essais de psychanalys (Samuel Jankelevitch, Trans.). Paris: Payot.* ''[# ——. (1960a [Monty Python]1873-1939]''* ). Letters of [[Reeves and MortimerSigmund Freud]]* ''[[Green Wing, 1873-1939 (Ernst L. Freud, Ed.]]''* ''[[The Goodies]]''Tania and James Stern, Trans.). London, Hogarth Press, 1970.

==Surrealism in the Philosophy of Science== This is an anti-commonsense realist view of science where [[scientific realism]] is false and the scientific phenomena is '''as if''' scientific realism were true. The first major (and trivial) demonstration of this interpretation of [[science]] is to [[Philip Henry Gosse]], a brilliant 19th Century [[natural history|naturalist]] and inventor for the first stable sea water [[aquarium]]. There was a serious problem reconciling biblical fundamentalism (e.g. the world was created in 4004 BC with the teachings of [[geology]] (the world is millions of years old). Gosse in his 1857 (2 years prior to [[Charles Darwin]]'s [[Origin of Species]]) book [[OmphalosCategory: An Attempt to Untie the Geological Knot]] tries to reconcile these two dichotomies with a surrealist transform summed up nicely as '''God created the world AS IF the teachings of geology were true.''' Gosse's book was rejected by both ends of the debate. Surrealism however is a viable philosophical position for the [[antirealist]] interpretation of science. Gosse's problem was his solution to Geology and Biblical Fundamentalism was far to trivial a surrealist transform. == Impact of Surrealism == While Surrealism is typically associated with the arts, it has been said to transcend them; Surrealism has had an impact in many other fields. In this sense, Surrealism does not specifically refer only to self-identified "Surrealists", or those sanctioned by Breton, rather, it refers to a range of creative acts of revolt and efforts to liberate imagination. In addition to Surrealist ideas that are grounded in the ideas of [[Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel|Hegel]], [[Karl Marx|Marx]] and [[Sigmund Freud|Freud]], surrealism is seen by its advocates as being inherently dynamic and as dialectic in its thought. Surrealists have also drawn on sources as seemingly diverse as [[Clark Ashton Smith]], [[Montague Summers]], [[Fantomas]], [[The Residents]], [[Bugs Bunny]], [[comic strips]], the obscure poet [[Samuel Greenberg]] and the [[hobo]] writer and humourist [[T-Bone Slim]]. One might say that Surrealist strands may be found in movements such as [[Free Jazz]] ([[Don Cherry (jazz)|Don Cherry]], [[Sun Ra]], etc.) and even in the daily lives of people in confrontation with limiting social conditions. Thought of as the effort of humanity to liberate imagination as an act of insurrection against society, surrealism finds precedents in the [[alchemy|alchemists]], possibly [[Dante Alighieri|Dante]], [[Hieronymus Bosch]], [[Donatien Alphonse Francois de Sade|Marquis de Sade]], [[Charles Fourier]], [[Comte de Lautreamont]] and [[Arthur Rimbaud]].  Surrealists believe that ''non-Western'' cultures also provide a continued source of inspiration for Surrealist activity because some may strike up a better balance between instrumental reason and the imagination in flight than Western culture. Surrealism has had an identifiable impact on radical and revolutionary politics, both directly -- as in some surrealists joining or allying themselves with radical political groups, movements and parties -- and indirectly -- through the way in which surrealists' emphasis on the intimate link between freeing the imagination and the mind and liberation from repressive and archaic social structures. This was especially visible in the [[New Left]] of the 1960s and 1970s and the French revolt of May 1968, whose slogan "All power to the imagination" arose directly from French surrealist thought and practice. Some [[artist]]s, such as [[H.R. Giger]] in [[Europe]], who won an [[Academy Awards|Academy Award]] for his stage set, and who also designed the "creature," in the movie ''[[Alien (movie)|Alien]],'' have been popularly called "Surrealists," though Giger is a [[Visionary art|visionary artist]] and he does not claim to be surrealist. [[The Society for the Art of Imagination]] has come in for particularly bitter criticism from a self-labeled surrealist movement (although this criticism has been characterized by at least one anonymous individual as coming from "the Marxists [sic] Surrealist groups, who maintain small contingents worldwide;" he has also pointed out what he considers the hypocrisy of any Surrealist criticism of the Society for the Art of Imagination given that [[Kathleen Fox]] designed the cover of issue 4 of the bulletin of the [[Groupe de Paris du Mouvement Surrealiste]] and also participated in the [[2003]] Brave Destiny[http://wahcenter.net/exhibits/2003/surreal/index.html] show at the [[Williamsburg Art & Historical Center]]. Though some presented ''Brave Destiny'' as the largest-ever exhibit of Surrealist artists, the show was officially billed as exhibiting "Surrealism, Surreal/[[Conceptual art|Conceptual]], Visionary, [[Fantastic art|Fantastic]], [[Symbolism]], [[Magic Realism]], [[the Vienna School]], [[Neuve Invention]], [[Outsider art|Outsider]], [[Na?ve art|Na?ve]], [[the Macabre]], [[the Grotesque|Grotesque]] and [[Singulier Art]].)" ==Critiques of Surrealism== Surrealism has been critiqued from several perspectives: [[Freud]] initiated the psychoanalytic critique of surrealism with his remark that what interested him most about the surrealists was not their unconscious but their conscious. His meaning was that the manifestations of and experiments with psychic automatism highlighted by surrealists as the liberation of the unconscious were highly structured by ego activity, similar to the activities of the dream censorship in dreams, and that therefore it was in principle a mistake to regard surrealist poems and other art works as direct manifestations of the unconscious, when they were indeed highly shaped and processed by the ego. In this view, the surrealists may have been producing great works, but they were products of the conscious, not the unconscious mind, and they deceived themselves with regard to what they were doing with the unconscious. In psychoanalysis proper, the unconscious does not just express itself automatically but can only be uncovered through the analysis of resistance and transference in the psychoanalytic process. [[Feminists]] have in the past critiqued the surrealist movement, claiming that it is fundamentally a male movement and a male fellowship. Despite the occasional few celebrated woman surrealist painters and poets. They believe that it adopts typical male attitudes toward women, such as worshipping them symbolically in stereotypical romantic but sexist ways, as representing higher values and truths, putting them on a pedestal, making them into objects of desire and of mystery. ==See also== '''Techniques, games and humor'''*[[Surrealist games]]*[[Surreal humour]]*[[Surrealist techniques]] '''Related art movements and genres'''*[[Cacophony Society]]*[[Dada]]*[[Fluxus]]*[[Hysterical realism]] and [[Maximalism]]*[[Post-Surrealism]]*[[Situationism]]*[[Ultra-Realism]]*[[Visionary]]*[[Non-Joke]]==Sources== '''[[André Breton]]'''* André Breton, ''Manifestoes of Surrealism'' containing the 1<SUP>st</SUP>, 2<SUP>nd</SUP> and introduction to a possible 3<SUP>rd</SUP> Manifesto, and in addition the novel ''The Soluble Fish'' and political aspects of the Surrealist movement. ISBN 0472179004.* ''What is Surrealism?: Selected Writings of André Breton''. ISBN 0873488229.* André Breton, ''Conversations: The Autobiography of Surrealism'' (Gallimard [[1952]]) (Paragon House English rev. ed. [[1993]]). ISBN 1569249709.* André Breton. ''The Abridged Dictionary of Surrealism'', reprinted in:** Marguerite Bonnet, ed. ([[1988]]). ''Oeuvres complètes'', 1:328. Paris: Éditions Gallimard. '''Other sources'''* Guillaume Appollinaire ([[1917]], [[1991]]). Program note for ''Parade'', printed in ''Oeuvres en prose complètes'', 2:865-866, Pierre Caizergues and Michel Décaudin, eds. Paris: Éditions Gallimard.* Gerard Durozoi, ''History of the Surrealist Movement'' (translated by Alison Anderson, University of Chicago Press). [[2004]]. ISBN 0226174115.* Brotchie, Alastair and Gooding, Mel, eds. ''A Book of Surrealist Games'' Berkeley, CA: Shambhala ([[1995]]). ISBN 1570620849. * Moebius, Stephan. ''Die Zauberlehrlinge. Soziologiegeschichte des [[Collège de Sociologie]]. Konstanz: UVK [[2006]]. (About the [[College of Sociology]], its members and sociological impacts).*Maurice Nadeau, History of Surrealism (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press, 1989). ISBN 0674403452.* Alexandrian, Sarane. ''Surrealist Art'' London: Thames & Hudson, [[1970]].* Melly, George ''Paris and the Surrealists'' Thames & Hudson. [[1991]].* Lewis, Helena ''The Politics Of Surrealism'' [[1988]]* [[Mary Ann Caws|Caws, Mary Ann]] ''Surrealist Painters and Poets: An Anthology'' [[2001]] MIT Press ==External links==Academic resources/'Classical' Surrealism: *[http://www.tcf.ua.edu/Classes/Jbutler/T340/SurManifesto/ManifestoOfSurrealism.htm ''Manifesto of Surrealism'' by André Breton. 1924.] *{{fr icon}} [http://www.site-magister.com/surrealis.htm Surrealism] *[http://pers-www.wlv.ac.uk/~fa1871/whatsurr.html ''What is Surrealism?'' Lecture by Breton, Brussels 1934] *[http://www.madsci.org/~lynn/juju/surr/surrealism.html The Surrealism Server]*[http://pomaranczowa-alternatywa.republika.pl Happenings by the Orange Alternative] *[http://www.serbiansurrealism.com/ The Surrealist Movement in Serbia] + *[http://www.libcom.org/history/articles/surrealism-politics/index.php The radical politics of Surrealism, 1919-1950] - an article looking at Surrealism and Surrealists' connections to anarchist, socialist and working class politics * [http://www.gerard-bertrand.net/index.htm Franz Kafka and Marcel Proust, the 2 Albums], "recomposed photographs", in a rather surrealist spirit. [[Category:Culture]][[Category:Jacques Lacan]]