From its inception in 1924, Surrealism was a multidisciplinary project, founded by the French poet Andre Breton who looked to both painter Georgio de Chirico and writer Lautreamont as historical antecedents and inspiration for his new movement. At its heart was... [more]
From its inception in 1924, Surrealism was a multidisciplinary project, founded by the French poet Andre Breton who looked to both painter Georgio de Chirico and writer Lautreamont as historical antecedents and inspiration for his new movement. At its heart was an attempt to demonstrate a synthesis of the political theory of Marx with the psychoanalytic method of Freud. The first Surrealist manifesto was published in the journal La Revolution Surrealiste and stressed the scientific nature of their investigation -- its cover emulated the renowned French science magazine, La Nature.
Through its interpretion of Freud, Surrealism considered the expression of repressed fantasies as the basis of political revolution. Breton recruited Dadaists Max Ernst, Andre Masson, Joan Miro, and later, Salvador Dali, Rene Magritte, and Man Ray to produce imagery that would excite repressed fantasies and overthrow the capitalist order. In 1928 the ethnographer Georges Bataille created a dissenting movement that criticized Breton's parochialism and addressed the repressive operations of fascism. Bataille used the work of Dali, Hans Bellmer, and Brassa - to illustrate his Surrealist ethnographic journal, Documents. [show less]