Misplaced Pages

#367632

84-520: Early Morning is a surrealist farce by the English dramatist Edward Bond . It was first produced in 1968, opening on 31 March at the Royal Court Theatre , directed by William Gaskill . The play takes place in a contorted version of the court of Queen Victoria who is portrayed as a lesbian . Her two sons are made conjoined twins . This made the play extremely scandalous, as did a scene in which

168-550: A European tour of the plays. Maeve Walsh in The Independent argues that reviews for the second (post-censorship) performance of Early Morning were negative, noting that amongst contemporary reviews, the Daily Mirror accused the play of "Making an art form of the revolting"; City Press called it "The most disturbing and grotesque piece I have ever seen"; and The People concluded, "Ugh". Herbert Kretzmer remarked that

252-463: A component in the visual arts (though it had been initially debated whether this was possible), and techniques from Dada, such as photomontage , were used. The following year, on March 26, 1926, Galerie Surréaliste opened with an exhibition by Man Ray. Breton published Surrealism and Painting in 1928 which summarized the movement to that point, though he continued to update the work until the 1960s. The first Surrealist work, according to leader Breton,

336-579: A literary critic is most famous and influential in his recognition of the Marquis de Sade , whose works were for a long time obscure, yet arising in popularity as an influence upon the Dada and Surrealist art movements going on in Montparnasse at the beginning of the twentieth century as, "The freest spirit that ever existed." The war-weakened Apollinaire died at the age of 38 on 9 November 1918 of influenza during

420-422: A movement which he helped to define. He also coined the term orphism to describe a tendency towards absolute abstraction in the paintings of Robert Delaunay and others. In 1917, Apollinaire produced Peintures de Léopold Survage; Dessins et aquarelles d’Irène Lagut (Paintings by Léopold Survage; Drawings and Watercolors by Irène Lagut), which is included in the permanent collection of Pérez Art Museum Miami, in

504-471: A mythological, archetypal, allegorical vision, closely related to the world of dreams. The Spanish playwright and director Federico García Lorca , also experimented with surrealism, particularly in his plays The Public (1930), When Five Years Pass (1931), and Play Without a Title (1935). Other surrealist plays include Aragon's Backs to the Wall (1925). Gertrude Stein 's opera Doctor Faustus Lights

588-452: A one-act scenario by Jean Cocteau and was performed with music by Erik Satie . Cocteau described the ballet as "realistic". Apollinaire went further, describing Parade as "surrealistic": This new alliance—I say new, because until now scenery and costumes were linked only by factitious bonds—has given rise, in Parade , to a kind of surrealism, which I consider to be the point of departure for

672-568: A rather more strenuous set of approaches. Thus, such elements as collage were introduced, arising partly from an ideal of startling juxtapositions as revealed in Pierre Reverdy 's poetry. And—as in Magritte's case (where there is no obvious recourse to either automatic techniques or collage)—the very notion of convulsive joining became a tool for revelation in and of itself. Surrealism was meant to be always in flux—to be more modern than modern—and so it

756-473: A revolution launched by Apollinaire. One group, led by Yvan Goll , consisted of Pierre Albert-Birot , Paul Dermée , Céline Arnauld , Francis Picabia , Tristan Tzara , Giuseppe Ungaretti , Pierre Reverdy , Marcel Arland , Joseph Delteil , Jean Painlevé and Robert Delaunay , among others. The other group, led by Breton, included Aragon, Desnos, Éluard, Baron, Crevel, Malkine, Jacques-André Boiffard and Jean Carrive, among others. Yvan Goll published

840-581: A schism between art and politics through his counter-surrealist art-magazine DYN and so prepared the ground for the abstract expressionists. Dalí supported capitalism and the fascist dictatorship of Francisco Franco but cannot be said to represent a trend in Surrealism in this respect; in fact, he was considered, by Breton and his associates, to have betrayed and left Surrealism. Benjamin Péret, Mary Low, Juan Breá, and Spanish-native Eugenio Fernández Granell joined

924-419: A serious shrapnel wound to the temple, from which he would never fully recover. He wrote Les Mamelles de Tirésias while recovering from this wound. During this period he coined the word " Surrealism " in the programme notes for Jean Cocteau 's and Erik Satie 's ballet Parade , first performed on 18 May 1917. He also published an artistic manifesto, L'Esprit nouveau et les poètes . Apollinaire's status as

SECTION 10

#1732851711368

1008-475: A whole series of manifestations of the New Spirit that is making itself felt today and that will certainly appeal to our best minds. We may expect it to bring about profound changes in our arts and manners through universal joyfulness, for it is only natural, after all, that they keep pace with scientific and industrial progress. (Apollinaire, 1917) The term was taken up again by Apollinaire, both as subtitle and in

1092-434: Is Golden , later Surrealists, such as Paul Garon , have been interested in—and found parallels to—Surrealism in the improvisation of jazz and the blues . Jazz and blues musicians have occasionally reciprocated this interest. For example, the 1976 World Surrealist Exhibition included performances by David "Honeyboy" Edwards . Surrealism as a political force developed unevenly around the world: in some places more emphasis

1176-439: Is an extraordinary achievement. Revolutionary in approach and intention, it opens up new possibilities for the treatment of history.” Jenny S. Spencer wrote in a 1992 book on Bond that the play is "richly textured" and "incorporates the working-class wit of Saved ". Jana J. Monji of Los Angeles Times praised the play as "delightfully nasty" and very "intellectually satisfying". Surrealism Works of Surrealism feature

1260-501: 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. The movement in the mid-1920s was characterized by meetings in cafes where the Surrealists played collaborative drawing games, discussed

1344-601: Is better to adopt surrealism than supernaturalism, which I first used" [ Tout bien examiné, je crois en effet qu'il vaut mieux adopter surréalisme que surnaturalisme que j'avais d'abord employé ]. He described Parade as "a kind of surrealism" ( une sorte de surréalisme ) when he wrote the program note the following week, thus coining the word three years before Surrealism emerged as an art movement in Paris. Apollinaire served as an infantry officer in World War I and, in 1916, received

1428-460: Is often identified as his muse. While there, he dabbled in anarchism and spoke out as a Dreyfusard in defense of Dreyfus's innocence. Metzinger painted the first Cubist portrait of Apollinaire. In his Vie anecdotique (16 October 1911), the poet proudly writes: "I am honoured to be the first model of a Cubist painter, Jean Metzinger, for a portrait exhibited in 1910 at the Salon des Indépendants." It

1512-651: The Ballets Russes , would create a decorative form of Surrealism, and he would be an influence on the two artists who would be even more closely associated with Surrealism in the public mind: Dalí and Magritte. He would, however, leave the Surrealist group in 1928. In 1924, Miró and Masson applied Surrealism to painting. The first Surrealist exhibition, La Peinture Surrealiste , was held at Galerie Pierre in Paris in 1925. It displayed works by Masson, Man Ray , Paul Klee , Miró, and others. The show confirmed that Surrealism had

1596-549: The Manifeste du surréalisme , 1 October 1924, in his first and only issue of Surréalisme two weeks prior to the release of Breton's Manifeste du surréalisme , published by Éditions du Sagittaire, 15 October 1924. Goll and Breton clashed openly, at one point literally fighting, at the Comédie des Champs-Élysées, over the rights to the term Surrealism. In the end, Breton won the battle through tactical and numerical superiority. Though

1680-641: The POUM during the Spanish Civil War . Breton's followers, along with the Communist Party , were working for the "liberation of man". However, Breton's group refused to prioritize the proletarian struggle over radical creation such that their struggles with the Party made the late 1920s a turbulent time for both. Many individuals closely associated with Breton, notably Aragon, left his group to work more closely with

1764-498: The Spanish flu pandemic of 1918 and was recognized as "Fallen for France" ( Mort pour la France ) because of his commitment during the war. Wilhelm Albert Włodzimierz Apolinary Kostrowicki was born in Rome, Italy, and was raised speaking French, Italian, and Polish . He emigrated to France in his late teens and adopted the name Guillaume Apollinaire. His mother, born Angelika Kostrowicka,

SECTION 20

#1732851711368

1848-524: The Spanish flu pandemic of 1918 ravaging Europe at the time, two years after being wounded in World War I . Due to his military service for the duration of the war, he was declared to have "Died for France" ( Mort pour la France ) by the French government. He was interred in the Père Lachaise Cemetery , Paris. In 1900 he wrote his first novel Mirely, ou le petit trou pas cher (pornographic), which

1932-603: The Surrealist Manifesto published by French poet and critic André Breton succeeded in claiming the term for his group over a rival faction led by Yvan Goll , who had published his own surrealist manifesto two weeks prior. The most important center of the movement was Paris , France. From the 1920s onward, the movement spread around the globe, impacting the visual arts , literature, film, and music of many countries and languages, as well as political thought and practice, philosophy, and social theory. The word surrealism

2016-413: The element of surprise , unexpected juxtapositions and non sequitur . However, many Surrealist artists and writers regard their work as an expression of the philosophical movement first and foremost (for instance, of the "pure psychic automatism " Breton speaks of in the first Surrealist Manifesto), with the works themselves being secondary, i.e., artifacts of surrealist experimentation. Leader Breton

2100-459: The second World War , Enrico Donati , Vinicius Pradella and Denis Fabbri became involved as well. Though Breton admired Pablo Picasso and Marcel Duchamp and courted them to join the movement, they remained peripheral. More writers also joined, including former Dadaist Tristan Tzara , René Char , and Georges Sadoul . In 1925 an autonomous Surrealist group formed in Brussels. The group included

2184-416: The 15-year-old hero fathers three children with various members of his entourage, including his aunt. Apollinaire's gift to Picasso of the original 1907 manuscript was one of the artist's most prized possessions. The book was made into a movie in 1986 . Shortly after his death, Mercure de France published Calligrammes , a collection of his concrete poetry (poetry in which typography and layout adds to

2268-455: The 1930s many Surrealists had strongly identified themselves with communism. The foremost document of this tendency within Surrealism is the Manifesto for a Free Revolutionary Art , published under the names of Breton and Diego Rivera , but actually co-authored by Breton and Leon Trotsky . However, in 1933 the Surrealists' assertion that a " proletarian literature " within a capitalist society

2352-413: The 1948 ballet Paris-Magie (scenario by Lise Deharme ), the operas La Petite Sirène (book by Philippe Soupault) and Le Maître (book by Eugène Ionesco). Tailleferre also wrote popular songs to texts by Claude Marci, the wife of Henri Jeanson, whose portrait had been painted by Magritte in the 1930s. Even though Breton by 1946 responded rather negatively to the subject of music with his essay Silence

2436-514: The 1969 revival of three Bond plays including Early Morning , "the consensus was that a formidable talent had been savagely misjudged." Martin Esslin described it as a "strange, significant, and important play". T. J. Groser called Early Morning a difficult but "important" play in a 1970 review of a University of Otago performance. In a 1980 article, academic Frances Rademacher listed it among Bond's major plays. Niloufer Harben asserted in 1988 that "it

2520-573: The Communists. Surrealists have often sought to link their efforts with political ideals and activities. In the Declaration of January 27, 1925 , for example, members of the Paris-based Bureau of Surrealist Research (including Breton, Aragon and Artaud, as well as some two dozen others) declared their affinity for revolutionary politics. While this was initially a somewhat vague formulation, by

2604-532: The Dutch surrealist photographer Emiel van Moerkerken came to Breton, he did not want to sign the manifesto because he was not a Trotskyist. For Breton being a communist was not enough. Breton denied Van Moerkerken's pictures for a publication afterwards. This caused a split in surrealism. Others fought for complete liberty from political ideologies, like Wolfgang Paalen , who, after Trotsky's assassination in Mexico, prepared

Early Morning - Misplaced Pages Continue

2688-699: The French Dora Maar , the American Man Ray , the French/Hungarian Brassaï , French Claude Cahun and the Dutch Emiel van Moerkerken . The word surrealist was first used by Apollinaire to describe his 1917 play Les Mamelles de Tirésias ("The Breasts of Tiresias"), which was later adapted into an opera by Francis Poulenc . Roger Vitrac 's The Mysteries of Love (1927) and Victor, or The Children Take Over (1928) are often considered

2772-487: The Lights (1938) has also been described as "American Surrealism", though it is also related to a theatrical form of cubism . In the 1920s several composers were influenced by Surrealism, or by individuals in the Surrealist movement. Among them were Bohuslav Martinů , André Souris , Erik Satie , Francis Poulenc , and Edgard Varèse , who stated that his work Arcana was drawn from a dream sequence. Souris in particular

2856-510: The Paris group announced: We Surrealists pronounced ourselves in favour of changing the imperialist war, in its chronic and colonial form, into a civil war. Thus we placed our energies at the disposal of the revolution, of the proletariat and its struggles, and defined our attitude towards the colonial problem, and hence towards the colour question. Guillaume Apollinaire Guillaume Apollinaire ( French: [ɡijom apɔlinɛʁ] ; born Kostrowicki ; 26 August 1880 – 9 November 1918)

2940-438: The Surrealists in developing methods to liberate imagination. They embraced idiosyncrasy , while rejecting the idea of an underlying madness. As Dalí later proclaimed, "There is only one difference between a madman and me. I am not mad." Beside the use of dream analysis, they emphasized that "one could combine inside the same frame, elements not normally found together to produce illogical and startling effects." Breton included

3024-534: The United States. In 1907 Apollinaire published the well-known erotic novel , The Eleven Thousand Rods ( Les Onze Mille Verges ). Officially banned in France until 1970, various printings of it circulated widely for many years. Apollinaire never publicly acknowledged authorship of the novel. Another erotic novel attributed to him was The Exploits of a Young Don Juan (Les exploits d'un jeune Don Juan) , in which

3108-683: The arrival of police at the 1968 first night. A further performance was given under guise of a free dress rehearsal in April. However, in September, stage censorship was abolished altogether with the passing of the Theatres Act 1968 . The English Stage Company subsequently staged an ‘Edward Bond season’ at the Royal Court in 1969, with Saved , Narrow Road to the Deep North and Early Morning , followed by

3192-418: The artist does not take from visual reality, but creates entirely by himself. [...] An Orphic painter's works should convey an untroubled aesthetic pleasure , but at the same time a meaningful structure and sublime significance . According to Apollinaire Orphism represented a move towards a completely new art-form, much as music was to literature. The term Surrealism was first used by Apollinaire concerning

3276-494: The ballet Parade in 1917. The poet Arthur Rimbaud wanted to be a visionary, to perceive the hidden side of things within the realm of another reality. In continuity with Rimbaud, Apollinaire went in search of a hidden and mysterious reality. The term "surrealism" appeared for the first time in March 1917 (Chronologie de Dada et du surréalisme, 1917) in a letter by Apollinaire to Paul Dermée : "All things considered, I think in fact it

3360-566: The best examples of Surrealist theatre, despite his expulsion from the movement in 1926. The plays were staged at the Theatre Alfred Jarry , the theatre Vitrac co-founded with Antonin Artaud , another early Surrealist who was expelled from the movement. Following his collaboration with Vitrac, Artaud would extend Surrealist thought through his theory of the Theatre of Cruelty . Artaud rejected

3444-480: The catalogue of the Brussels Indépendants show, Apollinaire stated that these 'new painters' accepted the name of Cubists which has been given to them. He described Cubism as a new manifestation and high art [ manifestation nouvelle et très élevée de l'art ], not a system that constrains talent [ non-point un système contraignant les talents ], and the differences which characterize not only the talents but even

Early Morning - Misplaced Pages Continue

3528-582: The character Len eats another person standing in a queue in front of him. Like Bond's earlier play Saved (1965), it was initially condemned but later came to be viewed positively. Early Morning was the final play to be banned by the Lord Chamberlain's Office when it was refused a license in its entirety in November 1967. The Royal Court then formed a members-only club to stage the play (as they had with Bond's Saved ), but their plans were thwarted with

3612-588: The idea of the startling juxtapositions in his 1924 manifesto, taking it in turn from a 1918 essay by poet Pierre Reverdy , which said: "a juxtaposition of two more or less distant realities. The more the relationship between the two juxtaposed realities is distant and true, the stronger the image will be−the greater its emotional power and poetic reality." The group aimed to revolutionize human experience, in its personal, cultural, social, and political aspects. They wanted to free people from false rationality, and restrictive customs and structures. Breton proclaimed that

3696-529: 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 Hegelian Dialectic . They also looked to the Marxist dialectic and the work of such theorists as Walter Benjamin and Herbert Marcuse . Freud's work with free association, dream analysis, and the unconscious was of utmost importance to

3780-465: The imagination, from intuition, because it must be as close as possible to life, to nature, to the environment, and to the human being. Apollinaire was also active as a journalist and art critic for Le Matin , L'Intransigeant , L'Esprit nouveau , Mercure de France , and Paris Journal . In 1912 Apollinaire cofounded Les Soirées de Paris , an artistic and literary magazine. Two years after being wounded in World War I , Apollinaire died during

3864-574: The influence of Miró and the drawing style of Picasso is visible with the use of fluid curving and intersecting lines and colour, whereas the first takes a directness that would later be influential in movements such as Pop art . Giorgio de Chirico, and his previous development of metaphysical art , was one of the important joining figures between the philosophical and visual aspects of Surrealism. Between 1911 and 1917, he adopted an unornamented depictional style whose surface would be adopted by others later. The Red Tower (La tour rouge) from 1913 shows

3948-492: The influences on Surrealism, examples of Surrealist works, and discussion of Surrealist automatism. He provided the following definitions: Dictionary: Surrealism, n. Pure psychic automatism, by which one proposes to express, either verbally, 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

4032-454: The line used to divide Dada and Surrealism among art experts is the pairing of 1925's Little Machine Constructed by Minimax Dadamax in Person (Von minimax dadamax selbst konstruiertes maschinchen) with The Kiss (Le Baiser) from 1927 by Max Ernst. The first is generally held to have a distance, and erotic subtext, whereas the second presents an erotic act openly and directly. In the second

4116-448: The main route toward a higher reality. But—as in Breton's case—much of what is presented as purely automatic is actually edited and very "thought out". Breton himself later admitted that automatic writing's centrality had been overstated, and other elements were introduced, especially as the growing involvement of visual artists in the movement forced the issue, since automatic painting required

4200-415: The majority of Western theatre as a perversion of its original intent, which he felt should be a mystical, metaphysical experience. Instead, he envisioned a theatre that would be immediate and direct, linking the unconscious minds of performers and spectators in a sort of ritual event, Artaud created in which emotions, feelings, and the metaphysical were expressed not through language but physically, creating

4284-580: The most popular members of the artistic community of Paris (both in Montmartre and Montparnasse ). His friends and collaborators in that period included Pablo Picasso , Henri Rousseau , Gertrude Stein , Max Jacob , André Salmon , André Breton , André Derain , Faik Konitza , Blaise Cendrars , Giuseppe Ungaretti , Pierre Reverdy , Alexandra Exter , Jean Cocteau , Erik Satie , Ossip Zadkine , Marc Chagall , Marcel Duchamp and Jean Metzinger . He became romantically involved with Marie Laurencin , who

SECTION 50

#1732851711368

4368-559: The musician, poet, and artist E. L. T. Mesens , painter and writer René Magritte , Paul Nougé , Marcel Lecomte , and André Souris . In 1927 they were joined by the writer Louis Scutenaire . They corresponded regularly with the Paris group, and in 1927 both Goemans and Magritte moved to Paris and frequented Breton's circle. The artists, with their roots in Dada and Cubism , the abstraction of Wassily Kandinsky , Expressionism , and Post-Impressionism , also reached to older "bloodlines" or proto-surrealists such as Hieronymus Bosch , and

4452-424: The poetic undercurrents, but also to the connotations and the overtones which "exist in ambiguous relationships to the visual images." Because Surrealist writers seldom, if ever, appear to organize their thoughts and the images they present, some people find much of their work difficult to parse. This notion however is a superficial comprehension, prompted no doubt by Breton's initial emphasis on automatic writing as

4536-790: The precursors of Surrealism. Examples of Surrealist literature are Artaud's Le Pèse-Nerfs (1926), Aragon's Irene's Cunt (1927), Péret's Death to the Pigs (1929), Crevel's Mr. Knife Miss Fork (1931), Sadegh Hedayat 's the Blind Owl (1937), and Breton's Sur la route de San Romano (1948). La Révolution surréaliste continued publication into 1929 with most pages densely packed with columns of text, but which also included reproductions of art, among them works by de Chirico, Ernst, Masson, and Man Ray. Other works included books, poems, pamphlets, automatic texts and theoretical tracts. Early films by Surrealists include: Famous Surrealist photographers are

4620-472: The preface to his play Les Mamelles de Tirésias: Drame surréaliste , which was written in 1903 and first performed in 1917. World War I scattered the writers and artists who had been based in Paris, and in the interim, many became involved with Dada, believing that excessive rational thought and bourgeois values had brought the conflict of the war upon the world. The Dadaists protested with anti-art gatherings, performances, writings and art works. After

4704-446: The quarrel over the anteriority of Surrealism concluded with the victory of Breton, the history of surrealism from that moment would remain marked by fractures, resignations, and resounding excommunications, with each surrealist having their own view of the issue and goals, and accepting more or less the definitions laid out by André Breton. Breton's 1924 Surrealist Manifesto defines the purposes of Surrealism. He included citations of

4788-416: The so-called primitive and naive arts. André Masson 's automatic drawings of 1923 are often used as the point of the acceptance of visual arts and the break from Dada, since they reflect the influence of the idea of the unconscious mind . Another example is Giacometti's 1925 Torso , which marked his movement to simplified forms and inspiration from preclassical sculpture. However, a striking example of

4872-571: The stark colour contrasts and illustrative style later adopted by Surrealist painters. His 1914 The Nostalgia of the Poet (La Nostalgie du poète) has the figure turned away from the viewer, and the juxtaposition of a bust with glasses and a fish as a relief defies conventional explanation. He was also a writer whose novel Hebdomeros presents a series of dreamscapes with an unusual use of punctuation, syntax, and grammar designed to create an atmosphere and frame its images. His images, including set designs for

4956-603: The styles of these artists are an obvious proof of this. The artists involved with this new movement, according to Apollinaire, included Pablo Picasso (who represented Apollinaire in his Three Musicians painting), Georges Braque , Jean Metzinger , Albert Gleizes , Robert Delaunay , Fernand Léger , and Henri Le Fauconnier . By 1912 others had joined the Cubists: Jacques Villon , Marcel Duchamp , Raymond Duchamp-Villon , Francis Picabia , Juan Gris , and Roger de La Fresnaye , among them. The term Orphism

5040-419: The term "Surrealism" in 1917 to describe the works of Erik Satie . He wrote poems without punctuation, in his attempt to be resolutely modern in both form and subject. Apollinaire wrote one of the earliest Surrealist literary works, the play The Breasts of Tiresias (1917), which became the basis for Francis Poulenc 's 1947 opera Les mamelles de Tirésias . Influenced by Symbolist poetry in his youth, he

5124-583: The theft of the Mona Lisa and a number of Egyptian statuettes from the Louvre , but released him a week later. The theft of the statues had been committed in 1907 by a former secretary of Apollinaire, Honoré Joseph Géry Pieret, who had recently returned one of the stolen statues to the French newspaper the Paris-Journal . Apollinaire implicated his friend Picasso, who had bought Iberian statues from Pieret, and who

SECTION 60

#1732851711368

5208-644: The theories of Surrealism, and developed a variety of techniques such as automatic drawing . Breton initially doubted that visual arts could even be useful in the Surrealist movement since they appeared to be less malleable and open to chance and automatism. This caution was overcome by the discovery of such techniques as frottage , grattage and decalcomania . Soon more visual artists became involved, including Giorgio de Chirico , Max Ernst , Joan Miró , Francis Picabia , Yves Tanguy , Salvador Dalí , Luis Buñuel , Alberto Giacometti , Valentine Hugo , Méret Oppenheim , Toyen , and Kansuke Yamamoto . Later, after

5292-464: The three plays staged in 1969 ( Saved , Early Morning and Narrow Road to the Deep North ) served as "a reminder that it is possible to become famous for having achieved nothing much at all." However, Kathleen Riley wrote in Nigel Hawthorne on Stage (2005) that reception after the second performance was "considerably warmer". Ronald Bryden of The New York Times also reported in 1974 that after

5376-544: The true aim of Surrealism was "long live the social revolution, and it alone!" To this goal, at various times Surrealists aligned with communism and anarchism . In 1924, two Surrealist factions declared their philosophy in two separate Surrealist Manifestos. That same year the Bureau of Surrealist Research was established and began publishing the journal La Révolution surréaliste . Leading up to 1924, two rival surrealist groups had formed. Each group claimed to be successors of

5460-479: The war, when they returned to Paris, the Dada activities continued. During the war, André Breton , who had trained in medicine and psychiatry, served in a neurological hospital where he used Sigmund Freud 's psychoanalytic methods with soldiers suffering from shell-shock . Meeting the young writer Jacques Vaché , Breton felt that Vaché was the spiritual son of writer and pataphysics founder Alfred Jarry . He admired

5544-670: The writings, as well as accounts of dreams, in the magazine. Breton and Soupault continued writing evolving their techniques of automatism and published The Magnetic Fields (1920). By October 1924, two rival Surrealist groups had formed to publish a Surrealist Manifesto . Each claimed to be successors of a revolution launched by Appolinaire. One group, led by Yvan Goll consisted of Pierre Albert-Birot , Paul Dermée , Céline Arnauld , Francis Picabia , Tristan Tzara , Giuseppe Ungaretti , Pierre Reverdy , Marcel Arland , Joseph Delteil , Jean Painlevé and Robert Delaunay , among others. The group led by André Breton claimed that automatism

5628-549: The young writer's anti-social attitude and disdain for established artistic tradition. Later Breton wrote, "In literature, I was successively taken with Rimbaud , with Jarry, with Apollinaire, with Nouveau , with Lautréamont , but it is Jacques Vaché to whom I owe the most." Back in Paris, Breton joined in Dada activities and started the literary journal Littérature along with Louis Aragon and Philippe Soupault . They began experimenting with automatic writing —spontaneously writing without censoring their thoughts—and published

5712-420: Was Les Chants de Maldoror , and the first work written and published by his group of Surréalistes was Les Champs Magnétiques (May–June 1919). Littérature contained automatist works and accounts of dreams. The magazine and the portfolio both showed their disdain for literal meanings given to objects and focused rather on the undertones; the poetic undercurrents present. Not only did they give emphasis to

5796-476: Was Trotskyist , communist , or anarchist . The split from Dada has been characterised as a split between anarchists and communists, with the Surrealists as communist. Breton and his comrades supported Leon Trotsky and his International Left Opposition for a while, though there was an openness to anarchism that manifested more fully after World War II. Some Surrealists, such as Benjamin Péret , Mary Low, and Juan Breá, aligned with forms of left communism . When

5880-405: Was a French poet , playwright, short story writer , novelist and art critic of Polish descent. Apollinaire is considered one of the foremost poets of the early 20th century, as well as one of the most impassioned defenders of Cubism and a forefather of Surrealism . He is credited with coining the term "Cubism" in 1911 to describe the emerging art movement , the term Orphism in 1912, and

5964-479: Was a Polish-Lithuanian noblewoman born near Navahrudak , Grodno Governorate (former Grand Duchy of Lithuania, present-day Belarus ). His maternal grandfather participated in the 1863 uprising against occupying Russia and had to emigrate when the uprising failed. Apollinaire's father is unknown but may have been Francesco Costantino Camillo Flugi d'Aspermont (born 1835), a Graubünden aristocrat who disappeared early from Apollinaire's life. Francesco Flugi d'Aspermont

6048-677: Was a better tactic for societal change than those of Dada, as led by Tzara, who was now among their rivals. Breton's group grew to include writers and artists from various media such as Paul Éluard , Benjamin Péret , René Crevel , Robert Desnos , Jacques Baron , Max Morise , Pierre Naville , Roger Vitrac , Gala Éluard , Max Ernst , Salvador Dalí , Luis Buñuel , Man Ray , Hans Arp , Georges Malkine , Michel Leiris , Georges Limbour , Antonin Artaud , Raymond Queneau , André Masson , Joan Miró , Marcel Duchamp , Jacques Prévert , and Yves Tanguy , Dora Maar As they developed their philosophy, they believed that Surrealism would advocate

6132-630: Was a nephew of Conradin Flugi d'Aspermont (1787–1874), a poet who wrote in Ladin Putèr (an official language dialect of Switzerland spoken in Upper Engadin ), and perhaps also of the Minnesänger Oswald von Wolkenstein (born c. 1377, died 2 August 1445; see Les ancêtres Grisons du poète Guillaume Apollinaire at Geneanet ). Apollinaire eventually moved from Rome to Paris in 1900 and became one of

6216-421: Was admired during his lifetime by the young poets who later formed the nucleus of the Surrealist group ( Breton , Aragon , Soupault ). He revealed very early on an originality that freed him from any school of influence and made him one of the precursors of the literary revolution of the first half of the 20th century. His art is not based on any theory, but on a simple principle: the act of creating must come from

6300-553: Was also brought in for questioning in the theft of the Mona Lisa , but he was also exonerated. The theft of the Mona Lisa was perpetrated by Vincenzo Peruggia , an Italian house painter who acted alone and was only caught two years later when he tried to sell the painting in Florence. Apollinaire wrote the preface for the first Cubist exposition outside of Paris; VIII Salon des Indépendants , Brussels, 1911. In an open-handed preface to

6384-481: Was associated with the movement: he had a long relationship with Magritte, and worked on Paul Nougé 's publication Adieu Marie . Music by composers from across the twentieth century have been associated with surrealist principles, including Pierre Boulez , György Ligeti , Mauricio Kagel , Olivier Messiaen , and Thomas Adès . Germaine Tailleferre of the French group Les Six wrote several works which could be considered to be inspired by Surrealism , including

6468-507: Was coined by Apollinaire at the Salon de la Section d'Or in 1912, referring to the works of Robert Delaunay and František Kupka . During his lecture at the Section d'Or exhibit Apollinaire presented three of Kupka's abstract works as perfect examples of pure painting , as anti-figurative as music. In Les Peintres Cubistes, Méditations Esthétiques (1913) Apollinaire described Orphism as "the art of painting new totalities with elements that

6552-508: Was eventually lost. Apollinaire's first collection of poetry was L'enchanteur pourrissant (1909), but Alcools (1913) established his reputation. The poems, influenced in part by the Symbolists , juxtapose the old and the new, combining traditional poetic forms with modern imagery. In 1913, Apollinaire published the essay Les Peintres Cubistes, Méditations Esthétiques on the Cubist painters,

6636-413: Was explicit in his assertion that Surrealism was, above all, a revolutionary movement. At the time, the movement was associated with political causes such as communism and anarchism . It was influenced by the Dada movement of the 1910s. The term "Surrealism" originated with Guillaume Apollinaire in 1917. However, the Surrealist movement was not officially established until after October 1924, when

6720-486: Was first coined in March 1917 by Guillaume Apollinaire . He wrote in a letter to Paul Dermée : "All things considered, I think in fact it is better to adopt surrealism than supernaturalism, which I first used" [ Tout bien examiné, je crois en effet qu'il vaut mieux adopter surréalisme que surnaturalisme que j'avais d'abord employé ]. Apollinaire used the term in his program notes for Sergei Diaghilev 's Ballets Russes , Parade , which premiered 18 May 1917. Parade had

6804-778: Was impossible led to their break with the Association des Ecrivains et Artistes Révolutionnaires, and the expulsion of Breton, Éluard and Crevel from the Communist Party. In 1925, the Paris Surrealist group and the extreme left of the French Communist Party came together to support Abd-el-Krim , leader of the Rif uprising against French colonialism in Morocco . In an open letter to writer and French ambassador to Japan, Paul Claudel ,

6888-556: Was natural there should be a rapid shuffling of the philosophy as new challenges arose. Artists such as Max Ernst and his surrealist collages demonstrate this shift to a more modern art form that also comments on society. Surrealists revived interest in Isidore Ducasse, known by his pseudonym Comte de Lautréamont , and for the line "beautiful as the chance meeting on a dissecting table of a sewing machine and an umbrella", and Arthur Rimbaud , two late 19th-century writers believed to be

6972-726: Was not only the first Cubist portrait, according to Apollinaire, but it was also the first great portrait of the poet exhibited in public, prior to others by Louis Marcoussis , Amedeo Modigliani , Mikhail Larionov and Picasso. In 1911 he joined the Puteaux Group, a branch of the Cubist movement soon to be known as the Section d'Or . The opening address of the 1912 Salon de la Section d'Or—the most important pre-World War I Cubist exhibition—was given by Apollinaire. On 7 September 1911, police arrested and jailed him on suspicion of aiding and abetting

7056-606: Was on artistic practices, in other places on political practices, and in other places still, Surrealist praxis looked to supersede both the arts and politics. During the 1930s, the Surrealist idea spread from Europe to North America, South America (founding of the Mandrágora group in Chile in 1938), Central America , the Caribbean , and throughout Asia, as both an artistic idea and as an ideology of political change. Politically, Surrealism

#367632