The definitions I found blew my mind. I'm not sure if I was just delusional from lack of sleep, or genuinely mind blown by this word's meaning. Let me show you some of the descriptions I found, leave me a comment down below if you were just as mind boggled.
"A 20th century avant garde movement in art and literature that sought to release the creative potential of the unconscious mind, for example irrational juxtaposition of images" (en.oxforddictionaries.com).
"Integrate the confused realms of imagination and reality" (Literarydevices.net).
Whoa. 'Potential of the unconscious mind' what does that mean!? 'Confused realms of imagination and reality' what's that suppose to mean?! After a few minutes of staring at these descriptions, my curiosity got the best of me and I began researching art and literature pertaining to surrealism. Here's what I found in the art department...
Most of you have probably seen this painting before. The Persistence of Time by Salvador Dali is one of the most famous examples of surrealism. The landscape in the background is of Dali's home region of Catalonia, Spain. Dali states that this painting was made "'to systematize confusion and thus to help discredit completely the world of reality.' There is, however, a nod to the real: the distant golden cliffs are those on the coast of Catalonia, Dali's home" (MoMA.org). I interpreted this as Dali making the statement that even the most familiar places can become alien to us in time. Dali also juxtaposes the ideas of soft and hard. The soft melting clocks contrast with the sharp hard cliffs in the foreground.
Next we have a surreal poems called "A Season in Hell" by Arthur Rimbaud.
"A while back, if I remember right, my life was long party were all hearts were open
wide, where all wines kept flowing.
One night, I sat Beauty down on my lap. -and I found her galling.- And I roughed her up.
I armed myself against justice.
I ran away. O witches, O misery, O hatred, my treasure's been turned over to you!"
In these first few lines of the poem, the images illustrated are irrational and contradictory. Rimbaud depicts a life of luxury with a beautiful women, then suddenly runs away shouting about witches and misery. If you were unsure the word 'galling' translates to annoying. So basically Rimbaud is in paradise with this gorgeous woman, but then realizes she's annoying, and he now she's her as a witch (whatta guy). Any way, because of the way the way this poem juxtaposes joyousness and misery it is said to be one of the best surreal poems out there.
I hope you now feel a little more knowledgeable about the ever-so-fascinating world of surrealism! Thanks for reading!
I enjoyed how you deviated from what most are writing about and chose to focus on a singular term that we had to memorize! The way you analyze the painting almost like its a written piece its quite refreshing and unique, and following it up with a poem is a great touch! Funny though, I don't think people from Catalonia enjoy being referenced as Catalonia, Spain, especially as of late
ReplyDeleteOh my gosh. This was so chock-full of information I had to read it twice. And I was like , "WOAH". Such good analysis and you are totally right realism is pretty cool.
ReplyDeleteI find surrealism to be fascinating too. When people combine reality with their imagination, they can create some pretty crazy ideas. Jeremy Jan's Spooktacular Skit entry, which unfortunately did not win, is a testament to that. For my Surrealism example, I quoted a line from Naked Lunch, a novel by William Burroughs. It goes, "I had been occluded from space-time like an eel's ass occludes when he stops eating on the way to Sargasso." (William Burroughs, Naked Lunch).
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