How to intrepret a surrealist painting?
ay...@hotmail.com
Dale Houstman
ay...@hotmail.com wrote:
>
> How do one actually intrepret a surrealist painting?
Actually, pretty much the same way one is supposed to "interpret"
most works of art; by not trying so hard to "interpret" it. To some
degree, public education does a disservice to people by tending to
teach "art appreciation" as some sort of rebus factory; fragmenting
the "natural" ("holistic") comprehension of an immediate experience
into "history," "symbology," "biography," "color theory," etc.
until one can no longer see the work (visual or otherwise) as a
vital unity anymore. Surely the best way to at least begin an aesthetic
"adventure" is by attempting to grasp it in its entirety, as a material
object which lies before you, as a struggle with the poetic to produce
some rough sketch of the marvelous. How is one supposed to
"interpret" a beautiful face, or form?
This is not to deny the intellect, and the analytic mind, but only
to give them a due position.
Do you have a particular artwork in mind that troubles you?
DMH
barrett john erickson
news:3724943b...@news.cableinet.co.uk...
> On Sun, 25 Apr 1999 20:10:44 GMT, ay...@hotmail.com wrote:
> A basic premise of surrealism is that the artist should seek
> inspiration not from the outside world but within her or his
own
> subconscious
don't you think this statement conflicts with the central
position always given to the element of "objective chance"?
i think that it is important to maintain focus on the primacy of
the spontaneous act, not as "inspiration" (a concept i might
argue against in any case), but as the source of discovery and
the point of exploratory departure.
> In his essays and lectures of the mid-nineteenth thirties,
Andre
> Breton repeatedly refers to a "fundamental Crisis of the
Object" that
> is taking place in the wake of Surrealism. The Crisis of the
Object
> implies a new orientation of the world of things which surround
us in
> daily life. The external object may become an extension of our
>
> [...]
>
> The Surrealists considered themselves scientists because they
were
> serious explorers of a new world : the unconscious, the dream,
the
> fantastic, or the marvellous
> [...]
i don't want to start stirring Andre's dust.
i'm more interested in pursuing this in a current context, so i
think it's important to point out that these ideas are being
framed in terms of some very old concepts of cognition.
fact is, current cognitive science is even more conducive to
surrealist perspectives on the nature of (a unified) reality and
we don't have to rely on the aging metaphors of "subconscious" or
"unconscious" or perpetuate dualistic views of mind vs. body, or
imagination (or dream) vs. reality to make our case.
what Breton saw is what he wrote in the second manifesto (quoted
in my "sig file"): the potential to integrate the imagination
into all aspects of daily living, and thereby resolve all the
false dichotomies that protected our former ignorance.
Breton's comments are even more insightful if we resolve their
aged terminology with more current knowledge.
> The Surrealist tried there hand in automatic writing.
>
> [...]
>
>Nevertheless, for a long time, psychic automatism was
> hailed as the gateway to the "marvellous" the key to liberation
of the
> man's imagination.
it still is.
but what we need to recognize is that it is _only_ that: a
gateway. we must pass thru that gateway. we need to recognize
that as the first spontaneous act of creative exploration from
which we conduct further experiments in search of an enhanced
reality.
-- barrett
bar...@MagneticFields.org
http://www.MagneticFields.org/
"Everything tends to make us believe that there exists a certain
point of the mind at which life and death, the real and the
imagined, past and future, the communicable and the
incommunicable, high and low, cease to be perceived as
contradictions."
...André Breton
barrett john erickson
Lutegirl <lute...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:19990425221803...@ng-cd1.aol.com...
> With latent confessions that thier automatic writings weren't
as automatic as
> they wanted them to be,even then they were probably deceived by
the
> subconsious,because even when we plan to write things out the
subconsious seems
> to find a way to say something between the lines,automatic or
not.
why do you feel the need to subdivide cognition?
why do you feel the need to attribute phenomena which i would
associate with the imagination to a lower (sub) form of
consciousness?
and why do you characterize this "subconscious" as deceptive?
Dolce
>How do one actually intrepret a surrealist painting?
A basic premise of surrealism is that the artist should seek
inspiration not from the outside world but within her or his own
subconscious
In his essays and lectures of the mid-nineteenth thirties, Andre
Breton repeatedly refers to a "fundamental Crisis of the Object" that
is taking place in the wake of Surrealism. The Crisis of the Object
implies a new orientation of the world of things which surround us in
daily life. The external object may become an extension of our
subjective self and serve as a point of departure for a new conscience
of reality. The crisis also implies an attempt to change the world by
acting upon its objects in such a manner as to deviate them from
their admitted physical properties and accepted roles. The deep -
rooted rapport developing between person and the object within the
framework of the Crisis moulds and shapes a persons conscience.
Encompassing man in a variety of shapes, colours, textures and
functions, objects are mans reality. Man creates or discovers objects
and destroys them, he endows them certain qualities and power, and
assigns them with values. We can see the objects, touch them, grasp
them and perceive the world, they are the means by which we perceive
and attempt to understand the working of the universe Philosophically,
the relationship between man and the object involves an interchange
between mind and matter within a framework which is acceptable to it.
The Surrealists considered themselves scientists because they were
serious explorers of a new world : the unconscious, the dream, the
fantastic, or the marvellous, a favourite word in there vocabulary.
The Surrealist tried there hand in automatic writing. Naturally it was
against the rules to change a word what was written, and the results
were uneven. Some very striking images were produced. Apparently many
of the poets and painters were not entirely satisfied with this method
because, like Aragon, they confessed years later that they did not
always abided with the rules, but deliberately altered their
compositions. Nevertheless, for a long time, psychic automatism was
hailed as the gateway to the "marvellous" the key to liberation of the
man's imagination.
Regards
Dolce
Lutegirl
ALDIN
ay...@hotmail.com wrote:
> How do one actually intrepret a surrealist painting?
Using his imaginations..if....
:)
AM