Surrealism: A Clarification.
mdeli
There are two approaches to realistic subject matter in painting.
Painting realism in a realistic context and the other, in an
unrealistic context.
All paintings containing the illusion of form follow the above either
in a pure or combined manner. I believe this is the only definition
that is useful.
Tintoretto, Reubens and Bouguereau painted people flying around. The
people are realistic the scene is surreal. Dali occasionally painted
people parts turning to shit. Matisse sculpted heads that looked like
the were made out of shit. Its surreal because its unreal.
Notice that I haven't referred to the meaning of an artwork or how the
viewer is supposed to interpret it. The meanings of artworks are often
elusive and utterly subjective. A good example is Bosh. I have
read.three utterly different interpretations. Each sounded completely
plausible each contradicted the other.
Meaning is important in one respect . That is in relation to the
viewers perception of a piece. It is the artists business to attract
the viewers attention and make him think. If the artist is successful
he can get the viewer to fantasize about the image. In other words its
the artists task is to get the viewer to invent a meaning or to
associate it to something the viewer knows.
Most all surreal theory is endless talk about the meaning of subject
matter rather than its physical relation to reality.
--
Mani DeLi
...no skill no art
Check out my webpage (updated Sept.13 - new pictures) to see some of my work and a Skeptical View of Modern Art at: http://www.interlog.com/~hugod
barrett john erickson
order):
> [...]
> Most all surreal theory is endless talk about the meaning of subject
> matter rather than its physical relation to reality.
while i certainly haven't read all the available texts, and i have no
knowledge of who you've read, i _can_ say that i've found precious little
surrealist theory which focuses on the "meaning of subject matter"
(especitally if you are refering here to "art").
what concerns surrealists is how any particular subject relates to the
project of liberating the imagination and thereby _enhancing the experience
of reality_.
often you'll find a surrealist exploring his/her interactions with a work,
but that is a bit different than what i think you refer to. the "meaning"
in these cases emerges from the "observer's" _relationship_ to the
"observed" (which is quite "real" and with no necessary distinction between
"physical" and "mental").
in fact, i think most surrealists today would deny there is any inherent
meaning in any "subject matter". "meaning" emerges from human processes of
interaction.
and,
> [...]
> [...] Its surreal because its unreal.
the surrealist project has been from the beginning, and remains today, the
liberation of the imagination and its integration into daily living.
surrealists seek a unified _enhanced reality_ not an escape from reality.
the imagination is real.
what is "unreal" is of no interest.
-- 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