Ten Thousand Hours Photography
10,000 Hours Deliberate Practice Learning the Art of Photography
This post explores the way in which Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung and Jacques Lacan changed the way artists understood the mind, meaning and desire. Their combined insights were, without doubt, the most significant contribution to art since the start of the 20th century
[Read more…]A simple history of Surrealism might state that it was:
… leaving an enduring legacy
Above right, Joan Miro’s 1923 The Tilled Field which is generally regarded to be the first Surrealist painting – now in the Guggenheim Museum, NY
This post aims to expand on the above to give a history of the movement from 1915 up to the current day, including an overview of the political and social climate that influenced each stage of its development:
It is important to differentiate Surrealism, which has a serious and intellectual underpinning, from Dada, its more frivolous precursor. Dada was reactionary; it started in Zurich, in 1915, in the middle of the Great War, as an anti-art, anti-establishment, anti-everything, movement
Conventional logic and rational thinking, it was argued, had led to the horrendous state the world was in. Therefore, the solution resided in the intentionally irrational1, and the movement was specifically against:
Right, Marcel Duchamp’s “Fountain” which is often cited as exemplary Dadaist
As Hugo Ball put it: “art is not an end in itself … but it is an opportunity for the true perception and criticism of the times we live in”
Dadaist humour is exemplified by Monty Python: the concept of a cheese shop with a bouzouki player but no actual cheese is fundamentally Dadaist
More recently, absurdist memes have become a mainstay of internet culture and contemporary live performance, particularly for protest or activist purposes
For Europe the period between the two world wars was a time of dramatic change
Politically, whilst the upper and middle classes were enjoying the “Roaring Twenties”, the populace of Europe faced grinding poverty. Food shortages and unemployment spawned civil unrest, and disillusionment with incumbent democracies led to political extremism on both the left and right
Artistically, despite the chaos there was a thriving “Modern” art scene. Art Deco was invigorating architecture and product design for the wealthy. This was itself influenced by the new painting styles of Fauvism & Cubism from France, Futurism from Italy, Vorticism from England and Constructivism & Suprematism from Russia. At the same time Germany was undergoing a similar artistic revolution with leaders including the Bauhaus
Left, Wassily Kandinsky’s 1924 Blue Painting, produced at the Bauhaus, now in the Guggenheim Museum, NY
Philosophically, Einstein, Freud, Lenin and Nietzsche were causing seismic shifts in thinking across physics, psychology, politics and morality
Dada, intrinsically nihilistic and self-destructive, was officially all over by the end of 1923. Many Dadaists, particularly André Breton, were frustrated by its intentional meaninglessness and wanted to build on the theories of Sigmund Freud. In particular, they wanted to use automatism and dream analysis to access the truth and meaning of the subconscious, and in doing so create a genuinely greater art
André Breton, right, defined Surrealism as:
“pure psychic automatism, by which one proposes to express, either verbally, in writing, or by any other manner, the real functioning of thought” – Surrealist Manifesto, 1924
The new features of Surrealism were:
Hangovers from Dadaism included commitment to:
The combination of all of these elements produced truly unique and bizarre works of art. Many Surrealist artworks have stood the test of time and remain iconic images of the 20th century because of their unusual and visually arresting qualities
In his book, “The Lives of the Surrealist”, Desmond Morris defines 5 categories of surrealist artist:
| Paradoxical surrealism René Magritte, 1964, “Son of Man” Elements are realistically portrayed, but in a context that removes them from their normal emotional association, creating an uncanny sense of unease |  |
| Atmospheric surrealism Paul Delvaux, 1944, “Sleeping Venus” Objects again realistically portrayed but in an artificial and dreamlike context |  |
| Metamorphic surrealism Salvador Dali, 1946, “The Temptation of St. Anthony” Jean Miro, 1925, “The Harlequin’s Carnival” Objects are distorted by still recognisable; Dali, slight distortion, e.g., elephants with long legs; Miro to an extreme degree, so that the elements are represented by little more than hieroglyphs [The religious subject matter of Dali’s painting is at odds with the official Surrealist stance against organised religion, that Breton thought to be oppressive. Similarly Dali’s implicit support for Franco’s dictatorship through his acceptance of honours and state-sponsored exhibitions, was in direct opposition to the Surrealist movement’s revolutionary Trotskyist position. He was formally expelled from the Surrealist movement, by Andre Breton, on more than one occasion during the 1930s] |   |
| Biomorphic surrealism Yves Tanguy, “The Invisibles”, 1955, my photograph of the painting hanging in the Tate Modern, London Figures that cannot be traced to a specific source, yet have a clear organic nature |  |
| Abstract surrealism Arshile Gorky, 1944, Untitled The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice Abstract shapes with sufficient differentiation to make them more than merely a visual pattern |  |
The New York art world was aware of the Surrealist movement through exhibitions such as the MoMAs, 1936, “Fantastic art, Dada, Surrealism.” However, New Yorkers were less anti-aesthetic and anti-establishment than their Parisians counterparts. They also found many Surrealist works, with the exception of works by artists such as Joan Miro, lacking in artistic qualities. In general, they were more impressed by the Bauhaus and other Modernist movements of Europe and were busy assimilating those ideas
However, when Paris fell to the Nazis in June 1940, many of the Surrealists, along with other artists, fled to New York. Famous surrealist emigres include: André Breton, Marc Chagall, Piet Mondrian, Max Ernst, Yves Tanguy and Salvador Dali. Perhaps being faced with the Surrealists in the flesh caused the New York art world to reassess its position on the movement. Certainly, the concept of automatic painting as an means of accessing the subconscious became a unifying feature of the Abstract Expressionists
Jackson Pollock, 1952, “Blue Poles”, beneficiary of surrealist influence
Although most of the Surrealist emigres returned to Europe after the war, New York’s position as the Art Capital of the world had been established. The vast economic superiority of the United States at that time, with c. 50% of the world’s GDP and 80% of its hard currency, meant that it remained home to the most influential (and deep pocketed) collectors, galleries and artists
Mark Polizzotti, in his book “Why Surrealism Matters”, suggests that the symbolic high point of Surrealism was the May 1968 uprising in Paris. Lasting two months and involving eleven million people, it spawned a vast outpouring of street art and it’s most famous, fundamentally Surrealist, slogan:
“Beneath the Paving-stones, the Beach”
Sadly André Breton did not live to see this revolutionary act. It was the peak of Surrealism and all it stood for. Beyond this point, Surrealism became ubiquitous and no longer exclusive to a small group of practitioners. Just a few months after the riots, the French Surrealist Group was official disbanded, Breton having already died 18 months previously
The influence of surrealism continued. Throughout the 1970s, for example, designers such as Hipgnosis used surreal juxtapositions and dreamscapes as expressions of the counterculture in album designs for band such as Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin. David Lynch’s films from Eraserhead onward contain surrealist visuals; Mulholland Dr in particular has a dreamlike structure with characters from the first half of the film reappearing in different guises in the second
My reinterpretation of the Pink Floyd, “Wish You Were Here”, album cover, self-portrait as René Magritte, created 28th April 2024
Whereas the existential angst of 1924 was driven, amongst other things, by:
Today’s existential threats include:
Surrealism provides an alternative way to look at and question the above, as much in 2024/ 25 as it did in 1924/25
Freud’s theories of psycho-analysis were further developed, first by Carl Jung, and latterly and most notably by Jacques Lacan. Lacan, in particular, emphasised the pervasive power of societal structures in limiting an individual’s ability to self-determination. A concept that generally supports left wing political narrative, which after all was one of the initial objectives of Surrealism
However, most activist memes propagated on the internet are more Dadaist than Surrealist; confrontational, chaotic and irreverent, rather than poetic, eerie and inviting of a considered emotional response
Surrealism contribution to today’s culture is as an intellectual process to question and understand reality. It promises a thoughtful route to, and means of expressing, our deeply held, and potentially repressed, feelings without the constrain of logic or rationality, and is used across all mediums.
As an artistic tool:
My image “Industrial Human Condition” below, which did well in a recent print competition at the Stoke Poges Photographic Club, reinterprets René Magritte’s “Human Condition” paintings, 1933 to ’35 and his statement:
“Everything we see hides another thing, we always want to see what is hidden by what we see. There is an interest in that which is hidden and which the visible does not show us.”
Worthy of mention, but outside the stated date range of this post are:
André Breton saw the above artists as visionary precursors to Surrealism. His 1924 Manifesto of Surrealism, which outlines the movement’s philosophical foundations, alludes to the uncanny and transformative qualities found in their work
 |  | |
| Dali’s “The Persistence of Memory” 1932 | Bosch’s “The Garden of Earthly Delights” c. 1510 |
On the 15th April of this year Sotheby’s New York sold Leonora Carrington’s 1945 “Les Distractions de Dagobert” for $28.5m setting a new record for a female British artist. However, if we remove the words “female” and “British”, she doesn’t make Wikipedia’s list of the top 89 most expensive paintings. In fact, no women artists do
Historical discrimination against women artists is an uncomfortable truth. We acknowledge past injustices, think things are better now, yet know there is more to do. However, the above news struck me as positive, and prompted me to investigate further
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The purpose of this post is to update, and entirely contradict, my first post on “What is Art?” written at hour zero of this project, in November 2017
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