Surrealism is considered as one of the most influential cultural movements of 20th century having pervasive influence on both visual and literary arts. Surrealist works primarily focus on the element of surprise and unexpected juxtapositions to create an imaginary world of their own. The movement started as a reaction against the ‘Age of Reason’ which had gripped the western world .It flourished between World War I and II when gradually the artist and literary community was completely disillusioned and disgusted with the ‘Rationalism’ which they believed was the prime cause of mass scale distruction. This contention is substantiated by a declaration by Andre Breton, the major spokesman of the movement :
“Intellectually, it was vulgar rationalism and chop logic that more than anything else formed the causes of our horror and our destructive impulse” (Andre Breton)
For Breton, who published "The Surrealist Manifesto" in 1924, Surrealism was a means of reuniting conscious and unconscious realms of experience so completely, that the world of dream and fantasy would be joined to the everyday rational world in "an absolute reality, a surreality."He believed that there lurks a wealth of imagination in ones unconscious mind and if an artist was able to tap it somehow it would result into pure works of genius. With this declaration started this conscious journey into the realm of subconscious by a group of artists and writers alike.
One of the most iconic works of literature produced by this movement is Breton’s second novel titled ‘Nadja’,published in 1928 and which interestingly starts with a question “Who am I”.
The novel is based on the relationship between the protagonist, who is nothing but the alter ego of the author himself, and a woman, Nadja,whom he meets randomly on a street and gets obsessed with. More than the woman herself it is her vision of the world that entices him and forces him to meet her daily.Her understanding of existence defies the rational logic and has a peculiar irrational charm to it which makes him continue the relationship till he realizes that she is actually mad and is admitted in a certain sanitorium.As this reality dawns on him, he breaks up with her but finds himself completely taken by her thinking and her vision which seems to have direct access to her unconscious and artistic mind. Interestingly it is her absence which creates a mysterious and a stronger bond between both of them and he finds her constantly present in both his conscious and unconscious thoughts. Here Breton interestingly plays with the concept of absence and presence and hence raises important questions about the workings of our unconscious mind.
The importance of dream like imagery somewhere points at Breton’s fascination with Sigmund Freud’s focus on subconcious mind and its workings. Not only Breton but most of the Surrealist artists were keen readers of Freud and well versed with his major theories. According to Freud when a certain desire cannot be represented conciously it takes an absurd form which helps in disguising the desire. He suggests that two objects that could never be juxtaposed in reality become so in the dream and hence dream has a logic of its own which makes virtually no sense to the dreamer himself/herself after waking up.
This idea of ‘disguising a desire’ which might not have been socially or culturally acceptable by distorting the reality became a tool in the hands of Surrealist artists.
The horrors of war and the fearsome aspect is reflected deeply in Salvador Dali’s painting ‘Face of War’ and can be felt in these lines by Breton:
a mouth opens within another mouth
and within this mouth another mouth
and within this mouth another mouth
and so on without end
it is a sad perspective
which adds an I-don't-know-what
to another I-don't-know-what (The domestic Stones by Breton)
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