Chapter 1: Introduction – The History of Surrealism
Surrealism is an art movement originated by the poet Andre Breton, who was at first part of the Dada group but then went to initiate Surrealism in Paris in 1924. He defined Surrealism as a `Psychic automatism in its pure state’, in other words it means to work without conscious and thinking, which is opposing rationalism. It aims to stimulate human experience by creating an irrational landscape, and thus to justify the importance of subconscious and dreams. (Mann, 2016) Breton intended to start this art movement to unleash human thoughts from the constraints from the social norms and values. Apart from Andre Breton, an Austrian neurologist, Sigmund Freud, who wrote his theories on the human subconsciousness, also had a great contribution in supporting the fundamental idea of Surrealism. His book, ‘The Interpretation of Dreams’ (1899), suggested dreams are reflections of our personal deep-down desires and emotions. (The Art Story, 2017) Some people believe that Surrealism has ended with the death of Breton in 1966 but the others think it still remains influential till now. Looking into Surrealist paintings, there are two different styles, which is hyperrealism and automatism.
Chapter 2: Hyperrealism
To begin with, paintings of this style are depicted in great detail and also they incorporate three-dimensional objects into it so that the artworks look very realistic. Personally, I am interested in how Surrealist use human forms in their artwork.
Examples of Hyperrealism Surrealist
Rene Magritte ( 1898-1967 ) ,a Belgium painter, was working with Surrealism approach. However, he was quite different to other Surrealists that he chose to work in a more illustrative technique that clearly visualise his meaning in the content. He was particularly interested in combining texts and visuals which create a sense of mystery and make his readers to wonder. I was particularly amazed by his work “The Reckless sleeper” created in 1928.
The artist portrayed a man sleeping inside a wooden box which is placed above a gloomy sky. There are some daily life objects displayed clearly in a solid irregular shape which I guess is the mind of the man and this should be his dream. Personally, I like this artwork because of its imaginative content and it is drawn with many details like textures of the wooden box. An important note to this painting is that it was believed to be painted in the period when Magritte lived in Paris and had much contact with other Surrealists.(Tate, 2005)
Also, I have visited the National Portrait Gallery during the summer and I found “Sir Basil Henry Liddell Hart” by Hein Heckroth (1901-1970) a very inspiring, Surrealistic work. He created this painting in 1939.
He had merged and gathered objects which conveyed hidden meanings related to the current affairs in that time period. For example, there is a world map fading away which may mean that Europe at that time was not very stable and the whole continent was broken apart. Some people also suggested that the ear may represent the secret services were conducted and had relation to the outbreak of the conflict – The Second World War. (Npg.org.uk, n.d.) I appreciate the way that the artist played with the scale of different objects which can grab readers attention.
Besides, Salvador Dali (1904- 1989) was one of the most famous artists in the twentieth century and best known for his Surrealist paintings. He used Surrealism as a language to depict his dreams and symbolism was common in his artwork. He did not just stop on the point of agreeing with Breton’s theory on automatism but instead he proposed his own method “paranoiac critical”. `It is a state in which one could simulate delusions while maintaining one’s sanity’ according to the Art Story.(The Art Story, 2017) During my research on Surrealism, I was attracted by “The Face of War” by Dali in 1940.
In this work, Dali portrayed a frightening face or some may describe it as a cadaver in a desert landscape. He tried to provoke the ugliness of war through the facial expressions and the brownish color tone. Dali was known for his use of reflective symbols to represent his understanding on science and reality.
Chapter 3: Automatism
The father of Surrealism, Andre Breton brought up the idea of intuitive art as well as automatism in his theory. From his work – Landscape ( 1933 ), we can notice some distinctive features of automatism.
The meanings and relationship of each object are not very clear to readers as they are left for readers to interpret on their own. The content of this artwork is rather imaginative because I guess he was describing a dream-like landscape.
My visit to Hundertwasserhaus in Vienna last year has first introduced me with Friedensreich Hundertwasser ( 1928-2000 ), who was an Austrian artist and architect. His interest in the use of fluid lines and organic shapes can be seen from the building and his paintings. In relation to Surrealism, he discovered transautomatism which is a painting style mainly emphasized on the experience of the viewer rather than understanding the actual meaning of every single part. It is also related with his comment on straight lines – godless and immoral.(Revolvy, n.d.) One of my favourite work is the “Irinaland over the Balkans”, created in 1969.
He had merged a portrait of a woman, who is the Bulgaria actress Irina Maleeva, into the landscape and buildings with spirals and curvy strips. I appreciate his use of vibrant colours and it conveyed a feeling of passion and warmth which I think represent his impression and memory towards this actress.
Chapter 4: Critical Study on Jaroslaw Jasnikowski
Unrealistic synthesis, which cannot be too simple to describe (2005)
Jaroslaw Jasnikowski is a Surrealist painter who was born in Legnica, Poland in 1976. He graduated from Glogowskie Studium Sztuk Plastycznych in 2001. His discovery of Salvadore Dali’s works in the age of 18 has shaped his own Surrealistic style which can be observed from his paintings.
“Surrealism as such, enables us to fold the reality as frequently as we wish. In the future worlds there are some rules, but Surrealism gives me total freedom to express myself.”(Artodyssey1.blogspot.co.uk, n.d.) – Jaroslaw Jasnikowski
Inspired by science fiction, his works featured some futuristic themes with elements of human bodies, architecture, vehicles, etc.
“I used to wonder where we were headed and what the world was going to look like in 10, 100, 1000 years. It was then that I had the visions of space conquest, star journeys and a completely automatised world relying on highly advanced techniques.” (Morpheusgallery.com, 2002) – Jaroslaw Jasnikowski
I am interested in his work because his way of integrating human bodies to buildings is unique and bold. His works are very imaginative in context but all of the elements are from everyday objects which make readers to question about the underlying meaning of the art piece.
In plate A, the artist depicted a gothic castle with some parts being dismantled and two women bodies sitting on and lying against it. The castle was evenly broken into half and some interior structures were exposed. An interesting point of the human bodies is that they don’t exist as an individual, instead they are actually part of the building rooted on the soil base of the whole creature. The whole structure is floating in the air as the background of the painting is a cloudy sky. From the title of it, I think that the painter wants to reveal the complicated bonding between people by deconstructing the castle in the ‘Alternative World’ that he believes in.
The artist used symmetrical balance in the composition of the painting as the vocal point where the castle breaks into two parts is located in the centre of the painting. Interestingly, he added some variation in the gesture of the two body figure which contradicts with the sense of balance of the structure on a whole. The colour he used is mainly warm and saturated with a bright amber sky. A special feature to note is that he mixed some colour of the castle, e.g. ocher to the skin tone of the body figure. This harmonised the transition between the human and the structure. The whole structure demonstrated an illusion of three-dimensionality which is a characteristics of Surrealism.
Moreover, the artist portrayed strong highlights on those human bodies which make them look metallic. The contrasting tonality on the castle has made it look more realistic whereas the pastel and soft sky creates a dreamy and imaginative atmosphere. He drew this painting by oil paints which is an efficient way to build up the tonality and textures on the subjects. I think this is an interesting piece of work because the context of the work is quite imaginary. I find it very inspiring as well as it reminds me of the Howl’s moving castle by Hayao Miyazaki.
I like this painting a lot because the artist added lots of detail on the human figure like body contour, veins which make it even more realistic. He successfully putted emphasis on the breaking of the castle by the disconnection of the two hands.
Chapter 5: Critical study on Simon Prades
Japan 1 (100 x 70 cm) Ink and watercolour on paper (2011)
Simon Prades is a german illustrator who studied graphic design at the University of Trier. He is currently working for clients in Editorial, Publishing, Advertising and Film, like The New York Times and Nike. His favourite medium are ink, pencil and watercolour to portray themes like nature, memory and dreams. Also, most of his art works presented social issues which are attractive to audience. He is famous for his etching techniques as well.
I find his work very inspiring as he used the sense of space wisely and the transition of different scenes and objects is smooth. He firstly deconstructed then reorganised them in a circular shape.
‘Japan’ is one of the illustrations created after the disaster in Japan in 2011. From it, we can see a flying crane, cherry blossoms, a navy ship, some destroyed houses with people. The artist has intentionally chosen some representative symbols of Japan which conveyed special meanings. For cranes, it symbolises good fortune and longevity while for cherry blossom, it represents fragility and the beauty of life. The scenery he portrayed is a chaos as the earthquake destroyed lots of houses and many people were injured or even dead at that time. The objects as mentioned before are arranged along a circle which I guess is resembling the Japanese National Flag. All the objects in the art work are detailedly drawn, in a realistic manner.
I was very touched by the disaster in Japan, but I also felt that all these images and information we got from there overcharged me. So I decided to arrange for myself, what the media offered. I wanted to show the disaster but also the calmness and discipline, with which the Japanese people seemed to respond and the big contrast of the images that arrived to us. – Simon Prades (Mate, 2011)
The artist would like to depict the image that mass media present to general public on the incident of 311 earthquake in Japan but in a more organised manner because he believed that Japanese are capable to response to these natural disaster efficiently and calmly.
In this illustration, the artist used black ink on paper which created a great contrast in the tonality. The lines, shapes are very clear to readers so as to make things look solid and realistic. The composition of this work is unique as the artist arranged the objects and spaces along a shape so that it created a sense of movement. The audience can follow the curve of the circle and they will be leaded to the focal point of the whole art piece which is the destruction of buildings on the bottom left hand corner.
As mentioned in the interview from Simon Prades, he expressed his interest in collecting images and information from newspapers and journals which were his source of inspiration. Then, he would start with drawing directly with ink without pre-sketching with pencils. I think he may had finished the part with very fine details of the art work first and then added some solid black shapes in the darkest area which creates sense of depth.
Personally, I enjoy his work a lot because he conveyed some social awareness within his work. I think the artist successfully portrayed the discipline and order of how Japanese response to these natural disaster as he depicted destructed objects in a rather neat composition.
Chapter 6: Critical study on Dasha Pliska
ARCHITECTURE odessa (2013)
This series of illustration are done by an Ukranian artist, Dasha Pliska. She was born in a small town near Odessa, called Illichivsk and was deeply impressed by the beautiful scenery in Odessa since her first visit in the age of 5. In 2013, she graduated from the Odessa International University of Humanities in Graphic Design.(Maher, 2014) Odessa, `the Pearl of the black sea’, is well-known for its rich cultural heritage as it is the only place in Ukraine that has entirely preserve its heritages from the 18th to 19th centuries.
I am interested in her works because I was amazed by the detail drawing of the building’s unique features at first glance which shown the influence of Hyperrealism. Also, she has added different movements of hands under a segment of building which is a form of integration of human parts into cityscape.
An overview of Dasha Pliska’s works, they have shown a strong influence from her hometown as she depicted a combination of architecture and human hands. These buildings are extraordinary in Odessa because they featured the characteristics of the Classicist and Renaissance architecture. The artist has portrayed a section of fragmented building merging with an exaggerated hand movement like cradling and resting, which then successfully created a feeling of liveliness. She has once expressed her concern over the gradual cultural degradation of Odessa that “[the city] becomes faceless without these buildings,” but meanwhile “city government almost does not care about saving the uniqueness of Odessa.”(Flaunt Magazine, 2015) I think that the artist may want to inanimate these heritages by giving them specific personality or express her personal feeling on the need to protect them. For example, one of her work has depicted a building being hold up by a pair of hands which may indicate that it is or should be well supported and protected by people. Her works are categorised as Surrealist due to the illogical composition and content, as well as the style of the illustration is rather hyperrealistic.
A closer look on these work, the old buildings are viewed from a low angle and the enlarged hands are extended beneath them. The exaggeration of the size of hand can emphasise on the hand movements and draw more attention from the audience. Her works are mainly black pencil or ink on toned yellowish paper so that there is a great contrast in the tonality of the drawing. As a result of this, it can create visual interest and excitement. The detail shapes of the decoration on the building are constantly repeated as they are of vital importance in presenting the architectural style of the building, like the Art Nouveau and the Renaissance Style. However, the shapes of human hands are quite organic and the artist has emphasised on the bones on hands with some circular shapes which contradicts with the uniform and geometric shapes of the buildings. Subsequently, it can arouse the audience’s interests by questioning their relationship. There are quite a lot of textures throughout the illustration. For instance, there is a great use of rough surfaces on the concrete of buildings while softer textures are used on human skin. This will give a sense of personality and rhythm to the artworks. Objects in her works look very realistic and three dimensional since their structure are accentuated as if they are standing in a strong and stable manner. The strong tonality of her works construct a solid feeling of the object so that the whole context are more harmonious and real.
As mentioned before, she drew her artworks mainly by black pencil or ink which is an effective method of creating sketchy strokes and textures. I think the artist develop these artwork by initially doing a few quick sketches and taking a few photos of different angles of the building. Then, she may consider her personal feelings towards that building to decide an appropriate hand gesture to represent it. I think that the artist need to have good observational skills to decide how to simplify the details of decorations without losing much of its characteristics.
Personally, I like this series of illustration by Dasha Pliska. It is because the detail drawing of buildings by pencils or ink have added in feeling of antiquity, solemnity whereas the sketching of hands bring vitality and movement. This has been a great combination in terms of context and the mood portrayed. Moreover, I agreed with the artist that the intimacy between humans and the structures we build around ourselves are gradually deteriorating and her work can act as a stimulus to arouse people’s attention to protect the amazing architecture in Odessa.
Chapter 7: Common Surrealistic techniques
From analysing various Surrealistic artworks, we can discover some common features among them which made them look more dreamlike but strange. Generally speaking, there are six different methods that Surrealists usually use. (wopierce, n.d.)
Scale
As human develop an understanding on the relative sizes of objects in our subconscious mind, we may feel quite uncomfortable and strange if those objects are not drawn with the correct and logical scale. This is how Surrealists stimulate our senses by playing with it. One example is the “Prisoner” by Ishida Tetsuya (1978-2005).
He was a Japanese painter and was known for depicting the dark side of the society and also his own emotions. From this painting, the size of the pupils in the playground contrasted with the student trapped inside the school building. He made the school became a prison or even a box that restricted the movement of the student which has presented the theme of this work clearly to the readers. Also, referring back to Dasha Pliska’s illustration work, she enlarged the scale of the hand and made it even bigger than the building itself. It is because she would like to emphasised on the hand gesture and put greater power for the hands to act as a support for the building to stand. Personally, I didn’t find it very uncomfortable but instead, a very interesting and powerful work as the building seem to have its own personality.
Levitation
This means that to make something to float in the air without a physical support. It can be quite easy to understand as Surrealists often reverse the law of nature to present their themes. To illustrate this idea we can look at “Golconda” by Belgian Surrealist Rene Magritte. In this painting, men with very similar clothing were aligned uniformly in the space. They were just like raindrops suspending in the air. I think that Magritte would like to express the losing of individuality in the society.
In addition, Jaroslaw Jasnikowski’s painitng demonstrated how buildings and human can be levitated. It gave a very dream-like feeling to the artwork and it brought readers to experience an entirely new heavenly place.
Juxtaposition
This stands for placing two things closely to each other to create contrast. The following painting was also created by Magritte, named “The son of Man”. It is very clear that the levitated apple ,which was placed just in front of the man’s face, created a strong contrast and feeling of obstruction.
Dislocation
Surrealists used this method by placing the object in an unfamiliar environment. The artwork on the right is “Sunrise by the Ocean” by Vladimir Kush. The cracked eggs were enlarged and place on the beach. The objects itself is totally irrelevant with the environment but then the artist made the egg yolk to place in the position of the sun and logicized the whole artwork.
Transparency
They add transparency to objects which are normally solid. Looking back to Simon Prades’s illustration, he used this method on the body of the crane. He integrated drawings of destroyed houses on to it so it looked like it was transparent.
Transformation
In Surrealism, transformation means the change of the overall image. The following example was drawn by Salvador Dali, named “Apparition of a face and fruit dish on a beach”. The location of those small objects have created an illusion of another image and it made the artwork more interesting and richer in content.
Chapter 8: Conclusion – Evaluation on using Surrealism
The above three Surrealistic artwork are rather imaginative pieces as artists gathered images and ideas from contrasting sources like in Jaroslaw Jasnikowski’s work, nude human body and gothic styled castle were connected. As far as I am concerned, I think Surrealism can benefit art development as more artists are willing to experiment and they can further push beyond the boundaries from traditional arts. Some people may think that the symbolic system is not reliable and it is too personal. They believe that this will affect the readers’ interpretation on the artwork so it may not be an effective method of making art. In my opinion, there should be no boundaries to the creation of art. Artists can gain inspiration through exploring and integrating different subject matters, like human forms and Surrealist landscapes. Despite the fact that symbolism may incur misunderstanding, I think this can remind us that art is personal and the interpretation of an artwork should not be limited to one version. By working with Surrealism approach, artists can create surprise to readers and then further stretch one’s imagination as its visual presentation is rather imaginative. For instance, in ‘ARCHITECTURE odessa’ , readers need to use their creativity to understand the correlation between those unrelated objects. Therefore, in my coming coursework project, I will work on human forms and Surrealist landscapes.
Originally published 15.10.2019