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Salvador Dali - how and where in the work has Dali used his dreams to communicate ideas of the surreal

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Salvador Dali - how and where in the work has Dali used his dreams to communicate ideas of the surreal

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In Dalis painting 'the persistence of memory' painted in 1931, shows 3 pocket watches, melted and distorted, drooping over objects. surrealism is shown by the use of realistic objects but making them out of place and the movement, and creating contrasting and questionable appearances. Dali uses sarcasm in the title of the painting because it depicts clocks melting away and making it seem "persistent".

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what techniques does Rene magritte incorporate into his work?
Rene margritte uses deadpan, illustrated techniques that Cleary show the meanings and content of his paintings. The illustrative quality of Magritte often result in powerful paradox: images that are beautiful in their clarity and simplicity.

Magritte was fascinated by the interactions of textual and visual signs, some of his most famous work incorporate both words and images.

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WHAT MAKES HIS WORKS SURREALISM AND HOW DO THEY LINK TO FREUDIAN PSYCHOANALYSIS/THEORY?

Surrealist manifesto by ANDRE BRETON, "I believe in the future resolution of these two states - outwardly so contradictory - which are a dream and reality, into a sort of absolute reality, a surreality, so to speak..."

Repetition was an important strategy for Magritte, informing not only his handling of motifs within individual picture, but also encouraging him to produce multiple copies of some of his greatest works. His interest in the idea may have come part from Freudian psychoanalysis, for which repetition is a sign of trauma.

He claimed he wanted to put the real world on trial, "If the spectator finds that my paintings are a kind of defiance of 'common sense', he realizes something obvious," he said. "For me, the world is a defiance of common sense."

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Andre Breton: What was the meaning/concept behind the work and how does it link to Surrealism?

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Andre Breton: What was the meaning/concept behind the work and how does it link to Surrealism?

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Andre Breton's artwork 'The African Mask' was inspired by his collection of native masks and interest in Primitive Art. In addition, this artwork holds the meaning of masks being a metaphorical concept of a window to one's inner mind, which relates to the Surrealist concept of unlocking the human subconscious. Also, 'The African Mask' shows that Primitive Art usually tells stories and dreams similarly to Surrealism.

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Dali was a Spanish artist born the 11th of May, 1904 and later died on the 23rd of January 1989.
Dali was inspired by a woman named Gala Diakonova who eventually became his wife. Also was inspired by artists such as Max Ernst and Andre Breton. From an early age Dali was encouraged to practise his art, and he would eventually go on to study at an academy in Madrid. His first painting was done at the age of 6, 'Landscape near Figures'.
He went to Paris and interacted with artists such as Picasso and Miro which led to Dali's first surrealist phase.

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He was a writer, poet and anti-fascist born 19th February 1896 in France. Breton was involved in both the dada and surrealism movements, where he wrote the first surrealism manifesto in 1924, which stated surrealism is "pure psychic automatism". He had many inspirations such as Tristan Tzara, Karl Marx and René Guénon. Andre introduced ideas of intuitive art and automotive drawing which combined his inspirations and printed matter to create art work was dedicated to avant-garde. He believed surrealism was an anti-war protest and used it to show his protest. Breton also protested against French decadent artists who did "art for arts sake" and instead chose to do art that appealed to the majority. In 1915 Breton was assigned to do work in a military hospital, as he had previous medical and military training. It was in the hospital, where he worked as a nurse, that his hatred for war and seeing its effects led him to research Sigmund Freud's psychotherapeutic practices. Over this time he developed a passion for psychiatric art that that allowed him to view the subconscious and led him to the dada movement and to found the surrealism movement. In 1930, Breton and other members of the surrealism movement joined the communist party and artists such as Dali left because of this.

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The central focus of the painting is a giant mechanical elephant. The figure’s round body was modelled after a photograph in an anthropological journal of a clay corn bin.

Ernst’s creature has a frilly metallic cuff or collar and a horned head and tail. The low horizon emphasizes the creature’s bulk and the gesture of the headless mannequin introduces the viewer to the figure. It wears surgical glove which is a common Surrealist symbol.

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Andre Breton- How was the artwork 'The African Mask' produced?

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Andre Breton- How was the artwork 'The African Mask' produced?

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The artwork was produced with ink and wax on paper. Most of his works were produced by collage or printmaking. The dimensions are 15.2cm X 12.7cm.
The process would have been very similar to batik, placing the design on a background in wax and then using black ink to cover the whole piece. Then, melting the wax off to leave the artwork. He gained inspiration from the African culture and his own mask collection, and it relates to surrealism as the idea of a mask is to hide the honest reality with dreams and lies.

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He claimed that his primary sources of interest included anything that had something to do with painting. Moreover, he became fascinated with psychology, among other subjects in school.
He became deeply interested with this craft and decided to pursue it later on in his life. During his early years, he became familiar with the works of some of the greatest artists of all time including Claude Monet, Paul Cezanne and Vincent Van Gogh .
He was also drawn to themes such as fantasy and dream imagery, which were among the common subjects of the works of Giorgio de Chirico.
During World War I, Ernst was forced to join the German Army. He was inspired by some of the memories and things he remembers from war. This eventually helped his personal issues and past trauma.
For example this piece: The temptation of St Anthony, 1945. Looks very inspired by his past war experience.

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Margritte was born in Lessines, in the province of Hainaut, Belgium, in 1898. he was the oldest son of his father, a textiles merchant, and his mother, who was a milliner before she got married. little is known about margritte's early life. he began drawing lessons in 1910. on march 12th 1912, his mother committed suicide by drwoning herself in the river sambre.
His earliest paintings, which dated form about 1915, were impressionistic in style. from 1916 to 1918, he studied at an art academy in Brussels, under Constant Montald, but found the instructing uninspirng. Galerie 'Le Centaure' closed at the end of 1929, ending Magritte's contract income. Having made little impact in Paris, Magritte returned to Brussels in 1930 and resumed working in advertising. He and his brother, Paul, formed an agency which earned him a living wage. In 1932 he joined the communist party, which he would periodically leave and rejoin for several years.
During the early stages of his career, the British surrealist patron Edward James allowed Magritte to stay rent free in his London home and paint. James is featured in two of Magritte's works painted in 1937, Le Principe du Plaisir (The Pleasure Principle) and La Reproduction Interdite, a painting also known as 'not to be reproduced'.
Magritte married Georgette Berger in June 1922. Georgette was the daughter of a butcher in Charleroi, and had first met Magritte when she was only 13 and he was 15. They met again in Brussels in 1920 and Georgette subsequently became Magritte's model and muse. In 1936 Magritte's marriage got into trouble when he met a young artist, Sheila Legge, and began an affair. Magritte arranged for his friend, Paul Colinet, to entertain and distract Georgette, but this led to an affair between his wife and Colinet. Magritte and his wife did not reconcile until 1940.
Magritte died of pancreatic cancer on 15 August 1967, aged 68, and was interred in Schaerbeek Cemetery, Evere, Brussels.
The Magritte Museum opened to the public on 30 May 2009 in Brussels.Housed in the five-level neo-classical Hotel Altenloh, on the Place Royale, it displays some 200 original Magritte paintings, drawings and sculptures including The Return, Scheherazade and The Empire of Lights. This multidisciplinary permanent installation is the biggest Magritte archive anywhere and most of the work is directly from the collection of the artist's widow, Georgette Magritte, and from Irene Hamoir Scutenaire, who was his primary collector.  Additionally, the museum includes Magritte's experiments with photography from 1920 on and the short surrealist films he made from 1956 on.

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This image is called, "The Elephant Celebes", by Max Ernst and was created in 1921. This particular image is made up of several elements, there is not one depiction to it, but many. This painting appears to be randomised with no specific perspective. The combination of different elements and perspectives, could be Ernst's way of visually portraying how our mind's work without our active knowledge. As Surrealism is all about the subconscious mind and how it behaves and thus influences our actions; I believe Max Ernst has brought this through thoroughly and effectively in this painting. Even though the whole feel of this image is not from a realist perspective, you can see that he has added depth by including tones and shading in his choice of colours. This is most clearly seen on what seems to be the trunk of the Elephant. The use of shading brings this part of the elephant further out than other surrounding elements and it makes you wonder whether this was intentional- to bring in more attention to this area. Maybe Max is trying to differentiate between different mind states, the dimensions of time and the human perception on these as a whole. If we draw our attention to the image as a whole again, rather than focussing on a specific area, we can see all the elements of this painting and how they relate to one another as well as how they create this eery composition- you could also link this with the colour pallet that has been used here. Minimal colour has been used in this piece but this could be a significant characteristic of the emotion that Max is trying to for fill. Various shades of grey have been used to layer this painting together, but this isolated and draws attention to the little colour that has been used. The deduction of colour in this painting may be a reflection on the unconscious state; as we are not aware of what happens around us when unconscious, our brains are still active, this means that there is a certain depth that no human is yet able to access, knowingly at least. This reinforces the idea of the subconscious mind being able to influence us and what we do and how we behave with others, just like the greys have an impact on how we view the colour in this painting. Again, going back to elements, what appears to be a headless mannequin can be seen in the bottom right-hand corner, yet Max has still situated this mannequin as if it was still alive and aware of what is happening. This, however, juxtaposes the whole idea of surrealism in the sense that even without our minds, we are still able to distinct between what is real and what is not. On the other hand, this could be a visual emphasis on surrealism.

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Background information - Max Ernst was active from 1910-1970. He was born in Bruhl, Germany in 1890 to a middle class Catholic family of 9 children. His father was a strict disiplintarian who was also a teacher and had an interest in academic art. Many of Ernst works shows undermining to authority including that of his father.
He never received any formal training in art and was responsible for his own techniques. During the times of his studies of poetry, painting and seditious philosophers, he became deeply interested in psychology and art of the mentally ill. When WW1 broke out Ernst was conscripted into the German army in an artillery division where he directly experienced the bloodshed and drama of the war. Ernst was one of the multiple artists who was emotionally wounded and alienated from European traditions after the war.
In 1922 he moved to Paris where he lived until 1941 as WW2 made it impossible to remain in Germany. In 1924 the "First Surrealist Manifesto" was publicised by Andre Breton and Ernst became one of the Surrealist founding members. Him and his other colleagues discovered the possibilities of autonomism and dreams with the help of hypnosis and hallucinogenics.
He began to experiment with frontage and eventually created the technique called decalcomania.