Surrealism began in the 1920s as an artistic movement that aimed to represent unconscious thoughts and dreams through techniques like automatic drawing. Key figures like Andre Breton and Salvador Dali created dreamlike works using elements of surprise and free association. While initially focused on automatism, later Surrealist art depicted meticulously rendered hallucinatory scenes. Feminist critics argue that Surrealism marginalized women's roles, and Freudian critics believe the unconscious cannot be directly expressed through art.
1. Surrealism “ I believe in the future resolution of these two states, dream and reality, a surreality, if one may so speak.” –Andre breton- First Surrealist Manifesto.
29. Feminist Criticisms of Surrealism Feminists claim that the Surrealist movement was fundamentally a male movement despite the occasional few celebrated female Surrealist painters and poets. They believe that it adopts typical male attitudes towards women. For example, many artists portrayed women in a stereotypical way, following sexist norms. A pioneer of the feminist critique of surrealism was Xaviere Gauthier. Her book, Surrealisme et Sexualite inspired the importance of scholarship related to marginalization of women in relation to the avant-garde. The criticisms were of women having much more subordinate roles in comparison with the men.
30. Freudian Criticism Freud initiated the psychoanalytic critique of Surrealism that stated that he was more interested in the Surrealist conscious rather than the unconscious. In this view the Surrealists may have created great works but they were products of the conscious, not the unconscious mind. The unconscious cannot express itself automatically, but can only be uncovered through the analysis of resistance and transference in the psychoanalytic process.
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