Surrealist Snails

Influenced by the psychology of Sigmund Freud and his disciple Carl Jung, Surrealist members desired to capture the unconscious in writing and art. While many of the major male artists of the movement had a Freudian flavor to their pieces, many of the female artists presented a Jungian perspective. Around 1912, Jung disassociated from Freud over disagreements on the importance of the libido and sexuality in the psychological development of individuals and began to theorize about a collective unconscious and archetypes. Perhaps because Jung’s writings are less patriarchal in nature compared to Freud’s, they appealed to the female Surrealist artists. In 1921, André Breton visited Freud in Vienna. Surrealism began as a literary movement with charming Breton, French writer and poet, editing the Littérature magazine (1919-21) and writing the Surrealist Manifesto (1924) In the Manfiesto de surréalisme he defined Surrealism as “the spontaneous exploitation of ‘pure psychic automatism’, allowing the production of an abundance of unexpected images” where “men could find eternal youth, and denounced adults for having let the passage of time rob them of a child’s faculty of playfulness.” (Alexandrian, 48) “Pure psychic automatism” is similar to Freud’s “free association” with which the patient is encouraged to allow unconscious material to surface through unfiltered speech and/or writing. The Manifesto recounted a dream Breton had about “a man walking cut half way up by a window perpendicular to the axis of the body.” (21-22) In delineating the steps to automatic writings, he instructed: “Keep reminding yourself that literature is one of the saddest roads that leads to everything.” (29) He wrote 60 pages of automatic writing called “Soluble Fish”, an excerpt which read: “A cloud of flying fish then escapes from the prints of the shoes and shows the imprudent beauties the way.” (Breton, 63) The goal of Surrealism was to reach what Breton called the “marvelous” which was similar to a flow state of mind. A World War I nurse, Breton was fascinated by the stories of traumatic veterans. He requested the records of soldiers from the French Army, but was rejected. He requested the records of Freud’s therapy patients, but again was rejected. Despite these deterrents, Breton persevered. He encouraged Surrealist followers to send in automatic writings to the Centrale Surréaliste (Bureau of Surrealist Research), where La Révolution surréaliste (The Surrealist Revolution) magazine was edited. In “Le Surréalisme et la peinture” (Surrealism and Painting) Breton writes: “By virtue of these (Freud’s) discoveries, a current of opinion is finally appearing by means of which the human explorer can extend his investigations, hence force authorized to take into account more than superficial realities.” (Nadeau, 80) While Breton was adored at first, he quickly was scorned as “Pope” and “Cop” of Surrealism for the strict guidelines he imposed on Surrealist members. Because Surrealism was associated with atheism and anti-authoritarianism, these insults were particularly inciting. Apparently, Joan Miro suffered from hunger due to Breton’s ban on 9-5 jobs. Salvador Dalí broke many rules with his provocative paintings, but his fame demanded association. In response to criticism in a pamphlet called “Un Cadavre” (A Corpse), Breton published a second Surrealist manifesto in 1930, which defended and hardly reconciled himself to the Surrealists. Breton displayed homophobic and sexist tendencies. Controllingly, Breton titled Méret Oppenheim’s fur covered teacup, saucer, and spoon “Luncheon in Furs” (1936) The title recalled Édouard Manet’s painting “Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe” (The Luncheon on the Grass) (1863), which was notorious for possibly representing prostitution. Oppenheim responded: “The world-games of critics, the power struggles of men! So part of its scandalous appeal was not invited by me. I simply made up the object according to the idea. I didn’t care about any title at all.” (Powers, 241) The objects became a “paradigmatic token of male anxiety.” (Powers, 246) It was an issue with some Surrealists that metaphorical interpretations were emphasized over tangible and tactile aspects of an art piece. “The power struggle is between a regime of verbal displacement and one of physical realization: In some sense, between saying what one does not see and feeling what one does or, here, between the critics’ beard and the artist’s fur.” (Powers, 246) The Dadaist Marcel Duchamp created a Surrealist object called “Rotary Demisphere (Precision Optics)” (1925). A surrealist machine with sensual imagery, the machine paradoxically suggested dependence on a mother figure and independence in its self-sustaining movement. Therefore, instead of representing anaclisis, the machine more likely represented narcissism. Narcissists desire to be seen as sovereign of their fate but secretly depend on the admiration of another, perhaps a mother. Duchamp admitted “Always there has been a necessity for circles in my life. It is a kind of narcissism, this self-sufficiency, a kind of onanism.” (Powers, 231) Within the surrealist movement, women were painted and photographed as muses with phallic imagery. They were not seen as equal artists or competent individuals. Max Ernst painted sexual imagery and a unflattering female figure in “Men Will Know Nothing of This” in 1923. Ernst read Freud and had a bird alter-ego named “Loplop” who was a phallic symbol. In “Accommodations of Desire (1929) Dalí explored Freudian ideas of complexes and repression. “The Great Masturbator” (1929) featured a sexualized woman in a passive position. Dalí utilized what he called the “paranoia critical method”, claiming that psychotic symptoms induced dream imagery beyond physical objects. René Magritte’s “Flood” (1931) showed only the lower half of a female nude. “Collective Invention” (Magritte, 1934) replaced the female upper half with a fish. “The Rape” (Magritte, 1934) replaced the female face with the erogenous areas. “Philosophy in the Bedroom” (Magritte, 1947) exposed the breasts and toes through an x-ray of a shirt and shoes. “I do not see (the woman) hidden in the forest” (Magritte, 1929) surrounded a nude woman in a box of Surrealist men with their eyes closed. Magritte’s famous “This is not a pipe” painting “Treachery of Images” (1928-9) was a phallic symbol. Alberto Giacometti’s phallic “Disagreeable/angry object” (1931) was photographed with a nude woman by Man-Ray. “Woman with her throat cut” (Giacometti, 1932) signified sexual violence. Hans Bellmer’s sadistic dolls were composed of various female body parts, nude except for hairbows, knee-high tights and Mary-Janes suggesting pedophilic overtones. Giorgio de Chirico had a brief surrealist period in which he painted “Memories of a Child/Child’s Brain” (1914) symbolizing a Freudian paternal figure. André Masson wrestled with bouts of anger, at times slashing at his canvas with a knife. With “Battle of the Fishes” (1926), he threw sand at the canvas. The Exposition Internationale du Surréalisme (The Surrealist Exposition) of 1938 at the Galérie Beaux-Arts featured work by many of these artists. “Bellmer’s doll emphasized the uncanny power of the threat of the feminine.” (Mahon, 30) Dalí’s “Rainy Taxi” was parked near the entrance of the exhibition. Within the vehicle was a blonde female mannequin with an omelet on her lap and a sewing machine by her side. Additionally, the taxi was sopping and crawling with 200 live Burgundy snails. According to Dali, the taxi was meant for ‘snobbish Surrealist ladies’. (Mahon, 37) Selena Gomez subverts this narrative in her music video “Boyfriend” (2020) when she performs as a woman who bewitches, transforms and collects men as frogs in her car. The music video even has a doll version. Inside the exhibition, spectators were presented with flashlights with which to probe the dark room, in reference to Freud’s psychological account: ‘one may wander about in a dark, strange room, looking for the door or the electric switch, and collide time after time with the same piece of furniture.” (Mahon, 43) Masson’s “Mannequin with Bird Cage” was a nude female mannequin gagged, caged, and gashed. “Even in looking up at the ceiling, the spectator – perhaps going round and round and catching glimpses of an imaginary monumental female sex – could not but take on the role of Peeping Tom, unable to escape the monstrous feminine.” (Mahon, 43) Overall, many men during this time period were experiencing inner conflicts regarding paternal figures, partially due to the rise of Fascism. By displaying what Nazis deemed “degenerate” art, the exhibition could be seen as a criticism of Fascism. “There was a political subversion and resistance behind this uncanny exhibition, its intra-uterine forms, passionate celebration of hysteria and general assault on the spectator.” (Mahon, 55) Nazi propaganda depicted avant-garde art as the “other”, often symbolized by the sexually deviant and feminine. By acclimating this misguided view for their own use, the Surrealist were simultaneously rebelling against Fascism while upholding the patriarchal system that facilitated its existence. Not all male surrealists are patriarchal in character. Yves Tanguy’s objects on beaches and Joan Miró’s monogamy paintings are fairly benign; although surrealists were only attracted to monogamy because they believed a person would have to be insane to stay linked to one partner for a lifetime. Through artwork like “My Nurse” (1936) Oppenheim attempted to challenge traditional ideas about women. Restricted by twine and served on a platter, the nurse shoes raised discussion about the experiences of women in a time when they were not allowed to hold certain social roles or vote. On the other hand, she modeled in a nude and passive pose with a metal object for Man-Ray. In capturing “Erotique voilée.” (1933), Man-Ray positioned the camera so as to provide Oppenheim a phallic shape from the metal wheel in the foreground. Decades later, Remedios Varo, Leonora Carrington, and Dorothea Tanning were three underrated female Surrealist artists who stood firm in their feminist principles. Varo did not shy from utilizing a “masculine” grid system in her paintings. Inspired by alchemical studies of Jung, she painted “Useless Science or the Alchemist” (1955) and “Creation of the Birds” (1958). In Varo’s art pieces, the artist was an alchemist. With “Solar Music” (1955), the alchemist became a musician. Like an actress taking on roles, Varo explored her identity through her art. “Star Catcher” (1956) played with ideas of domination and submission. In the painting, a huntress was shown capturing the moon, itself a female archetype. “Towards the Tower” (1961) and “Escape” (1962) dealt with ideas of freedom. “Breaking the Vicious Cycle” (1962) and “To Be Reborn" (1960) highlighted rebirth, a major focus in Jungian psychology. Many of Varo’s painting contained gender-neutral characters. “Varo’s characters, then, transcends traditional ideas about gender and even begins to approach our contemporary conceptions of queerness.” (Cohen) In contrast to Freud’s patriarchal mindset, Jung was accepting of the feminine. In “The Red Book” he wrote “If you pay close attention, you will see that the most masculine man has a feminine soul, and the most feminine woman has a masculine soul.” Varo’s friend Carrington escaped Nazi Germany and struggled with mental illness. In 1937, she met Max Ernst in Paris and according to SalkaIn in a NYTimes article; they had a love affair. The white horse in her “Self-portrait” (1937) symbolized him. Throughout her life, the horse continued to reappear in her paintings. Exploring her sexual identity in her work, Carrington said “I didn’t have time to be anyone’s muse… I was too busy rebelling against my family and learning to be an artist.” (theartstory) “Garden of Paracelsus” (1957), “Sidhe, the White People” (1954) and a number of her paintings incorporated alchemical symbols inspired by Jung. Dorothea Tanning was actually Max Ernst’s wife. Her “A Little Night Music” was hauntingly beautiful. When describing her paintings she said “One of my reasons for painting was really to escape my biography. Are we the prisoners of our events or can another life be entirely made up?” In my opinion, Carl Jung himself could be considered a Surrealist writer and artist. Not only did he write “The Red Book” with “active imagination”, analogous to Breton’s “pure psychic automatism”, but he also painted dream imagery, for he said “Dreams are the guiding words of the soul. Why should I henceforth not love my dreams and not make their riddling images into objects of my daily consideration?” Additionally, this was in 1914, almost a decade before the founding of Surrealism! In the 40s, Margaret Naumburg, the “Mother” of art therapy, developed the scribble method of art therapy with the help of her sister Florence Cane. The method resembled the method used by Masson in “Automatic Drawing” (1924). With the method, the therapy patient is instructed to freely scribble and then interpret the marks. Although the Surrealism movement was wrought with issues related to patriarchal imagery, it produced some of the most “marvelous” art pieces ever created and influenced future artists everywhere.

Works Cited Alexandrian, Sarane. “Surrealist Art.” 1969. Breton, André. “Manifestoes of Surrealism.” Ann Arbor Paperbacks, UMich Press, 1972. Cohen, Alina. “Why This Surrealist’s Paintings Still Inspire Witches and Academics Alike.” Artsy, 17 May 2018, https://www.artsy.net/…/artsy-editorial-surrealists-paintin… Ernst, Max. “The Preparation of Bone Glue.” 1921. Gomez, Selena. “Boyfriend.” Youtube, Interscope Records, 2020. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSIk1QvIM2E Jung, Carl. “The Red Book.” W. W. Norton & Company, 19 Oct 2009. “Leonora Carrington.” Theartstory. https://www.theartstory.org/artist/carrington-leonora/ Mahon, Alyce. “Surrealism and the Politics of Eros, 1938 -1968.” Pp. 23-63. Nadea, Maurice. “History of Surrealism.” 1944. Powers, E. D. “Bodies at Rest or, The Objects of Surrealism.” Anthropology and Aesthetics, 46, 2004, pp. 226-246. SalkaIn, E. M. “The Mystery Woman.” The New York Times Magazine, 13 Oct 2002, https://www.nytimes.com/…/13/magazine/the-mystery-woman.html