However, Surrealism as a movement had already experienced the moment of its triumph. Even in the early stages, absolute unity had not been one of its characteristics, but now disagreements were becoming increasingly acute. The events in the political and social life of Europe at the beginning of the twentieth century were bound to be reflected in a movement which took such an uncompromising, even anarchist position on the subject of the bourgeois world. First the Revolution in Russia and the wave of unrest that hit the whole of Europe as a result, along with Lenin and Trotsky’s writings; then the war in Morocco, and the necessity for the French intelligentsia to determine their own position in relation to it – all this provoked not only heated polemics from the Surrealists that were directed against other groups of intellectuals in Paris, but also sharp disagreements within the movement. It seemed as though the Surrealists only had to go one step further before they found themselves moving into social and political activism. In any event, in the middle of the twentieth century they left their ivory tower, feeling that they had a bond with the destructive forces of the revolution. “The authentic art of today is hand in glove with the social function of revolution: art, like the latter, aims to confuse and to destroy capitalist society”, Breton wrote.[60] In this situation, the question arose: what in practical terms could the Surrealists accomplish? Pierre Naville put this question in his article, “Intellectuals and the Revolution”. According to him, the Surrealists had the choice of two directions: “either to persist in a negative attitude along anarchist lines, a false attitude from the outset because it does not justify the idea of revolution which it proclaims, an attitude which is subordinate to the refusal to compromise one’s own existence and the sacred character of the individual in a fight which would lead towards the disciplined action of the class struggle; or, commit oneself resolutely to a revolutionary course, the only revolutionary course, the Marxist course.”[61] Breton affirmed his solidarity with the Communist Party.
Oscar Domínguez, The Minotaur, 1938.
Private Collection.
The most decisive position on the political level was taken by the Five (“Les Cinq”): Aragon, Breton, Éluard, Peret, Unik. In November 1926, they excluded Antonin Artaud and Philippe Soupault from the Surrealist movement for “incompatibility of aims”. They thought that it was now no longer enough to state one’s position: one had to take the side of the party of revolution. Ties which had once seemed so strong were cut as friendships were destroyed by these heated arguments. The framework of Surrealism seemed to some of them to be too narrow. Desnos and Naville left the movement. Breton was implacable towards his former friends. He demanded that the performance which Artaud was arranging should be taken off the stage, despite the fact that Artaud had already been excluded from the group, and he got the police to come to the theatre. Breton’s position gave rise to an increasing level of discontent, and he was reproached for his tyrannical treatment of the members of the group. Breton thought that it was necessary to manage every Surrealist to make sure that his individual activity conformed to the revolutionary line. In 1929, La Révolution surréaliste published the Second Surrealist Manifesto. Breton thought it was his duty to remind everyone else what the principles of Surrealism were and to purge it of everything that, from his point of view, was a betrayal. In response to this, his former friends published a stinging pamphlet under the same title as the one given to their pamphlet against Anatole France: “A Corpse”. As a result of these political conflicts, by the 1930s the Surrealist movement had arrived at a state of bifurcation: on one side was Breton’s group, which took a position of revolutionary engagement; on the other side were those artists who from the mid-1920s were providing a demonstration of Surrealism in the visual arts, and establishing its place within them.
Aside from the growing activity of the artists in Paris, Surrealist art was now in evidence beyond France’s borders. In 1931, the first important Surrealism exhibition was held in the United States, with works shown by Dalí, de Chirico, Ernst, Masson, Picasso, Miró and others. Personal exhibitions of the Surrealists came to various American cities. Additionally, in 1933 a Surrealist exhibition was held in Teneriffe. By the end of the 1930s, exhibitions of the Surrealists had covered the whole of Europe, reaching Belgium and Holland, Zürich, Copenhagen, Prague and London. Japan and Latin America also received their fair share of Surrealism. In the 1940s, the activities of the Surrealists continued primarily in America where many of them had gone to escape the Second World War. During the war, a large exhibition of Surrealist art was held in London. In 1945, a collection of Breton’s writings on painting came out in the United States, entitled Surrealism and Painting. In June 1947, the International Exhibition of Surrealism was held in Paris at the Galerie Maeght. It could truly be said that the visual art of Surrealism had conquered the whole world. The fame of its artists, and the huge interest in its painting was far greater than the public profile of Surrealism in literature, although this was where the movement had started. A moment in the history of art had probably come when art needed an influx of new forces. If the visual language of painting at the beginning of the twentieth century had been the focus of concern of Fauvism, Cubism and Futurism, of Matisse, Picasso and Kandinsky, then the nihilism of Dada, in combination with the philosophy and literature of the Surrealists, at once created the conditions which enabled art’s internal vacuum to be filled. And, as will always be the case, Surrealist painting did not spring up out of a desert. The history of European art is remarkable for such a wealth of treasures that here and there the future Surrealists were able to find the first shoots of what would later, with careful nurturing, function to make up the special language of their art. If the first road to Surrealism traversed through Dada, then the second road lay through that existing tradition in art which had constituted a manifestation of Surrealism long before the movement was officially christened in the twentieth century.
Toyen (Marie Cermínová), At the Chateau Lacoste, 1946.
Private Collection.
Yves Tanguy, The Inspiration, 1929.
Oil on canvas, 130.5 × 97 cm.
Musée des Beaux-Arts, Rennes.
Salvador Dalí, The Enigma of Hitler, 1939.
Oil on canvas, 51.2 × 79.3 cm.
Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid.
The Surrealists before Surrealism
The artist Hieronymus Bosch was born in the mid-fifteenth century in a tiny Dutch town not far from the German border. His name was derived from the name of his native town, Hertogenbosch, known in French as Bois-le-Duc. He died in 1615, leaving behind a legacy in painting which already struck Giorio Vasari in the sixteenth century as “fantastiche e capriciose”. Choosing not to compete on the same ground as his great contemporary Jan van Eyck, Bosch astonished people with the unbridled fantasy of the world he had created. The Italian Lomazzo, author of the Treatise on the Art of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, wrote in Bosch’s lifetime: “The Fleming Girolamo Bosch, who in depicting strange appearances, and frightening and horrible dreams, was unique and truly divine.”[62] In the sixteenth century he had already acquired a reputation as “the creator of devils”. At that time, medieval monsters and fantastic images whose purpose was to strike fear into the heart of man and to curb his pride were still customary, and their symbolism could be well understood. However, the pictures of this Dutchman made a deeper