Consciousness, Literature and the Arts

Archive

Volume 4 Number 1, April 2003

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Bohn, Willard. The Rise of Surrealism:  Cubism, Dada, and the Pursuit of the Marvelous. Albany, State University of New York Press, 2001, 248 pp. ISBN:  0-7914-5460-7 HC: $71.50  PB:  $23.95

Reviewed by

 

Amy Ione 

 

Anyone who has ever wondered about Surrealism's continued influence over the art world will delight in Willard Bohn's The Rise of Surrealism:  Cubism, Dada, and the Pursuit of the Marvelous.  He examines how Surrealism was transformed from an obscure Dadaist splinter group into the movement still valued today, highlights why Cubism, Metaphysical Art and Dada as well as Surrealism became international movements, and captures the staying power of Surrealism as well.  Throughout Bohn aids the reader in perceiving why Surrealist work continues to titillate the mind and imagination. Moreover, this author's decision to look closely at the contributions of key figures associated with André Breton and the Surrealist movement makes this well-researched study easy to read. This author's talent with words further enhances each introduced topic.  While not a comprehensive history or a theoretical study per se, the various chapters do integrate selected key ideas pertaining to the Surrealist history, theory, and legacy.

 

Sadly a short review cannot adequately cover how the visible poetry of painters is woven together with the verbal painting writers practiced.  Suffice to say that this succinct and compact publication includes the role of the fourth dimension in Surrealist conception generally, Apollinaire's treatment of the fourth dimension in relation to Weber's views, portraiture as practiced by Marius de Zayas and Francis Picabia, the disillusionment with Dada that encouraged Surrealism, the paradoxical images of de Chirico, and the relationship between Breton and Apollinaire, among other things.  The various threads on Guillaume Apollinaire are particularly well done.  Delineating Apollinaire's respect for the imagination and his concentration on the internal, experiential nature of reality, the book successfully breathes life into this thoroughly modern artist (and those he influenced). I particularly liked the way Bohn spoke of Apollinaire's respect for creative power, which he believed was directly dependent on an artist's ability to imagine.  Perhaps the most compelling sections are those that compare Breton and Apollinaire, two figures that continue to stimulate scholarly debates. Although Breton is generally characterized today as the founder of Surrealism, the term surrealism first appeared in a 1916 Apollinaire publication.  It is also found in a letter he wrote to André Breton in the same year.  In fact, Breton acknowledged that he chose the name "Surrealism" in homage to Apollinaire, who died prematurely in 1918.  Bohn adds it was no doubt out of respect for him as well.  Thus while some critics distinguish Breton's Surrealism from that of Apollinaire, this author convincingly argues that there are both commonalities and differences we must weigh when contrasting their work. Bohn also explains this in terms of the Surrealist project(s). Breton wrote in his Manifeste du surréalisme that

 

Surrealism sought to liberate the unconscious, and to tap its powerful forces via automatic writing, automatic speech, and the analysis of dreams.  The superior reality (or surreality) embodied by these forms of association was that of the unconscious itself, the exploration of which promised to expand our total awareness.  Looming over the entire project, le merveilleux ("the marvelous") embodied "l'irrémédiable inquiétude humaine" (the incurable human malaise) (MS, p. 321).  As such, it was recognizable by the revelatory shudder it evoked in those who experienced it.  (p. 129)

 

Apollinare, while exploiting many of these ideas did not ascribe to precisely the same view as Breton.  It was Breton's intention to decipher dreams and the unconscious based on a Freudian approach.  Apollinaire, instead, focused on an unmapped conception.  In sum, Bohn, concentrating on several crucial texts, argues that a careful weighing of their ideas allows us to achieve a more balanced understanding of how what we now term Surrealism actually took form.

 

Also of note is Bohn's talent in placing the highlighted artists in terms of some general ideas associated with Surrealism. Nietzsche's influence is mentioned several times.  For example, Bohn notes this philosopher's impact on Weber and how Nietzsche's distinction between Apollonian and Dionysian impulses in art influenced de Chirico.  To oversimplify, in Nietzsche's view the two art deities of the Greeks — Apollo and Dionysus — represent two kinds (and processes) of art.  Defined as polarities, the Apollonian is said to correspond to a classical approach, while the Dionysian is more romantic by nature.  Bohn states that de Chirico saw himself more in terms of the Apollonian tradition, although his paradoxical pictures yield Dionysian elements. Some theoretical threads, in my view, were too narrowly contrived, however.  For example, Freud was important to the Surrealists and Bohn, to his credit, competently applies Freudian concepts to the projects discussed.  Yet, there is no consideration of how "Freudian" the Surrealist work actually is.  It seems this is worth some consideration in light of Sigmund Freud's 1932 letter to André Breton in which he confessed that although he recognized that he had received many testimonies of interest from Breton and his group, he was not able to clarify for himself what Surrealism is and what it wanted from him. 

 

Finally, it is important to underscore that the surveyed topics did effectively interrelate the marked pictorial bias within Surrealist poetry, pictorial equivalents to automatic writing, conflated (or illogical) metaphoric associations, and strange pictorial associations among objects.  These characterizations, employed by the Surrealists to assert their belief that the image possessed the power to alter our view of the world around us, also serve to undermine our belief in the foundations within our reality.  Explaining that, for the Surrealists, reality was at best an illusion and at worst a cruel deception, the author, in my opinion, doesn't adequately address the negative connotations that grew up with this movement.  To be sure, as he explains, strategies these artists derived expanded interest in the subconscious and in 'deconstructing' reality.  Yet, while the freedom to explore further is beneficial, a lack of 'rootedness' and firm footing accompanied the sense of an illusory reality.  To my mind, the various ways the ongoing process of deconstruction undermined the sense of foundation known in earlier epochs is a side of Surrealism worthy of more attention.  With radical transformations increasingly a part of the global environment, no doubt future research will broaden inquiry into the negative ramifications of the illusory reality conception so much a part of the Surrealist legacy. 

 

In summary, this critical survey presents a well-developed, cohesive overview of competing artistic models and the various strategies for creating avant-garde work.  Offering a concise and yet robust examination of key figures such as Guillaume Apollinaire, de Chirico, Max Weber, Marius de Zayas, Francis Picabia, Bohn also provides an in-depth inspection of the close bond between art and poetry.  It is a marvelous book, very much in the spirit of the Surrealist movement he portrays.

 

 

 

Reviewed by Amy Ione (ione@diatrope.com).  Ione, an artist and a writer, is currently the Director of the Diatrope Institute.  More information about her work is available at www.diatrope.com/ione.