When the word "surrealism" appears in a conversation or text, the first associations that come to mind are "painting" and "Salvador Dali." For many, the personification of fashion in the first half of the last century is precisely the great hoaxer. However, surrealism began, rather, with poetry, and then it was developed in painting. The founder of the direction is considered Andre Breton. The artist, writer and poet created the ideology of surrealism. And his whole life has been his center.
Andre Breton: biography from birth to World War I
The French writer was born in 1896 (February 19) in Normandy. Parents dreamed that their son would receive a profitable profession and become a respected person. Andre studied at a church school, then at a college in Paris, and finally enrolled at the Sorbonne in the medical faculty. And although Andre Breton did not become a doctor, he would carry his interest in psychiatry around that time through his whole life. The conclusions and ideas that came to him in the process of studying and comprehending the works of Charcot, and then Freud, in the future will become one of the foundations of the ideology of surrealism.
Turning points
Already during his studies, Andre began to engage in literature. During World War I, he served as a nurse and in the hospital he met Guillaume Apollinaire, a famous poet who would come up with the word “surrealism” a little later. Then followed a meeting with Phillip Supo. After returning to Paris at the end of the war, Andre, Philippe, as well as their comrade Louis Aragon, engaged in active literary activity, which resulted in the creation of a new stylistic direction.
After the war
Andre Breton, after demobilization, plunged headlong into the world of poetry. He admired the works of Apollinaire, read with pleasure W. Blake and Lotreamon, and in parallel continued to study psychiatry.
In 1919, Andre, along with Flipp Supo and Louis Aragon, opened the journal Literature. At the same time, Breton begins to participate in the activities of propagandists of Dadaism, the avant-garde movement, whose main idea was the systematic destruction of any aesthetics. He meets the founder of the movement, Tristan Tzara. However, rather quickly, Andre “outgrew” Dada. By 1922 he moved away from this direction and continued to create his own style. In the same year, Andre Breton, whose personal life was full of successful and promising events, met with Sigmund Freud in Vienna. The poet was greatly impressed by the experiments of the creator of psychoanalysis in the field of hypnotic dreams. Breton then uses his understanding of the works of Freud in the development of the ideology of surrealism.
New direction
Andre Breton released his first collection of poems in 1923. It was called the Light of the Earth. And in the next, 1924, he became the head of a group of artists and surrealist poets. Adherents of the new movement included Pablo Picasso, Francis Picabia, Max Ernst, Paul Eluard, and, of course, Aragon and Supo, as well as many other young artists. By this time, most of the elements of surrealism had already taken shape, but the new direction lacked some harmony and clarity. Andre and his comrades amazed the audience with fights and scandals at exhibitions and banquet halls, shocking presentations of his art. Breton, however, quickly realized the futility of the artistic movement, which is based on such methods of expression.
Manifesto of Surrealism
The main ideas of the new artistic direction were set forth in the first Manifesto of Surrealism, which Andre Breton wrote in 1924. Quotations of the document must still accompany any text about the history or program of this movement.
Surrealism in translation from French - "superreality". Breton defined his goal in his Manifesto as the most thorough elimination of the border between sleep and reality (and it is difficult to miss consonance with Freud’s ideas). A little later, in the essay "Surrealism and Painting", Andre will approve the title of not a new artistic style, but a way of life and thoughts, free from the obsessive and artificial principles of logic and morality inherent in the culture of that time.
Main method
Breton proposed to his comrades a new way of creating a work of art, primarily poetry and prose. It became "automatic writing" - a method of free expression of thoughts without the restraining and limiting control of the mind, aesthetics or morality. With his help, back in 1920, Andre Breton, together with Philip Supo, wrote The Magic Fields, published in the journal Literature.
In its full expression, “automatic writing” should have been creativity, not subject to the influence of taste preferences, subjective perception, momentary mood. It is free from internal and external influences, is pure thought, without impurities and restrictions.
The ideologist of surrealism was able to transform the "automatic writing" and for the needs of fine art. Andre Breton likened the picture in a sense to the text. Under the influence of his ideas, world-famous artists today created their masterpieces.
Breton has practically no paintings in the usual sense of the word. You can recall "Paracelsus", a playing card with two octopuses, created by Andre before leaving for the United States, or "Surrealist landscape", written during his fascination with Dada.
However, the most interesting graphic works of the author are the so-called poems, embodying a synthesis of visual art and poetry. The words in them were replaced with specific objects. After many experiments, Breton came to the conclusion that images convey meaning much better. True, the author always supplied verse comments with his poems.
Authoritarian leader
Breton was not flexible. Many of his associates rebelled against the rigidity of the dictatorship of the leader and left the movement. They were always replaced by new ones. So, Aragon and Supo gave way to Bunuel and Dali. By that time (the 30s of the last century), the Literature magazine was given the new name Surrealistic Revolution, Breton’s novel Nadia, illustrated by the author (1928, one of the most famous works of the author), and the already mentioned essay, were published Surrealism and painting ”(1928), as well as the essay“ Revolution first and forever ”(1925). Surrealism as an unusual, “fresh” lifestyle and a way of understanding reality began to spread throughout the world.
New adherents of the direction brought with them additional strength and ideas. The influence of surrealism in general and, in particular, Breton on art only intensified. The meaning of Andre is particularly vividly illustrated by the fact that after his death, the direction did not exist for long, just a few years.
Last years
During World War II, Breton lived in the United States, where he continued to create and maintain surrealism. Together with Duchamp and Ernst, he opened the International Art Exhibition. At Yale, he gave a lecture on surrealism. In 1945, Breton returned to France. Here he actively sought to recreate the former movement, but the attempts were in vain.
After returning to France, Andre participated in Paris exhibitions, wrote many prose and poetic works ("Arcanum 17", "Ode to Charles Fourier", "Lamp in the Clock", "Poems" and so on). Biographers also note the increased interest of the ideologist of surrealism in the last twenty years of his life in occultism. In 1966 (September 28), he died of pneumonia.
Influence
It is easy to understand what Andre Breton was primarily remembered for the descendants. Pictures with names and illustrations of the master are not so easy to find. Today, Breton is primarily the founder of surrealism, a poet and prose writer, a master of words. Its influence is noticeable in many literary movements of the middle and end of the last century. However, the master’s works drew inspiration and a large number of artists continue to do so.
Everything that Andre Breton created: paintings, a description of the main ideas of the main artistic direction of the first half of the 20th century, journalistic and poetic works - embodied the principles of surrealism. Breton organized a new trend, combining the moods and trends of the culture of his era, and thereby gave a powerful creative charge for the art of the future. Surrealism today inspires a large number of people to create new works in various fields of art, from painting and cinema to prose and music.