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1. Jackson Pollock, The Moon-Woman Cuts the Circle, 1943, Paris, Centre Pompidou, Musée national d'Art Moderne - Centre de Création industrielle © Centre Pompidou, MNAM-CCI, dist. RMN-Grand Palais, Philippe Midget, Sabam Belgique, 2024
Exploring Surrealism: unveiling historical antecedents in the Brussels Art Scene
To mark the centenary of The Surrealist Manifesto, this article delves into its historical antecedents and the pivotal role played by the Brussels art scene in shaping Surrealist Art. The current exhibition aims to illuminate Surrealist creation through the lens of Symbolist ideas within their international context.
By adopting a thematic approach rooted in motifs from fin-de-siècle literature and artistic practices, the exhibition highlights distinctive differences and specificities across material, technical, stylistic, theoretical, aesthetic, ideological, philosophical, and other levels.
Surrealism profoundly influenced international art trends until the 1960s, with Brussels emerging as a cultural epicenter from the late 19th century. The "Les XX" circle provided a global platform for progressive artists, and Belgian Symbolism gained momentum under Emile Verhaeren's influence in 1886. This movement continued to influence art education and official exhibitions through the First World War, leading to Brussels becoming a hub of Belgian Surrealism by 1924.
Recent insights into the Belgian fin-de-siècle art scene, such as Michel Draguet’s research in "Symbolism in Belgium," offer a critical analysis that distinguishes between idealistic "imaginers" and formalist practitioners.
While Symbolists sought the mysterious and ideal, Surrealists embraced Freudian psychoanalysis, advocating for psychic automatism devoid of rational control. This conceptual shift not only shaped Surrealist aesthetics but also delineated its divergence from Symbolism.
From organic Surrealism’s biomorphic forms to Dada’s boundary-breaking experiments, Surrealists pushed artistic boundaries to reflect inner truths. Salvador Dalí exemplified this with his critical-paranoia method, distorting recognizable scenes into unsettling hallucinations under a stark light.
In revisiting these historical connections, this article invites readers to explore the rich tapestry of influences that shaped Surrealism, offering a deeper understanding of its enduring impact on art and culture.
The Labyrinth
From 1933 to 1939, the Surrealist magazine Minotaure was published in Paris, initiated by publisher Albert Skira and Tériade. It featured writings by artists, experts, and "the most representative poets of their generation," focusing on ethnography, archaeology, and psychoanalysis. Contributions from artists in other countries added to its dynamism and richness.
Picasso, Duchamp, Miró, Dalí, Ernst, Masson, and Magritte contributed to the magazine, giving it originality and depth. The tale of the Minotaur, Theseus, and Ariadne’s thread tells of a destructive monster with a bull's head and tail and a human body, trapped in a labyrinth on Crete in ancient times.
In 1914, French poet Guillaume Apollinaire, who coined the term Surrealism, was associated with the mystical principles of Orphism. Artists found inspiration in the energy of artistic creation seen in the Minotaur and the bullfight, symbolizing the aggression needed for artistic freedom. The monstrous Minotaur embodies the brutality of dictatorship, akin to a modern golden calf, and the savage violence of ancient times, destroying nascent life.
The Night
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2. Dorothea Tanning (1910-2012), La Chambre d'amis, 1950-1952, Huile sur toile, 153 x 107 cm, Collection privée, courtesy of Daniel Malingue, Paris © photo Florent Chevron, Sabam Belgium, 2024
Among all themes linking Surrealism to Symbolism, the theme of night is the most romantic. Around midnight, spirits emerge, acting like mediums giving access to the deepest parts of the subconscious, where dreams and dark desires live.
During the twilight of the blue hour, poetic dreams become reality, and the world of darkness and sadness fades away in the bright light. In the 17th century, night landscapes were rare but moody night scenes and city views became popular in the late 19th century.
In post-impressionism, and even more in photography, reflections and heavy shadows gained attention. The shimmering play of reflections shows the elusiveness of things, no matter how ordinary or solid they seem. For a few moments, the line between a foreground and background disappears, and objects slowly dissolve into the blue of the night, attempting to represent the impossible.
The Forest
Like night, the forest is a key theme in German Romantic literature. Deep in the forest, poets hope to find the ever-blooming blue flower, symbolizing the Romantic ideal. The forest is often linked to the dark and hidden parts of the human mind.
Night birds act as messengers from another world, connecting the earthly with the heavenly. Fantasy and magic rule in a world of transformations. The owl, on the other hand, is a symbol of wisdom, intuition, and change. It hears the forest's voice and predicts what will happen in the deepest darkness.
Visually, forests and their creatures offer many possibilities. Following the Dadaist tradition, Max Ernst blends reality and imagination in his images of forests and nature. He brings distressed wood floors to life by rubbing paper over them with a pencil or scraping paint off canvases. This creates textures that rely on visual thinking. In these simple works, sensory experience is key.
The Mental Landscapes
These vivid hallucinations transport the viewer into psychological spaces of unease and isolation. Recognizable landscape features give way to strange shapes like creatures, single-celled organisms, minerals, magma, and odd mixtures. Science-fiction creatures inhabit these bizarre landscapes, bringing memories of ancient times with desolate deserts and images from ocean bottoms where life began.
The idea of creation inspired many Surrealist artists to take an interest in botany, often from a poetic and philosophical perspective. In his 1790 book "Metamorphosis of Plants", Goethe described plants (and by extension animals) as beings that change form from simplicity to diversity. He explained that the plant kingdom is based on the "Urpflanze", an ideal plant he hoped to find one day in Sicily.
Metamorphoses and Myths
Ovid’s epic poem "Metamorphoses", written in the 1st century, features gods and heroes and has sparked renewed interest. The Surrealists found new ways to use these ancient stories, which have inspired visual arts, literature, and music since the Renaissance. These imaginative tales show that everything and everyone is always changing, and nothing is lost.
Popular depictions of Apollo and Daphne, for example, show the transformation of a human into a tree. This theme can be seen in the works of Kernn-Larsen, Delvaux, Oppenheim and Masson. Mythical and hybrid transformations give artists a rich source of images to explore their art and the mysteries of human life.
Chimera
Born in the underworld, the fire-breathing monster Chimera spreads death and destruction. In his "Iliad", Homer describes a monster with the head of a lion, the body of a goat, and the tail of a snake.
In biology, the term chimera describes the rare coexistence of different genetic types in a single individual. This unique blending removes boundaries and allows for free associations. In a world ruled by fantasy, we see figures that are half-human, half-animal, and half-object, as shown in the works of Brauner, Lam and Ernst.
Dream and Nightmare
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3. Salvador Dali, Soft Construction with Boiled Beans (Premonition of Civil War), 1936, © Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia (Pennsylvania), The Louise and Walter Arensberg collection, © Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí, Figueres - Sabam Belgium, 2024
In the Manifesto of Surrealism, Breton openly supports Freudian theory, which he understood well during his time in the psychiatric ward of a military hospital in World War I.
Psychoanalysis may heal troubled people, but Breton believed a similar poetic method could open the door to a twilight zone between reason and passion, and thus to surrealistic art creation.
The border between dream and nightmare is very fluid, and the line between personal horror and social horror is just as blurry. As if in a prophetic dream, the Surrealists, who called for complete artistic, social, and ethical freedom, recognized the threat of totalitarian regimes.
The Tears of Eros
Freud's idea of the uncanny mixes the ordinary with the strange raised questions about beauty, cruelty, desire, and the drive towards death, known as Eros and Thanatos, in the context of sexual identity.
In Symbolist art, women are often shown as provocative femme fatales, linking beauty with corruption, but in the Surrealist movement, breaking rules is a central theme. However, young female Surrealists no longer see their desires confined by patriarchal structures.
In 1934, "Minotaure" (vol. 6) published a series of photographs featuring disturbing scenes of fetish objects, including Hans Bellmer’s Doll. Inspired by Berlin mannequins and automatons, Bellmer created a disturbing object of desire, making us think about bodily integrity and sexual identity.
Using parts of shop-window mannequins, like shoes and white socks, he made a complex entity of isolated body parts and limbs that are both flexible and endlessly changeable.
Cosmos
The fascination with the cosmos and the myths runs deep in both the Symbolist and Surrealist circles. Symbolist drawing and painting aim to reveal hidden, mystical knowledge about the true nature of things through art. In a Surrealist context, cosmic awareness forms the foundation for a new mythology.
In the last volume of "Minotaure" (1939), Breton wondered about which unknown spiritual territories were still to be discovered. The answer came from the New World. Faced with the vast North American landscapes, endless horizons, and immense night skies, both Max Ernst and André Masson spoke of a cosmic experience, a deep contemplation of the essence of things, as seen in the works listed in Arp's, Calder's and Ernst's.
In his early work, the young Jackson Pollock also explored the cosmologies of Native Americans, discovering in their myths and symbols a strong connection to the cosmic order that influenced his own art. Through these differents yet connected visions, the cosmos emerged not only as a source of artistic inspiration but also as a vast, mysterious realm inviting deeper spiritual and intellectual exploration.
Informations about the exhibition
Place: Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium
Date: 21.2.2024 - 21.7.2024
Curators: Francisca Vandepitte, Didier Ottinger and Marie Sarré
Ticket: Available at the front desk of the museum
Informations about the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium
Rue de la Régence 3
1000 Brussels
Belgium
Phone: +32 2 508 32 11
Mail: info@fine-arts-museum.be