Art, Surrealism, and the Grotesque Essay

In Abstract Expressionism - a certain construction of the world we call “individuality” is revealed in its true, that is to say, contingent, vulgarity. And so is painting; or rather, so are paintings like Hofmann’s “The Garden” and Adolph Gottlieb’s “Black, Blue Red” - done as they were under the sign or spell of such a construction, by “individuals” believing utterly (innocently, idiotically) in its power.

The sublime is a feature present in many art works. It is an aesthetics category that, unlike other categories such as beauty or the picturesque, examines great and awe-inspiring phenomena. The sublime is an aesthetic notion that describes the emotions of awe that people experience when they encounter the immense, powerful, and even terrifying forces of the natural world. Like all aesthetic notions, the sublime produces various emotions with the persons viewing a piece of art. Moreover, many works of art that depict industrial landscapes or scenes rely upon the sublime to communicate to the viewer the sublime nature of modern industry. Indeed, artistic depictions of technology in industrial paintings reflection aesthetic concept of sublime by the scale and focal point in paintings.

Following the publication of Freud’s ‘Papers on Technique’ between 1912 and 1917, there have been papers and symposia on the subject. Four symposia in 1937, 1948, 1958, and 1961 were devoted to the examination of therapeutic results of psychoanalysis, the mechanisms behind its curative factors, variations in technique and the ego-psychological approach to interpretations (Rosenfeld, 1972, 454). In 1934, James Strachey published his paper on “The Nature of the Therapeutic Action of Psychoanalysis,” which has since been considered one of the most seminal works on the subject. He holds that his paper is “not a practical discussion upon psychoanalytic technique,” and that “it’s immediate bearings are theoretical” (Strachey, 1934, 127). However, as Herbert Rosenfeld points out in his 1972 critical appreciation of Strachey’s paper, “this is clearly an understatement; the paper both challenges one’s clinical experience and has important clinical implications even though actual case material is not quoted” (Rosenfeld, 1972, 454). It would not be difficult to summarize Strachey’s main points regarding therapeutic action and mutative interpretation, and it would prove similarly sterile to simply compare his ideas with the views of other psychoanalysts, contemporaneous and contemporary. Instead, as Strachey concerns himself primarily with the structural nature of mutative change, this paper will aim to delineate a more in-depth exploration of the way different structures of the

Unnerving, spooky, disturbing, frightful… All common characteristics of a hauntingly terrific tale by the famous Edgar Allan Poe. His story “The Masque of the Red Death” brought a grotesque taste to the horror genre throughout the 19th century with the use of literary devices. To summarize, Poe’s story discussed, in detail, the horrifying inevitability of death, which reveal the value of a device known as symbolism used by Poe in this literary work. As people are familiar with, Poe’s psychological weaknesses spurred his creativity to which he poured his problems into Gothic Literature, and he produced these unforeseen symbols as pawns of his life. In this popular short story, subtle objects are manipulated to reflect Edgar Allan Poe’s misfortunes. Symbolism is used throughout his short years of living as a narrative device for his eerie publications. Within this composition, I will be justifying how Poe’s influence on the use of symbolism constructed a disturbed and almost misleading

Surrealism is a movement that built off of the burgeoning look into art, psychology, and the workings of the mind. Popularly associated with the works of Salvador Dali, Surrealist art takes imagery and ideology and creates correlation where there is none, creating new forms of art. In this essay I will look to explore the inception of the surrealist movement, including the Surrealist Manifesto, to stress the importance of these artists and their work in the 20th century and beyond. I also will look to films from our European Cinema course to express how films incorporate the influence of surrealism both intentionally and unintentionally.

The surrealist movement of the 1920s-1930s was largely based on the notion that excessive rational thought is a catalyst of conflict and war throughout the world. Salvador Dali’s The Persistence

André Breton ran the Surrealist Movement with impressive discipline and rigidity, making an interesting contrast between what the Surrealists preached and the management style of its leader. An interesting story, for example, tells how Salvador Dalí, one of the most prominent members of the Surrealist movement, attended a New York costume party dressed up as Charles Lindbergh’s son, who had been recently kidnapped and murdered. New York’s society did not take the statement well and eventually made Dalí apologize for his behavior. Breton, however, almost dismissed him from Movement because he claimed that “no one should excuse himself for a Surrealist act[6].” This anecdote demonstrates the seriousness of Breton and his Movement towards its final objective: revolution and the slashing of society’s conventions in the interest of a subconscious reality.

This mental stress manifests itself in the form of art; the violent nature of the scene is explained by Bataille (1961) to signify humanity’s estrangement from the natural world (as cited in Lippit 2002:27). All in all, though the actual nature of the struggle is explained differently by the two authors, one conclusion of the significance of Lascaux between the two articles is that it shows the difficulties and challenges of life.

Freud’s theories have launched what is now known as the psychoanalytic approach to literature. Freud was interested in writers, especially those who depended largely on symbols. Such writers tend to tinge their ideas and figures with mystery or ambiguity that only make sense once interpreted, just as the analyst tries to figure out the dreams and bizarre actions that the unconscious mind of a neurotic releases out of repression. A work of literature is thus treated as a fantasy or a dream that Freudian analysis comes to explain the nature of the mind that produced it. The purpose of a work of art is what psychoanalysis has found to be the purpose of the dream: the secret gratification of an infantile and forbidden wish that has been repressed into the unconscious (Wright 765).

Human emotions remain as one of the world’s biggest secrets. Like sleep, we know what happens to our body when we experience these emotions whether it be a release of hormones or a certain area on the body becomes more sensitive. But we don’t know why we have them, experience them, or what purpose they serve. All we know is everyone’s emotions behave differently. Different types of arts can elicit completely different emotional response from people. Some art may have the ability to appeal to dangerous emotions in certain people. Whether it be the corruption of a once faithful and beautiful young girl, plagued by the desire for romanticism and lofty ideas, or a handsome young nobleman who is obsessed with living life to fullest. Both are fueled by the emotion that a certain type of art elicits in them, leaving them in a never ending chase that ruins there life’s. In the Novels Madame Bovary and The Picture of Dorian Grey the protagonists in these stories perfectly exemplifies the danger of arts emotional appeal by showing the corruption and eventual downfall of two once young and beautiful souls by exposing them to art that pleases dangerous emotions such as desire, pleasure, entitlement and disappointment.

According to Harpham, the term grotesque had come about unexpectedly close to the end of the fifteenth century, being “part” of the European consciousness, in a sequence of excavations through caves near Rome. During these excavations , it extracted murals, which were human figures and animal figures which were estimated to date from the Roman Depravity, which were interweaved with vegetation in an abnormal way which defy not only the regulations of gravity and statics but normal thought and common sense [ . The Grotesque: First Principles Author(s): Geoffrey HarphamSource: The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Vol. 34, No. 4 (Summer, 1976), pp. 461].

Sigmund Freud explored many new concepts in the human mind during his lifetime. He was the scholar who discovered an immense new realm of the mind, the unconscious. He was the philosopher who identified childhood experience, not racial destiny or family fate, as the vessel of character, and he is the therapist who invented a specific form of treatment for mentally ill people, psychoanalysis. This advanced the revolutionary notion that actual diagnosable diseases can be cured by a technology that dates to the dawn of humanity: speaking. Sigmund Freud, writing more than 320 books, articles and essays on psychotherapy in his lifetime, forever changed how society viewed mental illness and the meaning of their dreams. However, controversy over

The surrealist artists believed the dream state and subconscious mind to be an untapped and very fertile creative fount of inspiration. The symbolism of dreams and the expressive images generated by the subconscious were far more thought provoking than the representational, logical images of the conscious mind. The surrealist artists were creating art out of what others thought to be garbled and unintelligible. They were in effect taking a concept created to heal and using it to create art instead. They were on to something with this. No matter what the medium or the style used, a bit of the self becomes visible and evident in the result. Art therapy is one of the modern descendants of this movement.

At the turn of the century Paris was one of the capitals of culture and art to the outside world. However, the truth of the matter was that this taboo-ridden society was being run by an aristocracy that was repressing the arts. Naturally, when World War 1 broke out, the suppressed French society finally had a release and a rebellion against order arose. WWI specifically affected the theatre of French and it’s aftermath. From the ashes of war the avant-garde theatre grew and styles such as Dadaism and Surrealism were born. It was both the climate of culture before the war and the devastation of the war that lead to the outbreak of avant-garde theatre in France.

     Unfortunately, for some artists, the reality of life isn’t so beautiful. One of the most talented, yet mentally ill artists of all time was Vincent Van Gogh. He was also from the 19th century belonging to the post-impressionists. In order for one to analyze the art of