Abstract:The focus of this book is on the period of high surrealism, drawn roughly from 1919 to 1945, from the end of Dada up to the catastrophic culminating moment of Nazism in Europe. Surrealism is an interw...The focus of this book is on the period of high surrealism, drawn roughly from 1919 to 1945, from the end of Dada up to the catastrophic culminating moment of Nazism in Europe. Surrealism is an interwar movement not simply chronologically but also in essence: it was created out of wartime experiences along an axis from Zurich to Paris that paralleled the Western front of what was called at the time the Great War. It soon became apparent that the 1920s and 1930s were not years at peace but a hiatus in the long European conflict that was to reach its apocalyptic height in the Second World War. Though it has its precursors, and though it has since been globally influential, high surrealism was defined and shaped by the events and culture of the years between the wars. Surrealism's historical moment has been mythologised and romanticised, not least by the surrealists themselves. It is easy to do. The movement's main actors were deliberately aggressive, antagonistic, and forceful; their actions were designed to provoke authority, aggravate other artists, and inflame popular opinion. Anecdotes of surrealist activities have a high jaw-dropping tellability factor. Many of the surrealists became key figures in the intellectual and artistic culture of the Western world for the core part of the 20th century (André Breton, Pablo Picasso, Joan Miró); others faded and died poignant deaths like Robert Desnos revising his love poems in Theresienstadt concentration camp, or led lives of crazy comedy like Salvador Dalí, or fought in the French resistance through the war like Louis Aragon and Paul Eluard.Read More
Publication Year: 2017
Publication Date: 2017-01-01
Language: en
Type: book-chapter
Indexed In: ['crossref']
Access and Citation
AI Researcher Chatbot
Get quick answers to your questions about the article from our AI researcher chatbot