Page 56 - Studio International - November 1972

that the author was concerned more with intentions of the painter and of the creative certain mystique.
presenting a core of interesting visual material process than of the finished product. He related It is probable that Breton's principal claim to
rather than a lucid exposition of relevant art less to other art than to the life experience greatness as a writer about art rests on his
information that blends word and image in a and his essays are full of apparent digressions elaboration and promotion of such a mystique.
harmonious and heuristic way. Also, the with extended allusions to myth, poetry and Thanks to an unequalled intuition, and without
surreptitious and snide dedication of the book philosophy. Sometimes, instead of analysing imposing himself, he was frequently able to
to Lord Longford is not in the best of taste. paintings, he would create suggestive verbal elucidate the meaning of a developing oeuvre to
Francis Carr's treatise on European Erotic Art, equivalents to the artist's images. Sometimes, the artist himself and indicate the direction in
at nearly twice the price of the book by Mr he would use the artist's work as a springboard which it would most profitably lead, thus
Lucie-Smith, is not such good value for money, for meditation on such issues as the relation generating the courage and conviction the artist
for it presents a too simplistic view of sexuality. between perception and mental representation, needed before he could press forward to more
In the main, the illustrations presented the immanence of the marvellous, love and daring invention. A reading of Surrealism and
comprise some of the lesser-known works by eroticism, the revolutionary potential of art. . . . Painting gives proof, if proof is needed, of
major artists, and his criterion for selection As the title suggests, this book is about Breton's power to inspire new art and should be
appears to be that the depiction must be pictorial Surrealism rather than about surrealist enough by itself to refute the arbitrary and
explicitly sexual (and thereby excluding an painting. Breton wrote as the founder and ungrateful judgements contained in William S.
enormous amount of material for consideration, theoretician of a movement with its own Rubin's Dada and Surrealist Art. As for Rubin's
that Kahmen (in particular) finds central to his sensibility, ethic and metaphysic - a movement charges that Breton's writing on art reveals 'no
thesis). Carr takes the narrow view that open of which painting was only one of many predictable taste' and that Breton was only
sexuality is healthy sexuality, and this manifestations. Art works for Breton were so interested in the image-maker 'regardless of the
impression is endorsed by the clinical-looking, many traces left behind in the course of a painting's pictorial qualities proper', this book
flesh-tinted paper on which the book is printed. spiritual quest, evidence of an adventure but not simply shows the insufficiency of such
In sum, these books provide some the purpose of it. They were expressions of a categories. Breton's commitment was
fascinating pictorial material, bringing together theory which demanded, not illustrations, but accompanied by an alertness to innovating
for the first time a broad spectrum of graphics, the complement of action. genius which seldom erred. Not only was he the
paintings and sculptures hitherto publicly Although Surrealism may have risked the first to recognize a multitude of individual
unavailable but widely disseminated, though complete dissolution of form for the sake of talents, he also established the order of
the substance of the texts is extremely variable. fidelity to the authentic flux of experience and expectations with which we still approach their -
Now the flood gates have been opened we must although Breton might dismiss painting as a work. It was Breton who first understood the
look forward to a thorough and comprehensive `lamentable expedient', a sizeable body of work significance of Marcel Duchamp's itinerary and
document on the theme of erotica with a text built up which laid claim to the surrealist of his ultimate silence, whose interpretation of
worthy of the illustrations. At the moment we etiquette and which Breton had to account for. Chirico remains the most suggestive. With
know more about the psychodynamics of the From 1926 onwards he did so continuously and prodigious style, Breton established the
authors than about the erotic works of art also subjected art from the past, or with metaphysic of the object, drew attention from
themselves. apparent affinities, to examination through the African to Oceanic art, anticipated Abstract
MAURICE YAFFE surrealist lens. The question that now arises is Expressionism in the United States, and offered
whether there is anything more in common the most profound analysis of the processes of
Savage eyes between the artists discussed in this book - mediumistic inspiration in art. André Breton
Surrealism and Painting, by André Breton. between Magritte and Gorky, or between was more than an initiate in the temple of
Translated by Simon Watson-Taylor. Kandinsky and Crépin - other than the fact that painting, he was high priest and fortunately he
Macdonald, London 1972. £15. their work may have provoked in Breton at one did not limit his office merely to 'exchanging
time or another the sensation of 'a great rustling looks of secret understanding'. q
`Whoever has truly penetrated into the temple of leaves surging through the poplars of my ROBERT STUART SHORT
of painting knows that its initiates seldom blood'. Perhaps part of the answer is to be found
communicate in words. They reveal themselves - in the shock-phrase with which the book opens; De Chirico et al.
very mysteriously, for the profane - at the most `The eye exists in its savage state', which, like The Memoirs of Giorgio de Chirico, translated
by making a particular gesture of the hand Marx's and Engels's 'a spectre is haunting from the Italian by Margaret Crosland. 262
around some small portion of the picture and Europe . . .', was not so much a statement of fact pages with 24 illustrations. Peter Owen. £3.25.
then by exchanging looks of secret as a programme. According to Breton, all the Metaphysical Art by Massimo Cana. Translated
understanding.' This caution to silence before artists discussed here tried to preserve an eye from the Italian by Caroline Tisdall. 216 pages
the mystery of painting might seem out of place untrammelled by conventional perceptions,
with 233 illustrations, 8 in colour, Thames &
from André Breton who referred more whose untamed vision might share in the same Hudson. £2.10 and £1.25.
constantly and pertinently to the arts in his freedom that automatism had won for the poet.
writings than any poet since Baudelaire. This Surrealism in painting distinguished itself by The relative neglect of De Chirico, Carrà and
selection of his catalogue prefaces and his essays the 'purely internal models' to which the Morandi in this country is partly due to the fact
devoted specifically to painting and the object, painters referred; wild landscapes of the that the Metaphysical school was never, as
which he brought up to date in 1965 - now most unconscious which were the hunting-grounds of Caroline Tisdall points out i n her concise
sensitively rendered into English by Simon the 'savage eye'. For Breton, the surrealist foreword, anything as cohesive or spectacular
Watson-Taylor - makes a very substantial painter was first and foremost a `seer'; his as Cubism or Futurism, and hence did not have
volume. However, a glance at any of the texts Surrealism lay not in the operation of his hand the advantage of their charisma either. It is also
will show that Breton was not an art critic of the but in that of his inner eye. Thus Surrealism in partly due, of course, to the peculiar directions
conventional sort. First of all, Breton wrote only painting could embrace styles and techniques which the three metaphysicists subsequently
of the painters he loved. He preferred lyrical as different as the illusionistic automatism of a followed. Carrà's Italianate primitivism is
celebration to denigration or even critical Chirico or a Dali and the 'rhythmic automatism' unlikely ever to appeal to the English palate.
evaluation. Secondly, he was more interested in verging on abstraction of a Miró and a Masson. Morandi, whose art is more mordant, was such
the spirit which informs a painting than in its It was immaterial whether the artist painted a a hermit that it took a long time for him to be
formal qualities. He spoke more of the dream; what counted was his sharing in a recognized at all. The problem with De Chirico,
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