Salvador Dalí (4)

Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for its visual artworks and writings.

Giorgio de Chirico's The Red Tower (La Tour Rouge) (1913), Guggenheim Museum

Surrealist works feature the element of surprise, unexpected juxtapositions and non sequitur; however, many Surrealist artists and writers regard their work as an expression of the philosophical movement first and foremost, with the works being an artefact. Leader André Breton was explicit in his assertion that Surrealism was above all a revolutionary movement.

Surrealism developed out of the Dada activities during World War I and the most important center of the movement was Paris. From the 1920s onward, the movement spread around the globe, eventually affecting the visual arts, literature, film, and music of many countries and languages, as well as political thought and practice, philosophy, and social theory.

Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dalí i Domènech, 1st Marqués de Dalí de Pubol (May 11, 1904 – January 23, 1989), known as Salvador Dalí, was a prominent Spanish surrealist painter born in Figueres, Spain.

The Persistence of Memory

Dalí was a skilled draftsman, best known for the striking and bizarre images in his surrealist work. His painterly skills are often attributed to the influence of Renaissance masters. His best-known work, The Persistence of Memory, was completed in 1931. Dalí's expansive artistic repertoire included film, sculpture, and photography, in collaboration with a range of artists in a variety of media.

Artists: Eileen Agar, Jean Arp , Antonin Artaud, Salvador Dalí, Paul Delvaux , Robert Desnos. 

Frida Kahlo de Rivera

Frida Kahlo de Rivera (July 6, 1907 – July 13, 1954; Magdalena Carmen Frieda Kahlo y Calderón) was a Mexican painter, born in Coyoacán. Perhaps best known for her self-portraits, Kahlo's work is remembered for its "pain and passion", and its intense, vibrant colors. Her work has been celebrated in Mexico as emblematic of national and indigenous tradition, and by feminists for its uncompromising depiction of the female experience and form.

Mexican culture and Amerindian cultural tradition figure prominently in her work, which has sometimes been characterized as Naïve art or folk art. Her work has also been described as "surrealist", and in 1938 one surrealist described Kahlo herself as a "ribbon around a bomb".

Kahlo suffered lifelong health problems, many of which stemmed from a traffic accident in her teenage years. These issues are reflected in her works, more than half of which are self-portraits of one sort or another. Kahlo suggested, "I paint myself because I am so often alone and because I am the subject I know best." She also stated, "I was born a bitch. I was born a painter".

Frida was one of four daughters born to a Hungarian-Jewish father and a mother of Spanish and Mexican Indian descent. She did not originally plan to become an artist. A survivor of polio, she entered a pre-med program in Mexico City. At the age of 18, she was seriously injured in a bus accident. She spent over a year in bed recovering from fractures to her spine, collarbone and ribs, a shattered pelvis, and shoulder and foot injuries. She endured more than 30 operations in her lifetime and during her convalescence she began to paint. Her paintings, mostly self-portraits and still life, were deliberately naïve, and filled with the colors and forms of Mexican folk art.

At 22 she married the famous Mexican muralist Diego Rivera, 20 years her senior. Their stormy, passionate relationship survived infidelities, the pressures of careers, divorce, remarriage, Frida's bi-sexual affairs, her poor health and her inability to have children. Frida once said: "I suffered two grave accidents in my life…One in which a streetcar knocked me down and the other was Diego." The streetcar accident left her crippled physically and Rivera crippled her emotionally.

During her lifetime, Frida created some 200 paintings, drawings and sketches related to her experiences in life, physical and emotional pain and her turbulent relationship with Diego. She produced 143 paintings, 55 of which are self-portraits. When asked why she painted so many self-portraits, Frida replied: "Because I am so often alone....because I am the subject I know best."

In 1953, when Frida Kahlo had her first solo exhibition in Mexico (the only one held in her native country during her lifetime), a local critic wrote:

"It is impossible to separate the life and work of this extraordinary person. Her paintings are her biography."
This observation serves to explain why her work is so different from that of her contemporaries. At the time of her exhibition opening, Frida's health was such that her Doctor told her that she was not to leave her bed. She insisted that she was going to attend her opening, and, in Frida style, she did. She arrived in an ambulance and her bed in the back of a truck. She was placed in her bed and four men carried her in to the waiting guests.

 

Both Frida and Diego were very active in the Communist Party in Mexico. In early July 1954, Frida made her last public appearance, when she participated in a Communist street demonstration. Soon after, on July 13th, 1954, at the age of 47, Frida passed away.

Once when asked what to do with her body when she dies, Frida replied: "Burn it…I don't want to be buried. I have spent too much time lying down…Just burn it!"

On the day after her death, mourners gathered at the crematorium to witness the cremation of Mexico's greatest and most shocking painter. Soon to be an international icon, Frida Kahlo knew how to give her fans one last unforgettable goodbye. As the cries of her admirers filled the room, the sudden blast of heat from the open incinerator doors caused her body to bolt upright. Her hair, now on fire from the flames, blazed around her head like a halo. Frida's lips seemed to break into a seductive grin just as the doors closed. Her last diary entry read: "I hope the end is joyful - and I hope never to return - Frida.".

 

Today, more than half a century after her death, her paintings fetch more money than any other female artist. A visit to the Museo Frida Kahlo is like taking a step back in time. All of her personal effects are displayed throughout the house and everything seems to be just as she left it. One gets the feeling that she still lives there but has just briefly stepped out to allow you to tour her private sanctuary. She is gone now but her legacy will live on forever.

René Magritte

Rene Magritte (1898 – 1967) was a Belgian surrealist artist. He became well known for a number of witty and thought-provoking paintings that fell under the umbrella of surrealism. His work challenges observers’ preconditioned perceptions of reality.

  Presentation 1_

 Presentation 2

 

Ray Caesar

Ray Caesar (b. October 26, 1958) is a visual surreal artist and digital painter residing in Toronto, Canada. As he wrote about himself "I was born in London, England on October 26 1958, the youngest of four and much to my parent's surprise, I was born a dog". Caesar’s family moved to Canada after "some trouble with intolerant neighbours".

Graduating from the Ontario College of Art & Design, Caesar went on to work in the Art and Photography department of the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, where he has documented various child inflictions in sketches. This gruesome experience has enabled Caesar to create surreal landscapes and models with very detailed photographic textures.

He painted mostly little girls. But accordingly to his words "Actually they are not all little girls. Many of them are little boys too such as the Prince of Truth, Castor and Pollux, Harvest and many of them are boys in dresses ( boys were often dressed this way before the 20th century and I had two older sister that had no end of fun dressing me up)". "People think I paint pictures of children… I don’t! I paint pictures of the human soul… that alluring image of the hidden part of ourselves… some call them ghosts or spirits but I see them as the image of who we truly are, made manifest with all the objects and bruises that filled the story of each life."

"My work is mainly about the Archetype of the Divine Child… the Christ figure in all its forms as to me this represents spiritual growth. The children in my work are actually a form of self portrait and as an artist the feminine is a more accurate picture of the nature of the soul… of my soul… that which gives birth to creation."

The most incredible thing about Caesar’s work is that they are digital. At first glance, they look like paintings but Caesar creates his dream-like images with a 3D modeling software called Maya.

Art Informel - 1940-1950

Art Informel is a French style of abstract painting in the 1940s and 1950s. It is often considered to be the European offshoot of abstract expressionism. Sometimes referred also to as Tashism, Art Autre or Lyrical Abstraction, it was a type of abstraction in which form became subservient to the expressive impulses of the artist, and it was thus diametrically opposed to the cool rationalism of geometric abstraction. Term was coined in 1950 by the French critic Michel Tapi, primarily in relation to the work of Wols. Here are some of his pictures which marked the beginning of Art Informel movement:

Following the lead of Surrealist automatism, current in Surrealism, Art informel pictures were executed spontaneously and often at speed so as to give vent to the subconscious of the artist. Though embodying a wide range of approaches to abstraction, the brushwork in such works is generally gestural or calligraphic. Sometimes there is an emphasis on the texture or tactile quality of the paint, leading to a variant of Art informel referred to as Matter Painting.

   Antecedents of this style were Vasily Kandinsky, Paul Klee and Jean Dubuffet and particularly Andre Masson. In its more precise historical sense its pioneers were artists based in Paris, such as Jean Fautrier and Hans Hartung. Hartung in particular was producing paintings with many of the features of Art informel by the mid-1930s. 

Kinetic art - 1930-1960

Kinetic art is art that contains moving parts or depends on motion for its effect. The moving parts are generally powered by wind, a motor or the observer. Kinetic art encompasses a wide variety of overlapping techniques and styles.

Kinetic drawing.

   Kinetic drawing makes use of the critical balance and creates 3D drawings from various materials. Kinetic means that the object holds energy, kinetic drawings usually are critical in their stability and are eager to find a more stable position, through gravity. From there they are built up again, better and stronger and with a repetition of this process a beauty of its own starts to grow by natural forces.

   A variation of kinetic art in the realm of painting is ModulArt, where smaller modular elements allow a larger painting to be in flux, though not continuously but at the will of its creator, owner, or user. However, the painting stays in motion, offering alternative views and alternative interpretations.

Selected kinetic of artists

• Nadir Afonso
• Getulio Alviani
• Carlos Cruz-Díez

Art Deco - 1925-1940

Art Deco is a decorative and architectural style of the period 1925-1940, characterized by geometric designs, bold colors, and the use of plastic and glass. This movement first appeared in France during the 1920s, flourished internationally during the 30s and 40s, then waned in the post-World War II era. It is an eclectic style that combines traditional craft motifs with Machine Age imagery and materials. Its products included both individually crafted luxury items and mass-produced wares, but, in either case, the intention was to create a sleek and antitraditional elegance that symbolized wealth and sophistication.

  Influenced by Art Nouveau, Bauhaus, Cubist, Native American, and Egyptian sources, the distinguishing features of the style are simple, clean shapes, often with a streamlined look; ornament that is geometric or stylized from representational forms; and unusually varied, often expensive materials, which frequently include man-made substances (plastics, especially bakelite; vita-glass; and ferroconcrete) in addition to natural ones (silver, ivory and rock crystal). Typical motifs included stylized animals, foliage, nude female figures, and sun rays. The name derives from the "Exposition Internationale des Arts Dcoratifs et Industriels Modernes" in Paris in 1925, where new ideas in applied arts were demonstrated. Here are some of them:

Speaking about painting Vadym Maller was the first artist to be awarded a gold medal in this exhibition. Here is one of his pictures in Art Deco style:

By the way, the famouse Christ the Redeemer in Rio de Janeiro is also refered to this art movement. This is the largest Art Deco statue in the world.

Here are some of representatives: Cassandre, Tamara de Lempicka, Andre Mare, George Barbier, Vadym Meller.