- The art of Surrealists- Edmund Swindlehurst
In Surrealism artists escaped from conventional art & found inspiration in the subconscious mind. As this exciting collection of the finest surrealist paintings shows, they found it in many different ways. For some, Surrealism was expressed in a semi-abstract style, as with Paul Klee. For others, the way was through painting imaginary objects, as did Grigio de Chirico, or un using realistic figures to represent subconscious ideas, as Salvador Dali did; These & other famous Surrealist painters are included in this splendid book.
Max Ernst and André Masson, thought that traditional western culture had no more to offer the world and that a clean break needed to be made. It was necessary to cut the cultural umbilical cord linking past and present and to look for new ideas in the world of the subconscious that Freud, Jung and other psychologists were discovering. To create art without roots.
To releasee the subconscious, Brenton adapted the process of automatic writing (writing first thing that comes to mind, ignoring censorship of the conscious ego. Painters adapted the same techniques. (Painting in the dark, creating pictures out of rubbish
Surrealist was an eclectic group without a common style
My thoughts:
The artist uses art to translate the subconsciousness mind.
- ‘Gods’-British Museum Pocket treasure
Deities appear in many forms in the British museum. Frequently pictured on artefacts, they are also sculpted and drawn in their own right. This selection brings together some of the gods of ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome, Mesopotamia, Mesoamerica and India, and shows them in many different guises in which they have been conceived and represented throughout history.
Despite such apparently wide difference several common themes recur among the pieces illustrated here. One of these is. The use of animal imagery to express the natural forces personified by certain deities. Or hold or wear animal attributes that allude to the powers
Ex: Thoth shown wholly animal form, Ganesha as boy with elephant head, Shiva and mercury hold snakes
Both positive and negative aspects were combined in a single deity.
Ex: Shiva both creator and destroyer, Zeus
Such ancient myths and images have continued to inspire artists and patrons to the present day. We cannot deny the enduring power of these gods to evoke in us a sense of awe and wonder, and perhaps, too, of contact with our own
My thoughts:
The whole discussion about the returning artefacts to their original land, them ignoring requests and keeping things after colonial past. Most of the gods are a retranslation of each other. There are many gods in different cultures that are the same
| Technique | What You Do | Example (Apple Image) |
| Relaying | Retell without change | Redraw apple as-is |
| Mimicking | Copy style | Use same brushstrokes |
| Copying | Duplicate exactly | Trace apple photo |
| Parodying | Mock humorously | Apple with sunglasses |
| Interjecting | Add commentary | Apple says “Don’t eat me!” |
| Extrapolating | Extend idea | Draw kitchen around apple |
| Hybridizing | Mix elements | Apple merged with clock |
| Paraphrasing | Rephrase idea | Paint a pear instead |
| Improvising | Create spontaneously | Freestyle fruit art |
Hybridizing
Definition: Combining elements from different sources or styles to create something new.
Example:
You merge the apple with a clock — an apple-clock on the table — or blend realistic and abstract art styles.
A creative fusion of ideas.
Improvising
Definition: Spontaneously creating something new using the original as a loose guide.
Example:
You start with the apple but then freely paint additional fruits, patterns, and colours — following inspiration rather than plan.
➡️ Unscripted creativity building from a prompt.
Experiments book surrealism
- Hybridizing
Mixing different paintings of Magritte into one, to create a new surrealism take. New name is also a mix of the names of the used paintings
- The road to memoir of the reckless sleeper in motion
- The sign of the perpetual evening
Creating different colour pallets of the paintings to see if the atmosphere changes. If the overall
Playing with the blur – effects of photoshop. It reminded me of sleepy eyes link with the surrealism idea of finding inspiration from the subconscious mind.
First with my own collage them seeing if it worked with just the painting and with the painting in different colours.
Experiment book gods
Reading the book some of the images of the gods didn’t match the description of them
Ex:
Xochipili
So, I tried to add elements to match the image I had in my mind after reading about the god.
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