Friday, December 20, 2013

Am I going against God's creation for enjoying Surrealism so much?

The Surrealism movement began in Paris in the 1920s and continued through the 1960s, although people still use the word "surreal" frequently to describe artistic work that embodies the principles these artists followed. Andre Breton (who also created Dada, a literary art form employing random collections of words) founded the movement in 1924 when he wrote "The Surrealist Manifesto," but the term "surrealism" was first used by Guillaume Apollinaire, in the review of a ballet created by Pablo Picasso, Leonide Massine, Jean Cocteau, and Erik Satie. These artists, as well as Salvador Dali, Joan Miro, Marcel Duchamp, Rene Magritte, Marc Chagall, and Max Ernst were a few of the artists whose work came to be associated with this movement.

Psychoanalysis was being more widely known and read about at this time, and the Freudian concepts of repression and unconscious desire were important to the Surrealists, who believed that people are often encouraged to repress their inner thoughts and feelings out of fear or guilt. There are contemporary artists who are considered modern Surrealists, such as Jacek Yerka, Mark Ryden and Vladimir Kush.


I think your question has to do with Surrealism's representation of unusual beings (chimeras, or creatures who combine parts of different animals) and strange portrayals of humans who do not conform to the so-called "normal" ways we view such things. Interestingly, such creatures are now potentially possible through the wonders of gene-splicing and genetic engineering!

There is a great deal of religious art that has been produced throughout history, and one way of looking at Surrealism is to appreciate the artists' attempts to explore the intimate recesses of the human mind, much as science is a way of exploring human potential of knowledge of the known universe. If your belief system dictates that God created Man in his own image, then the existence of intelligent and creative beings can be seen as something that God is in favor of. Then again, humans do a lot of things that do not seem to agree with what God had in mind...


I think if you enjoy this art and find it stimulating, you can view it as a celebration of the human spirit, an appreciation of human endeavor, and the joy and wonder that creativity can bring to us all.

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