Category Archives: surrealism

Harpo Marx @120

Harpo Marx @120

[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wtc9a4TgRus]

Harpo Marx (1888 – 1964) was one of the Marx Brothers, a group of Vaudeville and Broadway theatre entertainers who achieved fame as comedians in the American film industry, greatly admired by the French surrealists and properly identified as American Surrealism.

Harpo was well known by his trademarks: he played the harp; he never talked during performances, although he often blew a horn or whistled to communicate with people; and he frequently used props – one of his most commonly used props in films was a walking stick with a built-in bulb horn.

He is exemplar of selective mutism, aphonia and the silent protagonist.

A little known fact is that in 1937 Salvador Dalí visited Harpo Marx in Hollywood to write the scenario for Giraffes on Horseback Salad, a film that was never produced. Photographic evidence of this encounter is perhaps this: “Dalí sketches Harpo Marx at the barbed wire harp”[1].

René Magritte @110

René Magritte (1898 – 1967) was a Belgian painter, with Paul Delvaux the best-known representative of Belgian Surrealism.

He became well known for a number of witty images and the use of self-referentiality in such works as The Treachery Of Images (This is not a pipe (Ceci n’est pas une pipe), the best illustration to the concept of the map is not the territory.

His work frequently displays a juxtaposition of ordinary objects in an unusual context, giving new meanings to familiar things (see recontextualization). The representational use of objects as other than what they seem is typified in his painting, The Treachery Of Images (La trahison des images), which shows a pipe that looks as though it is a model for a tobacco store advertisement. Magritte painted below the pipe, This is not a pipe (Ceci n’est pas une pipe), which seems a contradiction, but is actually true: the painting is not a pipe, it is an image of a pipe. (In his book, This Is Not a Pipe, French critic Michel Foucault discusses the painting and its paradox.) Mention of This Is Not a Novel by David Markson is also in place here.

All this is conveniently known and one should also point to Magritte predilection for the bowler hat.

Most of the work of Magritte strikes as profoundly unerotic, cerebral and situated to the wrong side (left brain) of the twentieth century art faultline, but appearances deceive.

Attempting the Impossible (1928) [1]
Les Amants / The Lovers. (1928) [2]
Le Viol (1934) – René Magritte [3][4]
Collective Invention (1934) [5]
Les Bijoux Indiscrets (1963) [6]

Many of these works hint at tainted and thwarted love and eroticism, skewed by a desire for paraphilic love and expression. There are hints of pygmalionism, attraction to independent body parts, rape and sensory deprivation. Unlike his contemporary André Masson, Magritte never takes on these subjects head-on, fodder for psychosexual interpretations which would conclude: repressed sexuality.

Alain Robbe-Grillet‘s  La Belle captive.

New to me in the 2000s was Alain Robbe-Grillet’s cinematic take on the sophistry of Magritte. Grillet managed to eroticize the unspoken eroticism of Magritte in his film La Belle captive.

In 1983 Grillet releases his feature film La Belle captive in a production by Anatole Dauman‘s Argos Films.

The film is named after a painting by René Magritte, and is also the name of a 1975 photonovel of La Belle Captive: A Novel written by Robbe-Grillet and illustrated with Magritte’s paintings. To complicate things still further “La Belle Captive” is an extended series of over a dozen paintings, worked on during four decades, with its primary subject the easel, suggesting art and reality held captive. In the case of the film, Grillet chose to interpret the title of the film literally by playing on the trope of the damsel in distress.

To be disovered remains the 1955 documentary film Magritte by Belgian filmmaker and cultural anthropologist Luc de Heusch.

A History of Derision, wikified

A History of Derision

A History of Derision

A History of Derision by way of Illusory Confections who wrote on its subject[1]:

“Be still my beating heart, this is practically everything I adore in one tidy 240 page bundle! But it isn’t referenced anywhere online and I couldn’t even find mention of it on the Atlas Press site. So I zipped an email to Atlas inquiring about it, and, sadly, its nonexistence was confirmed. Apparently it was a planned project that fell to the sidelines and “[1]

the website is the accurate source of what is available, the catalogue part bibliography and part fiction, if you like…

Here it is again in a wikified version,

A History of Derision is an aborted project by Arkhive, an Atlas Press imprint.

It builds on André Breton’s Anthology of Black Humour, but is more a history of French avant-garde.

French Romantics: Sade, Lassailly, Rabbe, Forneret, Nodier, Fourier

Bouzingos: Borel and O’Neddy

Hydropathes: Goudeau, Cros, Haraucourt, Lafargue, Richepin, Tailhade, Rollinat, Monselet, Sapeck, Allais.

Hirsutes and the Chat Noir: Salis, Moréas, Lorrain, Verlaine, Sarcey, Haraucourt.

Arts Incohérents: : Lévy, Rivière, Allais.

Zutistes: Allais, Cros, Nouveau, Rimbaud, Ajalbert, Haraucourt, Verlaine.

La Nouvelle Rive Gauche : Trézenick, D’Aurevilly, Verlaine.

Lutèce: Rall, Rimbaud, Corbière, Caze, Rachilde, Floupette (Vicaire and Beauclair).

Symbolists : de Gourmont, Jarry, Tailhade, Huysmans, Pawlowski.

Ecole de Paris : Apollinaire, Jacob, Salmon, Albert-Birot, Cami.

Dada : Aragon, Picabia, Ribemont-Dessaignes, Satie, Arp, Rigaut.

Surrealism : Desnos, Prévert, Péret, Topor, Magritte, Scutenaire, Daumal, Gilbert-Lecomte.

Situationists : Arnaud and Jorn, Dotremont, Mariën.

Daily Bul & Co: Bury, Béalu, Colinet.

Encyclopédie des FARCES et ATTRAPES et des MYSTIFICATIONS

Farcistes: Encyclopédie des farces et attrapes et des mystifications, François Caradec, Noël Arnaud.[2]

Oulipo.

Introducing Wim T. Schippers

Wim T. Schippers by Marco Raaphorst

Wim T. Schippers

This post is mainly intended for people living in Antwerp or the environs.

Tonight, “Pollens, wat een heisa!,” an homage to Dutch artist Wim T. Schippers starts at the Monty in Antwerp.

There are many things to be said about Wim T. Schippers, but since I write this blog in English and most of my readers are from all over the globe, these things will be of interest to few. Suffice it to start by saying that Schippers belongs to the Dutch Dada tradition.

Digression #1

I say Dada because Surrealism is to weak a word; and it can be agreed upon that surrealism was not but an insipid decoction of Dada; Dada having the chronological benefit of course. On the other hand, I realize there is no use bemoaning the insipidness of Surrealism, since Surrealism was its best possible replacement. Nevertheless, Surrealism to my liking has always been too formalistic and dogmatic.

In discussing Schippers, a number of comparisons are called for. In the Dutch language geographical area, we have Doctorandus P. whom I celebrated here[1] and [2] and who is most certainly a precursor of Schippers. Internationally, one can compare Schippers to Monty Python.

[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_azDvJdRC2Y]
Famous banana clip (I can’t hear you, I have a banana in my ear!)

Now the force of Schippers resides in his mainstream influence, most Dutch-speakers know him without knowing him, he is voice actor of a number of voices of the local version of Sesame Street, most famously Ernie. In The Netherlands he is also known by face as the presenter of a popular science quiz show.

Outside of some dim recollections of his 1970s TV shows, he crossed my personal path each Wednesday afternoon when I listened to his radio show on VPRO (Schippers in the persona of Jacques Plafond (Eng: Jacques Ceiling) [3]. These shows were hilariously irreverent. It was love at first sight.

Garage, Haarleem by Andy Field (Hubmedia)

Shit, I forgot my car, from a Sjef Van Oekel comic

Later still, there were the comics of Sjef Van Oekel, the brain of which was again Schippers.

In Belgium, the Dutch-speaking part where I live, there are two soul brothers of Schippers: Kamagurka and Herr Seele. And perhaps Hugo Matthysen.

To conclude: Schippers is the nobrow example and canonical to this blog, even if you’ve never heard of him, try to find his equivalent in your country.

Ernies Drol by Laurens Bontes

Ernie’s drol (Ernie’s Turd)

photo Laurens Bontes

Much better than the similar work of Paul McCarthy

[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qbBRVUjWKUg]
Going to the Dogs -Part 01 – This is the famous play for dogs by Dutch Wim T. Schippers.

[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAVOOn-Ill4]

The song “Pollens, wat een heisa!,” from which the homage’s title was taken. Notice the naked ladies towards the end

[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cl0EFJWx-bg]

Phil Bloom, reading the news naked, in 1967 on national television.

Saint Anthony at the movies

Perhaps the ultimate and most underrated dream vision (underrated because it is not recognized as a dream vision) in the history of Western literature is the The Temptation of St. Anthony, here [1] painted by Domenico Morelli as Le Tentazioni di Sant’Antonio, also the title of an Italian film of 1911 which depicts Flaubert’s version.

Domenico Morelli - Le tentazioni di Sant'Antonio by you.

[1] painted by Domenico Morelli as Le Tentazioni di Sant’Antonio,

Saint Anthony has not been popular among writers nor filmmakers but has been very influential to painters, the dream visions lend themselves perfectly to exploring taboo subject matter.

Temptation of Saint Anthony by Melies with woman on cross by you.

[2]

Only two notable filmmakers had a go at the story, Georges Méliès in 1898 and the aforementioned Italian version of 1911.

Then there is the curious case of The Private Affairs of Bel Ami[3]. For the realisation of this film Loew-Lewin Productions announced a “Temptation of St. Anthony” contest. David Loew and Albert Lewin had persuaded twelve modern artists to paint Anthony’s vision. Each artist was commissioned for $500. Max Ernst was the $3,000 prizewinner.

The work was to be shown in a close-up at a key moment in the film.

max_ernst_anthony by youngmanblues.

[4]

Although Max Ernst‘s rendition (here[5] in a better scan) was the winning work, Salvador Dalí‘s contribution[6] (featuring a parade of spider-legged elephants tormenting the saint) went on the become better-known.

The “pin-up girl” of the French Surrealists

Augustine, Charcot's star patient at Salpêtrière by you.

Charcot‘s Louise Augustine, later dubbed the “pin-up girl” of the French Surrealists, attempted many escapes. The hospital’s last entry concerning Augustine, dated September 9, 1880, notes that she “escaped from the Salpetriere, disguised as a man.”  [2]

Surprisingly, Les démoniaques dans l’art – Charcot et Richer[3], a book I acquired over the summer, does not feature the photograph depicted above, nor others from this set[4].

British writer Helen Kitson has written a fictionalized account of the Charcot/Augustine history here[5].

An excerpt:

‘I have named her Augustine.’
‘Named a lunatic after a saint! Well, perhaps they are much the same. The idiot, the mystic…’
‘She is not an idiot.’
She listens at the door, biting her fingernails. She needs to know what they want from her so that she can perform when asked. She has to know how mad she’s supposed to be. Satisfied, she goes back to her room where she dreams of blood and fire. Faces hidden behind shrouds. Dead men.

Visual postscript:

illustration du livre Hystéro-épilepsie de Paul Richer 1881

Cult fiction item #10; unabashed male opinions

DSC01048

My edition of Cocaine (in a 1982 translation by Frédérique Van Der Velde for the Dutch-language imprint Goossens, which also published translations of Thérèse philosophe, Villon, and Aretino)

“Not since Of Human Bondage have I read a more poignant rendition of the human condition,” and “after The End Of The World Filmed By An Angel possibly the second surrealist novel” wrote American literary critic Sholem Stein in a rare review of Cocaina in 1922.

Cocaina is a 1921 Italian novel written by Pitigrilli, a pseudonym of Italian journalist and author Dino Segre.

The novel, set in Paris and dedicated to cocaine use, was banned when it was published due to its liberal use of explicit sex and drugs.

The protagonist is Tito Arnaudi, a young Dostoevskian nihilist who travels from his home town Turin to Paris after a failed love story. There he discovers the joys of cocaine, takes a job as a journalist and meets two women: the exotic and orgiastic Kalantan Ter-Gregorianz and the tawdry cocotte Maud Fabrège. Maud, who later in the story is renamed to Cocaina (she is the personification of the effects of cocaine, at first lively and spirited, later jaded and blunt) is his femme fatale. Tito falls in love with her despite her apparent infidelity and despite of her sterilization which he knows is bound to make her ugly and less feminine.

The novel is full of unabashed male opinions on women and love and ends with an original “Russian roulette” twist.

I read in three days, and never felt the urge to quit reading. I laughed out loud at least three times. An underrated masterpiece. See also drugs in literature and cocaine in literature.

More covers:

Cocaine (1921) – Pitigrilli [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]

“Carrier/Carrière is surrealist in drowning”

In the history of 20th century subculture, the surreal sensibility, and Surrealism in particular takes center stage.

Surrealism itself deserves a decentralized and regionalized historiography.

1

Polish surrealism for example brings the work of latter surrealist Jacek Yerka[1].

More than just a celebration of the new, Surrealism sought to find itself in the past and opened a revisionist approach to historiography. It sought to trace a sensibility in retrospect.

Faustino Bocchi

Faustino Bocchi (ill. above) would have been dubbed surrealist, if Breton had known him.

Arcimboldo

Arcimboldo (ill. above) would have been dubbed surrealist, if Breton had known him

In “What is Surrealism?” Breton defines what we can label proto-Surrealism.

See the insets for the Carrier/Carrière debate

“Young‘s Night Thoughts are surrealist from cover to cover. Unfortunately, it is a priest who speaks; a bad priest, to be sure, yet a priest.
Heraclitus is surrealist in dialectic.
Lully is surrealist in definition.
Flamel is surrealist in the night of gold.
Swift is surrealist in malice.
Sade is surrealist in sadism.
Carrier is surrealist in drowning.
Monk Lewis is surrealist in the beauty of evil.
Achim von Arnim is surrealist absolutely, in space and time
Rabbe is surrealist in death.
Baudelaire is surrealist in morals.
Rimbaud is surrealist in life and elsewhere.
Hervey Saint-Denys is surrealist in the directed dream.
Carroll is surrealist in nonsense.
Huysmans is surrealist in pessimism.
Seurat is surrealist in design.
Picasso is surrealist in cubism.
Vaché is surrealist in me.
Roussel is surrealist in anecdote. Etc.”

This list comes from a lecture given by Breton in Brussels in 1934, either on May 12 or June 1 of that year, and published as a pamphlet immediately afterwards by René Henriquez, with as cover art Magritte‘s The Rape, which was created for that purpose. The enumeration in the lecture harks back to a list published in the first Surrealist Manifesto in 1924.

Other versions exist, one was published in the “Surrealist Number” of This Quarter. Another version was translated to Czech and published as “Co je surrealismus?” (1937), with a cover by Karel Teige. This list reprised the 1924 version.

Many of the names on the list are obscure, but I have managed to track all … but one.

When Breton says “Carrier is surrealist in drowning,” I have no idea who he means. Apparently, I am not the only one.

Marguerite Bonnet says in the 1975 André Breton: naissance de l’aventure surréaliste

… “Nous n’avons pas encore retrouvé le texte français de cet article, dont la version anglaise donne au « nom « Carrière » que Breton a corrigé en Carrier”
… “We have been unable to find the French text of this article, of which the English version gives as name Carrière, which Breton later correct as Carrier”

If Bonnet confesses that she could not find the French text (published by René Henriquez) there is even more room for confusion. The “Surrealist Number” (1932) of Parisian “little magazine” This Quarter‘ (edited by Edward W. Titus)[2]; and André Breton: naissance de l’aventure surréaliste [3] each mention additional names such as Helen Smith (surrealist in tongue), Uccello (in the free for all fight), Radcliffe (in the landscape), Maturin (in despair); and can’t agree on the spelling Carrière/Carrier.

Most of the evening was spent on

Most of the evening was spent on researching JRMS interview[1] with Gilbert Alter-Gilbert:

Genealogy of the Cruel Tale by you.

Gilbert Albert-Gilbert’s Genealogy of the Cruel Tale from Bakunin v.6, 1997) [1]

and especially Gilbert‘s intriguing “Genealogy of the Cruel Tale“[2] a perfect example of the kind of thematic literary criticism I’m rather fond of. The chart reminds of the aestheticization of violence and cruelty in general, of which Nietzsche said:

“One ought to learn anew about cruelty,” said Nietzsche (Beyond Good and Evil, 229), “and open one’s eyes. Almost everything that we call ‘higher culture‘ is based upon the spiritualizing and intensifying of cruelty….”

For your pleasure, here is the wikified version (information is scarce on the 20th century authors mentioned):

Overview

Genealogy of the Cruel Tale is a chart by American intellectual Gilbert Alter-Gilbert documenting the origins of the cruel tale, which begins etymologically with Auguste Villiers de l’Isle-Adam‘s Contes cruels anthology and has content- and style-wise similarities with cult fiction and horror fiction, Dark Romanticism and the roman frénétique, black humor, transgressive fiction, grotesque literature and folk tales. Sholem Stein says that it is a continuation of the research done by Breton in Anthology of Black Humor. Texts such as Walter Scott‘s On the Supernatural in Fictitious Composition, Lovecraft‘s Supernatural Horror in Literature, Mario Praz‘s Romantic Agony and Todorov’s The Fantastic: A Structural Approach to a Literary Genre also come to mind. Notably absent is Sade.

Taxonomy