Edward Gorey

The Gashlycrumb Tinies: A Very Gorey Alphabet Book

• Each image is a different short story, according to the letter of the alphabet.
• Victorian & Edwardian settings- similar to the era I like to work with.
• Scenes - often including a whole setting.
• Macabre sense of humour.
• Detail.

Shaun Tan - Sketchbooks

Teresa very kindly let me have a look at her special edition of Shaun Tan's 'The Arrival' which contained an extra book of his sketches and process of making the book.

Notes

• Collage composition - working out the layout of a scene within a frame, using found imagery to determine perspective.
• Roughing
• Repetitive drawing - working out the characterisation and planning through drawing the same thing over and over.
• Reference imagery - setting up a scene to take photographs of and work from later. I especially liked how the characters within the story are also Shaun's friends and family members. He is also often found within his own stories.

Group Tutorial

Feedback

Research - essay ok, triangulation is fine, draft is under way.

Practical - ghost stories, place, tone of voice? Situations with an extraordinary twist (something that shouldn't be there).

Ghost stories books, interviews and appendices.

Leeds librarians - archives. 

Edward Gorey.

Victorians - illustrators.

Continue to structure essay - plan.

Practical research - focus on your brief and refine plan.

Investigate - Leeds library.

A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens

(public domain)

Plot Summary

• Set on Christmas Eve.
• Ebenezer Scrooge (old man) is visited by a ghost; first is old business partner Jacob Marley.
• Ghost of Christmas past
• Ghost of Christmas present
• Ghost of Christmas yet to come
• Show Scrooge how his mean behaviour has affected those around him.
• End - he realises there is still time to change and then transforms into a warm and kind-hearted human being.

'Dickens wrote this story in 1843. At the time there was a tradition for reading ghost stories at Christmas, hence the numerous spirits that Scrooge encounters. The themes of wealth and injustice are clear comments on the inequalities of wealth distribution in Victorian England.' 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/education/guides/zgvbgk7/revision/1

1. On Christmas Eve, Scrooge makes his clerk, Bob Cratchit, work in the cold.
2. He refuses an invitation to his nephew Fred's Christmas party and will not give money to the charity collectors.
3. At home he is visited by the ghost of his old business partner, Marley.
4. The Ghost of Christmas Past wakes Scrooge and shows him moments from his childhood, his apprenticeship and his failed engagement.
5. The Ghost of Christmas Present takes him to the Cratchit's home, where he is saddened by the ill, but kind, Tiny Tim. He is also shown how Fred celebrates Christmas with friends and how others celebrate Christmas together.
6. The final ghost is the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come who terrifies Scrooge with visions of his death.
7. Scrooge awakes on Christmas Day and is delighted to find he has the chance to repent of his miserly ways. He buys a turkey for the Cratchits and attends his nephew's party.
8. Scrooge becomes like a second father to Tiny Tim and gains a reputation for knowing how to celebrate Christmas.

Sandybrook Hall

* My personal memories of Sandybrook Hall *

Sandybrook Hall (Ashbourne, Derbyshire) was the home of my Oma (grandmother) when I was a child. I often visited, and dreaded being there because of the taxidermy animals and general uneasy feeling I had whilst in the mansion. I particularly disliked the main staircase in the foyer area - on the wall above the staircase resided a moose head and I remember always running past this area, from room to room either side, with my eyes closed. Years later, because I knew that the house held a lot of history, I decided to research into what happened there. I was amazed to find out that the staircase I was always so terrified of as a child, was the scene of a terrible accident (see below).

Other side of the mansion

Research
http://www.childrenshomes.org.uk/AshbourneWS/

http://wherefivevalleysmeet.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/how-three-derbyshire-girls-were.html

'Monica and Dorothea lived at Sandybrook Hall, an elegant 19th century mansion close to the market town of Ashbourne, Derbyshire. They were the two beautiful daughters of Mr and Mrs Peveril Turnbull. Monica, at the age of 22 was already recognised by the critics as an outstanding poet. On the morning of 4th March 1901 a fire caused by the upsetting of a heavy oil lamp set fire to Dorothea's dress. Monica rushed to save her, and was burned to death. Dorothea also died from her injuries six weeks later.'

'This beautiful window is by Christopher Whall a Pre-Raphaelite stained glass artist/designer and a leader of the Arts and Crafts Movement. It is a jewel in stained glass, showing Arts and Crafts at its most ethereal. The window depicts the three virgin martyrs: St. Barbara, St Cecilia and St Dorothy, but St. Barbara and St. Dorothy are actual portraits of Monica and Dorothea - the window was given to St. Oswald church in Ashbourne by the parents in memory of their daughters.'

'St. Dorothy whose symbol is flowers, represents Dorothea the younger sister whose dress caught fire.'

'St. Barbara carrying the sword of her martyrdom in her right hand - represents Monica, the poet, who rushed to save her sister.'

https://dmichaelbrown1.wordpress.com/dorathea/

Dorothea Peveril Turnbull

'This red chalk drawing is by Edward Robert Hughes, undertaken when Dorothea Turnbull was only 5 years old. As beautiful as the picture is the story behind it is a sad as any you  will read. The following are extracts from George Shaw’s book ‘People of the Millennium in Ashbourne, from Cockayne to the Queen’ and a personal letter.'

THE STORY

‘One of the greatest tragedies to occur in Ashbourne happened on the 9 February 1901 at Sandybrook Hall, the home of the Turnbull family. Peveril Turnbull had just bought a new lamp for the dinner table, and had been warned that it should not be carried whilst lit. For some reason he had not taken the advice and whilst walking out of the dining room the lamp flared and he dropped it. The lamp fell at the feet of his younger daughter Dorothea and her dress burst into flames. Her sister Monica ran to her aid but her dress also caught fire. Both girl’s injuries proved fatal. Monica died three weeks later on 4 March, while Dorothea lived for two months longer. Despite attempted skin grafts, she also died on the 27 April. The parents later became involved in the care of children in need and in Windmill Lane they built St Monica’s Home, an orphanage.'

‘Dear Mr Brown, I am sending you a photo of Monica sitting on her mother’s knee by Hughes. This painting was on the staircase of St.Monica’s Home. When the Home was closed down by the Children’s Society it was handed over to St. Oswald’s Church for safe keeping. Note the way the artist captured the sadness of the mother’s face; she had lost her baby son when the pram ran into the sea and he was drowned. She was to lose the remainder of her children in the fire in Sandybrook Hall years later.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/derby/content/articles/2007/01/03/divine_art_turnball_feature.shtml

Ashbourne Historian George Shaw

In 1901, Peveril Turnbull, a church warden at St Oswald's, lost both his daughters, Monica and Dorothy, as a fallen candle stick caused both girls to catch fire. Monica, a nationally revered young poetess, is thought to have described a premonition earlier that morning in the poem known as Little Song.

Victorian Ghost Stories

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/dec/23/ghost-stories-victorians-spookily-good

Ghost stories: Why the Victorians were so spookily good at them

•  'Try not to be perturbed by the flickering candle, the fleeting shadows, the horned, hairy hand that appears at your elbow. Something moved? There's a face in the brickwork? A murderer, long ago, was buried in the cellar? Stay calm. Breathe deeply. The ghosts of Christmases past are gathering.'
• 'It was the Victorian era, of course, when ghosts proliferated most obviously in fiction – as well as on stage, in photographs and in drawing room seances.'
• 'Ghost stories had traditionally been an oral form, but publishers suddenly needed a mass of content, and ghost stories fitted the bill – short, cheap, generic, repetitive, able to be cut quite easily to length.' - Sat around telling stories.
• 'Charles Dickens produced his own highly successful ghost story, A Christmas Carol, in serial form just before Christmas 1843.'
• 'Lighting was often provided by gas lamps, which have also been implicated in the rise of the ghost story; the carbon monoxide they emitted could provoke hallucinations.'

https://interestingliterature.com/2015/10/28/10-classic-victorian-ghost-stories-everyone-should-read/

Nottingham

http://www.bbc.co.uk/nottingham/citylife/ghostsandlegends/newstead_index.shtml

http://www.nottinghampost.com/news/local-news/10-most-haunted-places-nottingham-137222

Victorian Hauntings

by Julian Wolfreys

Spectrality, Gothic, the Uncanny and Literature.

Book List - front of book

pg.1- 'It is not inaccurate to say that tales of terror and uncanny manifestations which resist rational explanation...'

'...there has been an interest in haunting generally for as long as there have been narratives.'

(on ghosts) 'They exceed any single narrative modality, genre or textual manifestation. It is this which makes them ghostly...'

*Reflective Summary - Theories & Symbolism*

Whilst researching more specific examples of symbolism (semiotics) and the impact this has on an audience's perception of a story within an image, I started to pinpoint the things I want to look at in relation to the subject matter. Tone is something that is incredibly important to my practice, and along with the application and consideration of composition, I want to look at the mystery and ambiguity. I want to eventually show my work to people and record differences in their opinions of what is happening within the image. Choosing a theme like ghost stories means that a certain amount of imagination and personal input is required. It is more difficult to define elements of which cannot be proven. Therefore, an ambivalent starting point for my images will hopefully provide a basis for a variety of responses that I can compare and analyse.

Symbols & Allegories in Art, pt.2

Tree - pg.248-251

• 'represents the axis and mystical centre of the cosmos and the element of conjunction between the world underground (roots), the earth (trunk), and the celestial dimension (leaves and branches).'
• '...state of continuous growth, the tree is an image of life in its totality.'
• 'The cosmic tree thrusts its roots into the heavens and its boughs into the womb of the earth...'
• 'It's branches correspond to the five elements: ether, air, fire, water, and earth.'
• 'Like the cross, they symbolise death and resurrection...'

1. Hugo van der Goes, Original sin, ca. 1473-75. Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum.

• 'The tree in the garden of Eden represents both the source of life and knowledge, and the principle of evil and death.'

Garden - pg.252-257

• 'presented as a luxuriant, often enclosed space adorned with splashing fountains, fruit trees, and domesticated animals.'
• 'The garden represents a sacred spot, a place reserved for the initiated, separate from everyday reality.'

1. Hieronymus Bosch, The Garden of Earthly Delights (detail), central panel of the Garden of Earthly Delights Triptych, 1503-4. Madrid, Prado.

• Egg - 'The egg symbolises the ''re-absorption'' into the maternal womb.'
• 'This garden has been interpreted as an allegory of lust.'
• 'The parade of exotic and imaginary animals represents the different faces of sin.'

The Vices - pg.278-293

• 'moral chaos...'
• 'Christian morality counts seven major vices (sloth, greed, gluttony, envy, wrath, lust, and pride)...'

1. Hieronymus Bosch, Superbia (Pride), detail of The Seven Deadly Sins, ca. 1480-85, Madrid, Prado.

• 'The mirror, principal attribute of the proud, is being held by a demon with a wolf's head and a toad's feet.' - animals associated with demons, etc.

2. Sandro Botticelli, Calumny of Appelles, ca. 1490. Florence, Uffizi.

• My Notes - People representing a virtue/vice.
• Truth, remorse, innocence, treason, deception, ignorance, suspicion -eg.

Symbols & Allegories in Art, pt.1

By Matilde Battistini

Intro - pg.6/7

• 'Renaissance artists therefore used alchemical symbols in their works to reformulate the fundamental stages of the world's creation and harmony...'

Egg - pg.133-137

• 'represented in many different forms: as cosmic egg, as uterus and womb, as alchemical vessel, or as a symbol of divine perfection.'
• 'Most cosmogonic myths conceive of the universe as egg shaped or having originated from an egg.'
• 'A symbol of life in formation, fertility, and perfection, the egg contains within itself a plurality of meanings.'

1. Piero della Francesca, Madonna and child with saints, Angels and Duke Federico da Montefeltro, ca. 1475. Milan, Pinacoteca di Brera.

• 'The ostrich egg, a symbol of divine perfection, is situated slightly off the central axis of the composition, to indicate the superiority of faith over reason.'

2. Giorgio de Chirico, Metaphysical Composition, 1914. New York, Metropolitan Museum.

• 'The egg is a symbol of life.' - a focal point of the image, most central element.

Limbo - pg.220-221

• 'an intermediate region between Hell and Heaven...'

1. Domenico Beccafumi, Cristo al limbo (Christ's descent into limbo), 1536, Siena, Pinacofeca Nazionale.

• 'Christ descends into limbo to free the souls of those who lived righteously.' - composition, hierarchy.
• 'peopled by the unbaptised souls of the just and by shades of illustrious men from antiquity.'

Dream - pg.232-237

• 'It is depicted as a journey or a vision in which the protagonist is guided by forces beyond the control of his will.'

1. Henry Fuseli, The Nightmare (Incubus), 1790-91, Frankfurt, Goethe Museum.

• 'The white horse is a visual transcription of a nocturnal demon from Franco-Germanic folklore, the hellish 'nightmare' that dwells in the bowels of the earth.'

2. Salvador Dali, Dream caused by the flight of a bee around a pomegranate of one second before waking up, 1944- Lugano (Switzerland), Thyssen-bornemisza collection.

• 'dream-images of his wife Gala as inspiration for his paintings.'
• Tiger - 'dream transfiguration of the buzzing bee, heard while the artist was asleep.' - use of animals as symbols.
• 'The bee that is about to sting alludes to the moment just before waking up.'

Practical Proposal Ideas

Signs, Symbols & Ciphers- Decoding the Message

By Georges Jean

Quotes/Theories/Notes

• Tree - 'Universal tree situated at the ''centre of the world'' and connecting the tree planes: Heaven, Earth and Hades.' - Mircea Eliade
• Eden - Biblical - 'In the middle of the garden stood the tree of life and the tree of good and evil.'

Documents

SIGN THEORY

• 'The meanings of the word sign are many and complex. For linguists the sounds, or phonemes, of a language and the letters with which it is written are signs. For artists signs are emblems, symbols, logos.'

The Science of language

• 'The Swiss Scholar Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913) revolutionised the methodical study of language, seeing it as a highly structured system of signs...' - Semiology

Place of language in human facts: Semiology (pg. 135/136)

• 'Language is a social institution; but several features set it apart from other political, legal, etc. institutions.'
• 'Language is a system of signs that express ideas, and is therefore comparable to a system of writing...'
• 'the laws discovered by semiology will be applicable to linguistics...'
• 'The task of the linguist is to find out what makes language a special system within the mass of semiological data.'
• 'If we are able to discover the true nature of language we must learn what it has in common with all other semiological systems; linguistic forces that seem very important at first glance.'

Signs & Origins of writing

• 'Among the earliest images in prehistoric art are abstract sequences of marks, dots, and patterns.' - early writing, images.

The World of symbols

• 'Universal, since it transcends history; particular, because it relates to a definitive period of history.'

Interview with Photographer Gregory Crewdson - The American Reader

http://theamericanreader.com/interview-with-photographer-gregory-crewdson/

• 'His images are rich in detail, and there is not a thing in the frame—not a stain, not a lampshade—that he does not carefully select. And yet, this abundance of detail is balanced with a striking lack of information—the settings are ordinary (a suburban kitchen, a living room, a dark street corner)—and, more importantly, the frame is de-contextualized: we don’t know what happens before or after, or who these people even are.'
• 'The effect of this combination of visual detail and narrative restraint is that there are as many narratives possible for each of his images as there are viewers of it: each person comes to the image with their own anxieties and desires, which they project onto the scene.'

Gregory Crewdson - Answers

• 'For all the talk of my pictures being narratives or that they’re about storytelling, there’s really very little actually happening in the pictures.'
• 'Since a photograph is frozen and mute, since there is no before and after, I don’t want there to be a conscious awareness of any kind of literal narrative.'
• 'That way, the viewer is more likely to project their own narrative onto the picture.'
• 'What the viewer brings to it is almost more important than what I bring to it.'
• 'I started thinking of motel rooms, and I thought of that motel room in Psycho. But that was just a starting point, and through the process of making the picture, the picture changed. I think subconsciously we all have a connection to that imagery and a certain kind of dread.'
• 'Well, if my pictures are about anything at all, I think it’s about trying to make a connection in the world. I see them as more optimistic in a certain way. Even though it’s very clear there’s a level of sadness and disconnection, I think that they’re really about trying to make a connection and almost the impossibility of doing so.'
• 'I think that’s really kind of a beautiful point, that at the core there is something very childhood-like about the whole activity of building and constructing a world. My mom just recently reminded me that I used to build these little miniature worlds outside at our country house and populate it with little figures.'
• 'That whole thing about trying to create a world – there’s something very connected to childhood and reverie and daydreaming and fantasy.'

Essay Plan Ideas

Individual Tutorial

Feedback

Intro - why it's important.

Silent books.

Methodology - How you're going to investigate the primary research - authors, illustrators, schools, librarians, etc. - topic.

60s/70s animation - Yugoslavia & Canada.

Find wordless books - Waterstones, Saltaire, etc.

Early children's books - how they have changed.

Visual Communication - does a story always come from words - Words vs images.

2 weeks time - bullet point or write intro and first chapter.

Make a spider diagram for what interests me practically and find a theme/thread.

How do you tell a story in a single image? - Creative Review Article

https://www.creativereview.co.uk/tell-a-story-in-a-single-image/

Notes

Whether you’re sharing a meme with friends and family, or selecting a stock asset for your next creative project, there are more ways than ever to tell powerful stories with a single image. Emily Gosling examines the power of visual narrative

By Emily Gosling 25/09/2017

• 'A story must have a beginning, a middle, and an end. In literature, even non-linear narratives follow that format, albeit in a less simplistic way.'
• 'While that rule is all well and good for written or spoken tales, does it work when you’re telling a narrative visually? How do you tell a story in a single image?'
• 'When we send an emoji, or a response as a gif, we’re not simply sending an image, but a story.'
• 'Meme culture is a vast and ever expanding tool in our visual cultural lexicon. Again, that’s because even one image (with or without that omnipresent black edged, thick black all-caps type) can make us think of such specific people or situations, while resonating with so many of us at once.'
• 'Photography is a medium that has been concerned with narrative long before flippant memeification. It’s a natural human impulse, surely, to see an image and consider its ‘beginning’ and ‘end’? Consciously or not, we ponder not only what’s in the frame, but what’s outside of it.'
• David Campbell,  director of communications at Amsterdam’s World Press Photo Foundation - 'In photography, narrative is related to the idea of context. No matter how complete or comprehensive a narrative appears it will always be the product of including some elements and excluding others. Inclusion/exclusion is part of what construction is all about, but knowing what is best included or excluded requires an understanding of context.'
• 'One of the best exemplars of narrative photography is Gregory Crewdson.'
• 'His work is often compared to that of the painter Edward Hopper; a master of visual storytelling and condensing seemingly complex tales into a single frame.'
• “It’s a limited story,” he told us in an interview earlier this year. “It’s very restricted to description, there’s no attempt at motivation or plot or backstory, and the reason for this is I want all that to remain a mystery. All my pictures are very evocative, they’re not direct, so I want it to be open-ended. I want them to remain a mystery in some way.” - Gregory Crewdson
• 'In a world where more imagery is available than ever before, and we are exposed to more messages than ever before, the skill of discovering and choosing the right image has never been more vital. As humans, we will always be profoundly moved by the power of a single image that invites us to construct our own story around it. The story starts with the right picture.'

Journey - Aaron Becker

• Colour - Changes when the little girl goes through the door. More colourful in the new world. Red & purple, having fun in the normal town.
• Tone - Child-like imagination & play.
• Composition - Scenes, mostly long shots.
• Narrative - Adventure, reminds me of stories like 'Coraline'.
• Aesthetic - Nostalgic, watercolour & lighting detail.

Chez Moi/My Home - Phuong Mai Nguyen

Notes

• Aesthetic - The colours and drawings are warm and nostalgic. The bird (step-father) seems to be slightly out of this pattern, a bit dis-jointed from the setting.
• Tone & Hidden Meaning - The protagonist you follow through the story is a little child, so you see things through his eyes. Hence, the metaphor of the bird being a man. In particular, this metaphor is used throughout the story and comes into play when the mother too begins to look like a bird. I also found the 'mating dance' of the male bird a very powerful way of suggesting his charm and power of the female.
• Wordless - The fact that there is no dialogue at all in the animation added to my close interpretation of the imagery. I find that I watch put more closely in this way. This is also a French film, which you would not have known unless you read the title, this means that the animation could be universally understood.
• Sounds - The addition of subtle sounds I found added a kind of intimacy to the story.
• Narrative - I found the story quite moving, at first it is not obvious what is going on, as there are so many visual metaphors present. The small actions and exchanges between characters are more noticeable and therefore highlight particular feelings/emotions.

Picture Books - Notes

Tuesday - David Weisner
Weird imagery - surrealism. Colour & lighting are essential aspects of the book - sets the tone. Heavily composed, scenes are from all different angles.


Anno's Journey - Mitsumasa Anno
Large scenes, requires the reader to look into the images. Detail is important.

There is No Such Thing as Narrative Art - Paul Barolsky

http://www.bu.edu/arion/volume-18-barolsky-narrative-art/

What can be shown cannot be said.

—Ludwig Wittgenstein

• 'pictorial artists obviously do not narrate stories in the same way that writers do. In a certain sense, they do not narrate at all. To speak of an artist as a teller of stories is a figure of speech, since painters and sculptors do not “tell,” they “show.” As some critics have observed, pictorial artists imply a narrative by referring to what has been said in words, but surely such allusions are not the same thing as a narrative in words.'
• 'The idea of such similitude has been sustained over a period of nearly three millennia by the notion of painting as “mute poetry” or “visible speech,” and it is still very much alive.'
• 'In Renaissance art, pictorial composition, the arrangement of figures in space, often conflicts sharply with an image’s implicit associations with the temporal character of a literary narrative. This is so because the episodes of the story that a painter or sculptor presents are not always placed in an obviously identifiable sequence within the space defined by the painter. The figures of a single episode or series of episodes in a “continuous narrative” so-called are dispersed through space, above all, as a way of making the spatial composition harmonious and not necessarily or primarily as a means of making the allusion to a narrative obvious.'
• 'It is important to keep in mind those cases where the chronological narrative is at odds with the pictorial composition, because these instances remind us of fundamental differences between literature and art that we can too easily forget or ignore.'

Example

• '..canonical Renaissance historia of Jacob and Esau, which Ghiberti made for the Gates of Paradise at the very moment when Alberti wrote about painting as historia (Fig.1). This scene is widely appreciated as a tour de force of Renaissance perspective, which is an ideal vehicle for rendering the subject, since it provides a space, indeed a stage upon which the artist can arrange his figures or actors.'
• 'The Jacob and Esau panel is especially fascinating because its historia or “story” is not always fully obvious in the way of many so-called “continuous narratives,” where one can easily recognize the suggestion of a narrative through time.'
• '..one of the fundamental differences between a pictorial image and a text. When we read a work of literature, we read word by word, line by line, across and down the page. Our activity is precisely prescribed. When we look at a pictorial image, however, our eye is led in various directions by the forms of things, by the shapes of buildings, the grouping of figures, the degree of relief of the figures, or the perspective construction, and we encounter a multiplicity of ways of seeing the image as we gaze upon it and look in the different directions in which it guides us.'

The Arrival - Shaun Tan

Observations

• Tone - Nostalgic, homely.
• Use of media, pencil, texture and lighting/shade add to the atmosphere created.
• Sequential Imagery - Small moments of action, followed by larger images of the whole 'scene'.
• Use of composition - Close ups to far away, in a sequential series.
• Narratives told through a collection of smaller images, square format.
• Many images of the same thing - eg. the sky.
• Different angles of the same scene/action.
• Use of scale.
• Sense of family.
• Telling of a personal, 'human' story.
• Metaphors - Monsters.

*Reflective Summary - Initial Research*

So far, the research I have been conducting has been quite broad. I know I want the basis of my essay and practical work to emphasise on wordless narratives, but I am not too clear on the direction as of yet. As I am starting to look into surrealism, I think researching symbolism and hidden meaning a bit more may be an interesting route for me to take. Because of this, although I thought about themes of patriarchy and feminism (within film especially), which stems from my project last year, I want to take a step back from that. In relation to my own work, I think researching into the fundamentals of image making itself will be more beneficial to the development of my practice.

Research Presentation

Movements in Modern Art, Surrealism - Fiona Bradley

Notes/Quotes

• 'In his second Surrealist manifesto, Breton testifies to the difficulties experienced by his movement, the 'ship which a few of us had constructed with our own hands in order to move against the current' from which some members had jumped or been pushed. He insists on his understanding of Surrealism as a way into a mental world of endless possibility, 'a certain point of the mind which life and death, the real and the imagined, past and future, the communicable and the incommunicable, high and low, cease to be perceived as contradictions'.' (pg. 10/11)
• Surrealist Dream Imagery - Dali's Metamorphosis of Narcissus - ''It is not the unconscious I seek in your pictures but the conscious', Freud said. He made it clear that Surrealist paintings could not be used to psychoanalyse their painters. Instead, the artists were merely using methods and motifs drawn from psychoanalysis to give their pictures a look of the unconscious.' (pg. 32)
• Rene Magritte - Man with a Newspaper 1928. (pg. 38)
• 'The similarity between the figure of Narcissus and the image of the stone hand and egg makes them fuse together into a kind of double image. This was one of Dali's gifts to Surrealism, and was the result of his famous 'paranoiac critical method'. This was essentially a method for the creative misreading of the visual world.' (pg. 39)
• Both Freud and Lacan were interested in the clinical condition of paranoia, a mental illness which causes the sufferer to interpret visual information wrongly - to start 'seeing things'.' (pg. 39)
• 'The eye is a consistent Surrealist icon. It appears and reappears throughout Surrealist imagery, both visual and poetic, as a site of confrontation, conjunction and communication. The eye links inner and outer, subjective and objective.' (pg. 70)
• 'It presides over the opening of Un Chien Andalou, a powerful metaphor for originality, and surreality, of the film's vision.' (pg. 70)
• 'Dali's dream sequence was announced in the film by the dissolving of a real eye into an eye painting on a curtain. Hollywood had passed through to the other side of the Surrealist mirror.' - Alfred Hitchcock's 'Spellbound' (pg. 72)

Surrealism

http://www.theartstory.org/movement-surrealism.htm

Key Ideas

• André Breton defined Surrealism as "psychic automatism in its pure state, by which one proposes to express - verbally, by means of the written word, or in any other manner - the actual functioning of thought." What Breton is proposing is that artists bypass reason and rationality by accessing their unconscious mind. In practice, these techniques became known as automatism or automatic writing, which allowed artists to forgo conscious thought and embrace chance when creating art.
• The work of Sigmund Freud was profoundly influential for Surrealists, particularly his book, The Interpretation of Dreams (1899). Freud legitimized the importance of dreams and the unconscious as valid revelations of human emotion and desires; his exposure of the complex and repressed inner worlds of sexuality, desire, and violence provided a theoretical basis for much of Surrealism.
• Surrealist imagery is probably the most recognizable element of the movement, yet it is also the most elusive to categorize and define. Each artist relied on their own recurring motifs arisen through their dreams or/and unconscious mind. At its basic, the imagery is outlandish, perplexing, and even uncanny, as it is meant to jolt the viewer out of their comforting assumptions. Nature, however, is the most frequent imagery: Max Ernst was obsessed with birds and had a bird alter ego, Salvador Dalí's works often include ants or eggs, and Joan Miró relied strongly on vague biomorphic imagery.