Surrealist Painters and Poets: An Anthology

Book Overview

Art and writings by Surrealist painters and poets from a wide range of countries.

In 1951 Robert Motherwell published a collection of writings called The Dada Painters and Poets: An Anthology. Conceived as a sequel to that volume, Surrealist Painters and Poets: An Anthology does for Surrealism what Motherwell's book did for Dadaism. The concept and contents were discussed with Robert Motherwell and met with his enthusiastic approval.

The essays, manifestos, poems, and texts in this anthology offer a composite picture of the Surrealists--their convictions, styles, and spirit--from the movement's beginnings in France just after World War I to its second flowering in America after World War II. The book includes writers and artists from Belgium, Chile, Czechoslovakia, Cuba, Egypt, England, France, Germany, Guyana, Italy, Martinique, Mauritius, Mexico, Spain, Switzerland, Senegal, Uruguay, and the United States. Caws's main criterion for inclusion was that the works be the best and most representative of the different forms of Surrealism. Among others, the artists and writers include Andre Breton, Marcel Duchamp and Rrose Selavy, Max Ernst, Mina Loy, Francis Picabia, and Tristan Tzara.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0262532018
• ISBN13: 9780262532013
• Release Date: September 2002
• Publisher: MIT Press
• Length: 564 Pages
• Weight: 2.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 6.9" x 9.1"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

Here it is, the treasure house.

An anthology so rich and diverse I'm going to go ahead and call it "heroic". So much of this wouldn't be available anywhere, if not for this book. Mary Ann Caws has done dozens of fresh translations. It seemed incredible to sit at my table with my coffee and say, "Ah, now I'll read Andre Breton's letter to his daughter. . . now I'll look at facsimiles of Joseph Cornell's letters to Mina Loy and Marianne Moore. . . here is a picture of an elderly Picasso wearing a fireman's helmet. . . here are the poems of Robert Desnos and Paul Eluard and Malcolm de Chazal. The book is beautiful and fascinating and simply a lot of fun. I'm not a scholar or a historian -- this is a book to read for pleasure. For example, here are 7 Things I Loved: Giorgio de Chirico, an excerpt from his memoirs: "Although the Surrealists professed unadulterated communist and anti-bourgeois feelings they always tried to live as comfortably as possible, dress very well and eat excellent meals washed down with excellent wine; they never gave so much as a centime to a poor man, never lifted a finger in favor of someone who needed material or moral support and above all they worked as little as possible, or not at all." (p.29) Louis Aragon, an excerpt from Paris Peasant: "Fearsome, charming whores, let others take to generalizing in their arms." "No museum could ever reconstruct you on the basis of your little dimpled hand." (p.75) Antonin Artaud, an excerpt from "Van Gogh: The Man Suicided by Society": "He who does not smell of a smouldering bomb and of compressed vertigo is not worthy to be alive." "Only perpetual struggle explains a peace that is only transitory just as milk that is ready to be poured explains the kettle in which it has boiled." (p.106) Leonora Carrington, the story "House of Fear": "But I'd forgotten that I could only count to ten, and even then I made mistakes. In a very short time, I'd counted to ten several times, and I'd gone completely astray. Trees surrounded me on all sides. 'I'm in a forest,' I said, and I was right." (p.149) Arthur Cravan, from his Notes: "I am perhaps the king of failures because I'm certainly the king of something." (p.171) Julien Gracq, "Ross' Barrier": "At such times we hugged each other so long and close that in the melted snow, a single gully was hollowed out, narrower than a baby's cradle, and, when we got up, the cover between the two teat-like mounds suggested Asiatic asses, saddled with snow and descending the mountain slopes." (p.231) Marcel Marien, his gorgeous essay "Psychological Aspects of the Fourth Dimension": "For if one break, pierce, breach, split, or otherwise penetrate an object, it is not its interior that is thereby reached; in the new void created, new images are created, hitherto unknown surfaces are touched." (p.289) And I haven't mentioned the poems of Mina Loy, or the portfolio of Dorothea Tanning paintings, or Joseph Cornell's dream journal or Breton's collaborations with Eluard, or the

An impressive, far-reaching overview of Surrealism

I'm surprised that this rich volume hasn't been reviewed by anyone else so far, but I'll try to do it justice. Mary Ann Caws, who has written extensively about the Surrealists, has compiled a treasure trove of Surrealist art & writing in these pages, including work from many creators not immediately thought of as Surrealists. But as she demonstrates, the glowing thread of the marvellous runs through their creations as well. "Surreal" has become an all-purpose word for "strange, different" these days, and many famous Surrealist images have become all too familiar, drained of their mystery & power, through commercial over-exposure. Caws makes us experience Surrealism anew, in all of its boundary-breaking freshness & startling beauty. She reminds us that it's not just one more useful form of graphic design, but a means of seeing through the mundane shell of the world, of discovering new & intricate connections between seemingly unrelated objects & ideas, and of burning away the dulling drabness of the everyday to experience a blazing, transforming new reality. There's such a wide range of work collected here that you're sure to find something that speaks especially to you. And you'll find countless points of departure for further exploration of the Surreal. This isn't just an excellent introduction to Surrealism (although it's certainly all of that), but a work of art in itself. If the Surrealist mode of experience appeals to you, and you want to learn more about it, then this is the place to start. Most highly recommended!