CatalinPrecup

"Contrary to prevalent misdefinitions, surrealism is not an aesthetic doctrine, nor a philosophical system, nor a mere literary or artistic school. It is an unrelenting revolt against a civilization that reduces all human aspirations to market values, religious impostures, universal boredom and misery." (Franklin Rosemont, from "André Breton and the First Principles of Surrealism") "Surrealism is not a style, nor an aesthetic, nor simply a way of writing or painting, but a universal activity of the mind unlimited to any one particular time or place. Widening and deepening the whole human experience, it is the germ of a new mentality that mi

Gherasim Luca was a Romanian-born Surrealist poet, artist and theorist, one of the founders and leading figures of the Romanian Surrealist group. Exiled in Paris around 1950, he adopted French as his literary language and developed a very creative and peculiar approach to Surrealism. In his poetry, he finds new meanings through the disarticulation of language, by semantic hijacking and creative stammering. "Passionnément" (Passionately), published for the first time in 1947 and considered as one of his finest works, is more than a sound poem, it's an alchemical birth of a new language, the language of "mad love" ("l'amour fou"

"[...] André Breton would not say "Surrealistic painting", he would say "Surrealism in painting". [...] Surrealism is psychology, it is philosophy, it is a spiritual way, but it is not an aesthetic. Surrealism is not interested in actually creating any kind of aesthetic. It was drawn as an element from various different artists, but it does not exist [as an art form*]." (Excerpt from "The Surrealist Conspirator: An Interview With Jan Svankmajer" by Wendy Jackson) *my note