Surrealism

What is surrealism ?

A 20th-century avant-garde movement in art and literature which sought to release the creative potential of the unconscious mind, for example by the irrational juxtaposition of images.

What is the difference between Automatism and Veristic surrealism ?

Automatism is a method of art-making in which the artist suppresses conscious control over the making process, allowing the unconscious mind to have great sway. Veristic surrealism is a surrealistic art style that aims to depict the dream world in great detail.

Who was André Breton?

André Robert Breton 19 February 1896 – 28 September 1966) , was a French writer and poet, the co-founder, leader, and principal theorist of surrealism. His writings include the first Surrealist Manifesto of 1924, in which he defined surrealism as "pure psychic automatism". Along with his role as leader of the surrealist movement he is the author of celebrated books such as Nadja and L'Amour fou. He studied medicine and psychology at a young age. During World War I, Breton worked in psychiatric units with traumatized soldiers, employing the work of Sigmund Freud, whom he had met, in his practice. Breton was again in the medical corps of the French Army at the start of World War II. The Vichy government banned his writings as "the very negation of the national revolution and Breton escaped, with the help of the American Varian Fry and Hiram "Harry" Bingham IV, to the United States and the Caribbean during 1941. He emigrated to New York City and lived there for a few years. In 1942, Breton organized a groundbreaking surrealist exhibition at Yale University.

What is the difference between conscious and subconscious mind ?

CONSCIOUS-The thinking mind you can accept or reject any idea. Most of the people accept ideas we should reject and reject the ones to accept.

SUB-CONSCIOUS-Cannot tell the difference between what is real or imagined. It is the emotional mind . It has to accept what you give it and emotionalize.

This is a game called the PARLOR GAME, today we play this game in our classroom as a activity . So the page is divided into 3 parts . Every student draw one of the each part so it look different.And look kind of surreal. Because surrealism is all about hilarious thing which can't be happen in real world but in dreams it can be.

TOMMY INGBERG is a photographer and a visual artist, Born 1980 in Sweden . The Swedish computer engineer settled into a safe non-challenging “normal” life. For some time, he quite enjoyed the repetitive existence of grueling weekdays and weekend parties. But soon he realised that there was something missing. He aspired to do more but couldn’t figure out what or how. In his late twenties, he lost direction and began spiraling downwards. Hit rock bottom. And photography, which had up till then just remained a hobby, suddenly became art. A sort of therapy. He works with photography and digital image editing, creating minimalistic and self-reflecting surreal photo montages dealing with human nature, feelings and thoughts.Tommy leaves the interpretation of his work up to the viewer but says, "For me, surrealism is about trying to explain something abstract like a feeling or a thought, expressing the subconscious with a picture. The Reality Rearranged series is my first try at describing reality trough surrealism. During the two and a half years I have worked on the series I have used my own inner life, thoughts and feelings as seeds to my pictures. In that sense the work is very personal, almost like a visual diary. Despite this subjectiveness in the process I hope that the work can engage the viewer in her or his own terms. I want the viewers to produce their own questions and answers when looking at the pictures, my own interpretations are really irrelevant in this context. "

Man Ray (born Emmanuel Radnitzky; August 27, 1890 – November 18, 1976) was an American visual artist who spent most of his career in Paris. He was a significant contributor to the Dada and Surrealist movements, although his ties to each were informal. He produced major works in a variety of media but considered himself a painter above all. He was best known for his pioneering photography, and was a renowned fashion and portrait photographer. He is also noted for his work with photograms, which he called "rayographs" in reference to himself .Man Ray displayed artistic and mechanical abilities during childhood. His education at Brooklyn's Boys' High School from 1904 to 1909 provided him with solid grounding in drafting and other basic art techniques. While he attended school, he educated himself with frequent visits to the local art museums, where he studied the works of the Old Masters. After his graduation, Ray was offered a scholarship to study architecture but chose to pursue a career as an artist. Man Ray's parents were disappointed by their son's decision to pursue art, but they agreed to rearrange the family's modest living quarters so that Ray's room could be his studio. The artist remained in the family home over the next four years. During this time, he worked steadily towards becoming a professional painter. Man Ray earned money as a commercial artist and was a technical illustrator at several Manhattan companies.

MOOD BOARD

My Ideas

I have decide to use these images as my aspiration for my work . I will take idea from these images and create something a bit different or a little bit like it . Like i can take one human body shadow and merge 6 to 7 hands on both side or may it can be head also . I choose this as my surrealism project because i feel these images are displaying us different emotions . Which i think is better than real faces . These images also give us idea of how the violence is increasing .

Shoot 1 Plan

My Plan

IDEA : For my 1st shoot I'm going to take pictures of Isaac . I will place the cloth in front of his face and tell him to put pressure so that i can have shape of nose and lips on the cloth .

LOCATION : I'm going to do this shoot in school studio.

EQUIPMENT : White Cloth ,Camera .

Contact Sheet

EBI- The next time i will make sure that the camera should focus more . Then i will be able to click picture of specific part with more focus and clarity. So it look more real . The fabric cloth which i'm using needs to be long so i can capture whole body structure . The source of light i think must be bright . As you can see some patterns on it i must work more on it so it can not be visible .

WWW- I think the hands are looking more better than the face features . So I should do more focus on hands structure . Making different postures from hand or we can use foot also for more creativity .

SURREALISM SHOOT 1

Mistakes i have make in this shoot

In my next shoot i will make sure that background will not be visible because its distracting . In the image the main thing we need to focus is on the structures made by hands and there reflection on the white cloth .

FAVORITE IMAGES

These two are my favorite images from my Shoot 1 . Because in the image one the hands are clearly visible .

SURREALISM SHOOT 2

Shoot 2 Plan

PLAN :In this shoot I'm going to click pictures of hands , fingers and faces . As in my 1st shoot i clicked mainly pictures of face . I wanted to capture the shadow of the hands and faces .

LOCATION: I'm going to click images in school studio .

EQUIPMENT: White cloth , Soft box , Camera .

CONTACT SHEET

This is how i clicked these photographs using a stretchable fabric .This type of fabric is also called spandex . Firstly i need 2 persons to hold it from edges and 2 or 3 model for making different structures from hands , faces etc .

In these images there any too many hands which creates a lot of distraction and also we can't focus on any specific hand structure . The fingers are visible but palm is not visible so it doesn't make any sense .

In my next photo shoot i will keep this in mind so that there will be not any distraction like this again. I would more focus on particular hands and face structures.

FAVOURITE IMAGES

18th October,2023 Wednesday

BEFORE

AFTER

TECHNIQUE

I edited this image in photoshop. In this image firstly i do layer . Then balance the color (white) from the right side of the hand . Then selected the whole image and crop mainly the hand and then erase the extra background from it and started copying of the hand in centre of the fist by decreasing its size . Then just i repeated it again and again and decrease the size of hand in every copy of it .

SHOOT 3

Shoot 3 plan

PLAN: For this shoot i'm going to click pictures up to the waist . And i'm also going to click pictures with hands For eg: a person sitting normal and have 4 hands .

LOCATION: I'm going to do this shoot in school studio .

EQUIPMENT: Camera , White cloth , Soft box , Reflected dish .

Contact Sheet

My idea for final shoot

René François Ghislain Magritte was a Belgian surrealist artist known for his depictions of familiar objects in unfamiliar, unexpected contexts, which often provoked questions about the nature and boundaries of reality and representation. His imagery has influenced pop art, minimalist art, and conceptual art. For my shoot 4 i got inspiration from his theme of lovers . So i decided to choose this for my next shoot . I'm going to click pictures covering his face with white cloth all around his face . This is also linking to my project for surrealism because i'm doing the same thing as he is doing in these images.

Final Shoot Plan

PLAN: For this shoot my inspiration is René François Ghislain Magritte he clicked side faces pictures covered with white cloth . So my idea is same as him I'm going to click pictures of side face with different face angles.

LOCATION: I'm going to do this shoot in school studio.

EQUIPMENT: Camera , White cloth , Soft box .