Art, Surrealism, and the Grotesque Essay -- Exploratory Essays Researc

The term marvelous in art and literature, usually refersto the juxtaposition of extreme contrasts such as horror andhumor, or strike and monstrosity, or desire and revulsion. Onefunction of this juxtaposition of the rational and the preposterousis to subdue or normalize the unknown, and thereby control it. The simultaneity of reciprocally exclusive emotional states, and thediscomfort it might cause, inspires a Freudian analytic criticalapproach because of its focus on controlling repressed desires done therapeutic rationality. There are volumes of Freudian art criticism, which typically stick by calling attention to manifestations, in some work ofart, of the darkest desires of the id. perhaps in no field ofart criticism does Freuds name issue more frequently than insurrealism, and for various reasons, the grotesque figures verypowerfully in that art movement. From the association ofsurrealist art and Freud, we can derive a cursory understandingof the grotesque in this breed of Modernist art the grotesqueappears as an image, the content of which might traditionally berepressed, but instead, it is uttered within the controlledconfines of a work of art. The psychoanalytic critic leave behind focuson the simultaneous attraction to and repulsion from the dream-like resourcefulness on the surrealist canvas. Yet, this does notconsider the surrealist notion of art as a liberation of thesubconscious, nor does such analysis adequately incorporate thesurrealist goal of semipolitical revolution. Instead, it reducessurrealist art criticism to the interpretation of dreams. ThisFreudian view becomes too check of our understanding ofsurrealism, the grotesque, and perhaps even of ourselves... ...d Practice of Dream Interpretation. in Freud Therapy and Technique. ed. Philip Rieff. tender York Collier Press, 1963. pp. 205-235. Heidegger, Martin. What is Metaphysics? in Basic Writings, ed. David Farrell Krell. New York Harper & Row, 1977 .Plank, William. Sartre and Surrealism. Ann Arbor Univeristy of stops Research Press, 1972.Sartre, Jean-Paul. Nausea. trans. Lloyd Alexander. New York New Directions, 1964.------- The Psychology of Imagination. trans. Bernard Frechtman. New York Washington neat Press, 1966.------- The Writings of Jean-Paul Sartre A Bibliographic Life Chicago Northwestern University Press. consultation with Claudine Chonez in Marianne, Dec. 7, 1938.------- What is Literature? and Other Essays. Trans. Steven Ungar. Cambridge Harvard University Press, 1988.