André Breton, Ramón Llull, & surrealism revisited

"Lully is surrealist in definition." — André Breton

This is one item in a list of persons characterized as surrealist in a particular way. This can be found in Breton's "What is Surrealism?", a lecture in Brussels on 1 June 1934. Breton here recapitulates what he wrote in the first Manifesto of Surrealism of 1924. I just realized that I've already blogged about this.

But here is an additional reference, a post on Breton's penchant for composing lists:

Alphabet of the Magnetic Field: Breton Lists his Surrealists, March 10, 2013.

Breton was indeed were very adept at making lists and canonizing various figures on the basis of a perceived common characteristic conducive to surrealist preoccupations, a practice predicated on an arbitrary, authoritarian, and intellectually undisciplined mode of thinking. This surrealist taxonomic imperative is sometimes useful in archiving the curiosa of the past, but it is ultimately simple-minded, unsystematic, self-indulgent, and dogmatic, as the organized surrealist movement ultimately was. The Chicago surrealists were even worse than Breton, but they did dredge up some interesting material in their anthologies. Surrealism, as I've written elsewhere  (no revelation there), thrived on juxtapositions and novel combinations, hence my relating it to the ars combinatoria. List-making doesn't quite measure up even to that, but there is implied taxonomy in making lists, and hence that too relates to the topic.

See also my essay Walter Benjamin and Ars Combinatoria.  Also "Surrealism: The Last Snapshot of the European Intelligentsia" by Walter Benjamin, 1929.

Magritte, ars combinatoria, Borges

Les affinités électives (1933)

Written 5 September 2011:

One should not be hasty in assuming that all surrealists held to the party line of the movement. Magritte was more circumspect about the arbitrary juxtapositions that Breton celebrated in Lautréamont. Here's an excerpt from a piece [On “Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote” by Jorge Luis Borges] I wrote recently on Borges & his tacit attitude towards surrealism:

I mentioned the propensity of surrealism to capitalize on exotic juxtapositions. Shock effects can easily be produced by juxtaposing two incongruous objects. But how original is this? René Magritte had caveats about such casual juxtapositions, and he considered his artworks exercises in problem-solving, exemplified in his Les affinités électives (1933). In addition to how he solved the particular problem of this work, Magritte in a lecture of February 1937 contrasts arbitrary and essential juxtapositions:

There is a secret affinity between certain images; it is equally valid for the objects which those images represent . . . We are familiar with birds in cages; interest is awakened more readily if the bird is replaced by a fish or a shoe; but though these images are strange they are unhappily accidental, arbitrary. It is possible to obtain a new image which will stand up to examination through having something final, something right about it: it’s the image showing an egg in the cage.

Ars combinatoria, Ramón Llull, & surrealism

"Lully is surrealist in definition."

     — André Breton

First, a note in Esperanto, and then back to English.

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"Llull estas surrealisma je dinifado." — André Breton

Mi ne scias ĝuste, kiuj surrealistoj aperas (traduke) en la Esperanta medio. Ekzistas tradukitaj du verkoj de rumano Gellu Naum: Patro mia laca kaj L’ekzakto de l’ombro. Cetere, mi konas nur vikipedierojn, plej gravaj ĉi-momente:

Superrealismo
Manifesto de la Superrealismo (1924)
André Breton

Ekzistas almenaŭ kelkaj ligoj inter surrealistoj kaj ars combinatoria, notende Ramón Llull.

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In my previous post on Jorge Luis Borges, I connected Borges, the ars combinatoria, and surrealism. As it happens, Breton lists Lull (spellings vary) as a surrealist predecessor at least as early as his Manifesto of Surrealism of 1924. Breton reiterates this in What is Surrealism? ("a lecture given in Brussels on 1st June 1934 at a public meeting organised by the Belgian Surrealists, and issued as a pamphlet immediately afterwards"). Aside: In 1934 you see Breton reiterating his earlier principles but now with a shift of emphasis and concern with the fascist threat.