Surrealism as Symptom

The fact that an art-manifestation such as Surrealism is no longer a cause celebre, and, as such no longer commands public attention and interest, by no means removes it from the consideration of the student of social phenomena. One might rather say that now that the shouts and murmurs have subsided, there avails a better opportunity for the calm scrutiny of a school of art, which, the more closely it is examined, the more it gives evidence of its nature as a symptom of contemporary social trends. Considered within the framework of its genealogy, and with particular attention to the published statements of its proponents, its true significance emerges with precise clarity. Viewed in the light of the political and social developments of its generation, Surrealism offers us an unusual opportunity to perceive the meaning of seemingly unrelated fields of activity, as they become cognate by reason of the unfolding of their respective implications, whether in ideology or in activity. All this will become clear as our analysis continues.

In 1910, four years before the inception of a World War that was to have such a traumatic effect upon the contemporary mind, there was issued in Milan, Italy, the manifesto of a group of artists who called themselves the “Futurists.” The sum of that manifesto is found in their exhortation to “exalt every kind of originality, of boldness, of extreme violence … rebel against the tyranny of the words ‘Harmony’ and ‘Good Taste.’” It is thus apparent that already before the war there were accumulating the forces which were later to explode with violent fury during and after the post-war world, under the name of “Dadaism,” and which represented within themselves a sort of temper tantrum in the grand manner; a furious, negative, nihilistic attack upon a world which had been in its ad hoc form responsible for the collapse of traditional values, systems and securities. Raynal, commenting on Picabia's Dadaist phase, is of the opinion that it “must be