CCC Forum

This is the second time today that I have written this, so listen up people !!!! ITS AJOKE ?
Hello creative members of CCC, i thought I would give you some ideas that I culled from from various art books on Surrealism I own.
most people seem to agree that Giorgio De Chirico was the catalyst/father of surrealism. Andre Breton the theoretician of the group.

In 1909 De Chirico ( an Italian born in Greece ) had a revelation or like St Paul, an epiphany in Florence, after he survived a near death illness.
He influenced and inspired many artists who later became the Surrealists, ( Max Ernst, Rene Magritte ). De Chirico was the first to try to ' RENDER THE INVISIBLE WORLD '.
He called his worK ' MYTHICAL PAINTINGS ' or ' MYSTICAL PAINTINGS . Eventually the Surrealists called their pictures ' DREAM PAINTINGS '

All the surrealists tried to instill meaning to concrete objects, BUILDINGS, STATUES, STILL LIFES, PEOPLE, giving them ATMOSPHERE. De Chirico's were INVENTED STRUCTURES.
To me the the surrealists were very fine painters, thinking painters, serious, the paintings were BEAUTIFULLY CONSTRUCTED and DREAM LIKE.

They tried to give some meaning to the madness and horror that were occurring all round them.

Now what has Photography to do with Art? Many artists took to photography either as a means to an end or as a useful tool to help in their painting.
Many photographers took to Surrealism everybody knows of Man Ray and his experiments with light. Many more Jerry Uelsman, Ralph Gibson, John Pfahl
Joel Meyerowitz, Vilem Kritz, Lotte Jacobi, Joseph Sudek , Paul Outerbridge jnr. Many more.

Every country produced surrealist painters and photographers. Hundreds of them. I am going on a bit but we should appreciate how popular the genre was/is.
Some painters to get your juices going:

MAX ERNST, RENE MAGRITTE, CARLO CARRA, BALTHUS, PIERRE ROY, YVES TANGUY, MARCEL DUCHAMP, ANDRE BRETON, SALVADORE DALI,
HANS BELMAR, LOUISE BOURGEOISE, STANLEY HAYTER, PAUL DELVAUX.

You have an open book in front of you. If you want to try something new have a go. If you want to use photoshop creatively have a go.
Give your pictures a title commensurate with the subject and perhaps an artist's name to go with it. We will look and talk about them but no judgements,
just, if you can, talk about what you were trying to say in the photographs. If you wish you will be able to use these pics in competitions.
This will be a members evening later on in the year, so you have time to think about it.
If you come to the BBQ in July have a look at my books on the subject.
Good Luck everybody
Wally

Wally

Could you post some links to examples on the Internet?

Hi Wally,

Should be an interesting members' evening. I know that in club you gave some examples but it might be helpful as Mike suggests to posts some links so that members can see some surrealist work.

Regards,

Tom

Dear all, I cannot post any links on the forum as I received my information from books. But---- you could Google the Artists and Photographers I have supplied, I am sure most of the stuff is there.
Good luck
Wally

Wally

I think that what you are attempting with a members' evening based on surrealism is ambitious, requiring require careful planning and preparation if it is to be a success. This does not mean that we should not try and while I cannot know of others' wider interest in the arts, judging by the work we see in competitions I suspect that this will be something new for most. You have probably studied the subject more than anyone else and must have some favourite images, so I am sure that people would find it helpful if you could post some links on this thread. I for one know that it would encourage me to investigate further.

I must admit I'm still not entirely sure what Wally is encouraging us to do... Is it just a matter of playing around with Photoshop ? Is the purpose simply to encourage us to explore image manipulation in a way we wouldn't normally consider ? Rather than see artists' pictures, I'd like to see some examples where photographers have experimented with this approach. I think that would be really helpful.

Is there a date set for this members evening? Would be happy to create some images if I have enough time to prepare. I like working to briefs and surrealism sounds like a good challenge.

Hi All,

I did post a reply to this thread but it seems not to have made it to the forum.

Just in case it does re-appear I'll make this brief. As Wally indicates there are plenty of examples of surrealism and he mentions several artists and some photographers.

To get my head around the concept I merely googled 'Surrealist Photography'. That throws up surrealist images which I found very helpful. As Rose states, depending on the type of image being created there may be a need for some creative Photoshop. Similarly there are examples of images which fall into this category that do not reply manipulation.

The members evening will not be until later in the coming season and hopefully we should have had an opportunity for a Photoshop presentation before then.

The following link might help:

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=surre ... d=0CCAQsAQ

Hope this answers some of the questions.

Tom

Moderator's note: URL was invalid, now corrected (Mike)

toms wrote:I did post a reply to this thread but it seems not to have made it to the forum.

That happens to me sometimes, but only because I hit "Preview" rather than "Submit" which is easily done. If the post does not appear immediately, then it has not worked. Sometimes it is possible to retrieve the original entry by using the browser's back button.

Of course, posts mysteriously disappearing might be all part of the surrealist experience.

Thanks for the link Mike, some fascinating images and really helpful