What is Surrealism in Art?
Surrealism started in 1924 under the influence of Andre Breton, who defined surrealism as “pure psychic automatism” in his writing. Surrealism is often extremely dream like, and focused on the ‘unconscious’ ‘irrational’ and ‘automatic’ depths of art. Dadaism was a large input towards the surrealist movement- this was born out of negative reaction to the outcome of World War 1. It rejected reason and logic, focusing on nonsense and illusion. Other influential surrealist artists include Salvador Dali and Max Ernst. A famous photograph taken by Salvador Dali shows women positioned to create a skull shape- this is a very surrealist photograph as it distorts in an imaginative way to create something which questions our concept on reality.
Man Ray
"I do not photograph nature. I photograph my visions."
Man Ray is one of the most significant and influencing surrealist photographers that emerged in the early 1920's. His photographs, such as the one above, often focus on parts of the human body that are presented in an abstract way.
This photograph comes across as surreal in 2 different manors: The first is that he is so close up to the subject it becomes an abstract view of her face. This makes the viewer ask questions such as "what is she looking at?" and "what does the rest of her face look like?" which is often the peculiar effect which surreal photographs have, especially for people who viewed this photograph at the time as surreal was a new and un heard of subject until this movement occurred. |
The photograph above is a beautiful example of solarisation by Man Ray, a technique used to reverse the effect of a negative print photograph so the darker areas appear light and the light areas dark. Although solarisation was discovered accidentally, in Man Ray's case by his assistant Lee Miller in the darkroom, it is a technique which creates a substantially impacting effect and is very popular among early surreal artists and photographers.
In this instance, the composition of the photograph compliments the solarisation effect as Man Ray has very cleverly and delicately arranged the subjects arms across her head in a soft, intricate way. This adds to the dream like feel to the photograph, and the strange arrangement also adds to its surrealism as she looks serene and graceful with interlocked arms- it appears almost inhuman. From the perspective of a modern viewer of this photograph, some people may see this image in a less surreal light; solarisation has been around for a long time, and creativity now reaches new and extreme lengths due to digital manipulation abilities. However, from the eyes of a person living in the early 1930's (when solarisation was newly stumbled upon) it is clear to see why they deemed Man Ray's solarised photographs as Surreal. |
other examples of Man Ray's solarised photographs:
Man Ray used post-editing techniques, when developing his photographs, to create surreal natured portraits such as the one to the left. By covering part of the undeveloped photograph with the patterns seen on her back, then developing the image in the dark room, that part of the photograph remains un exposed whilst the rest develops as normal.
This use of layers is similar to how modern photoshop works, as with both techniques you adjust the different layers of the image to manipulate different aspects of the photograph.
Man Ray uses controversial ideas, such as this one, to depict a deeper message. He is presenting the woman as a musical instrument which gives an insight to Man Ray's unusual ideas and controversial thought processes.
This use of layers is similar to how modern photoshop works, as with both techniques you adjust the different layers of the image to manipulate different aspects of the photograph.
Man Ray uses controversial ideas, such as this one, to depict a deeper message. He is presenting the woman as a musical instrument which gives an insight to Man Ray's unusual ideas and controversial thought processes.
Joaquin Villaverde
Joaquin experiments with the idea of horror in photography, using manipulation techniques to erase parts of the face/body. This makes the viewer ask certain questions about the photographs (such as- what happened to the person? are they even human? etc) which undeniably puts this style into the 'surrealism' side of photography. The process of creating a photograph like this would include lots of layer masks in photoshop, creating textures and the correct colour tones to effectively smooth over and camouflage the area to cover. It is crucial that the photographs are well lit to begin with;this makes the overall outcome more believable as it is easier to match the skin tones and make an even cover (if believable is what they wish to achieve, it is surreal after all!)
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James Porto
This is a heavily manipulated example of Porto's work. Many layers would have been used in editing this; for example the rocks on the ground would have been one layer, then the sky and clouds/ trees separate layers in order to blend the scenery properly and create the mist effect.
It can be debated wether the insect was photographed separately then placed as a layer onto the image, however it may have also been created from scratch in illustrator by Porto. This photograph questions reality and certainly has dream like qualities.
Similarly to Man ray, Porto sometimes uses the human anatomy to create surreal scenarios and interesting photographs. For example, if the subject in this photograph was clothed it may not have been as abstract as it would raise less questions about the image.
It can be debated wether the insect was photographed separately then placed as a layer onto the image, however it may have also been created from scratch in illustrator by Porto. This photograph questions reality and certainly has dream like qualities.
Similarly to Man ray, Porto sometimes uses the human anatomy to create surreal scenarios and interesting photographs. For example, if the subject in this photograph was clothed it may not have been as abstract as it would raise less questions about the image.
Taylor Dawn Fortune
This photograph is an example of a less heavily manipulated surreal photograph. Taylor Dawn Fortune has presumably used editing techniques to achieve this very bright, sharp photograph along with very good lights set up around the subject to make sure there are virtually no prominent shadows on the subjects face. There is a small shadow on her nose which could be a give away sign that the flower was there during shooting, however this shadow could also have been placed there afterwards in photoshop to make it look like it is really on her face.
Again, there are no shadows around the leaves on her face which could mean they were added in afterwards on photoshop. Similarly to Joaquin Villaverde, Taylor uses manipulation techniques to transform humans into other creatures. Again, this is a very popular theme in surreal photography as it explores an alternate view on the human body and perhaps expresses visions seen in their dreams and imagination. |