Miro and the Surrealists

Abstract

If we may pretend to sever form and content in order to indicate the relative importance of each in specific cases, then the paintings of surrealists will be seen to fall, roughly, into two classes. The pictures of the first type may be called “poems to be hung upon the wall”; this class includes the works of Salvador Dali, of Pierre Roy, and, perhaps, of Yves Tanguy. It is characterized by a “literary” manner; the poetry of the picture arises from what is represented. Dali describes his painting as “snap-shot photographs in color of subconscious images, surrealist, extravagant, paranoiac hypnological, extra-pictorial, phenomenal, super abundant, super sensitive, etc. … . of concrete irrationality.” The technique employed is one of pure literalism, of exact transcription of the personal hallucination. Superficially it resembles that of the Neue Sachlichkeit group, and it may be a heritage from the heroic days of Dadaism, when it was used successfully by Otto Dix and his German followers. Its sources, Mr. ...