Art, Surrealism, and the Grotesque Essay -- Exploratory Essays Researc

The term grotesque in dodge and literature, commonly refersto the juxtaposition of extreme contrasts such as horror andhumor, or beauty and monstrosity, or desire and revulsion. Onefunction of this juxtaposition of the lucid and the irrationalis to subdue or normalize the unknown, and thereby control it. The simultaneity of mutually exclusive emotional states, and thediscomfort it might cause, inspires a Freudian analytic amateuralapproach because of its focus on controlling reduce desiresthrough therapeutic rationality. There are volumes of Freudian graphics criticism, which typicallybegin by calling attention to manifestations, in some influence ofart, of the darkest desires of the id. Perhaps in no field ofart criticism does Freuds look up appear more frequently than insurrealism, and for various reasons, the grotesque figures very(prenominal)strongly in that art movement. From the association ofsurrealist art and Freud, we can withhold a cursory understanding of the grotesque in this breed of Modernist art the grotesqueappears as an image, the content of which might traditionally berepressed, that instead, it is expressed within the controlledconfines of a work of art. The psychoanalytic critic will focuson the simultaneous attraction to and repulsion from the dream- deal imagery on the surrealist canvas. Yet, this does notconsider the surrealist notion of art as a liberation of thesubconscious, nor does such analysis adequately incorporate thesurrealist purpose of political revolution. Instead, it reducessurrealist art criticism to the interpretation of dreams. ThisFreudian view becomes in addition limiting of our understanding ofsurrealism, the grotesque, and perhaps even of ourselves... ...d Practice of Dream Interpretation. in Freud Therapy and Technique. ed. Philip Rieff. New York Collier Press, 1963. pp. 205-235. Heidegger, Martin. What is Metaphysics? in Basic Writings, ed. David Farrell Krell. New York Harper & Row, 1977.Plank, William. Sartre and Surrealism. Ann spindle Univeristy of Michigan Research Press, 1972.Sartre, Jean-Paul. Nausea. trans. Lloyd Alexander. New York New Directions, 1964.------- The Psychology of Imagination. trans. Bernard Frechtman. New York cap Square Press, 1966.------- The Writings of Jean-Paul Sartre A Bibliographic Life Chicago north University Press. Interview with Claudine Chonez in Marianne, Dec. 7, 1938.------- What is Literature? and Other Essays. Trans. Steven Ungar. Cambridge Harvard University Press, 1988.