Influence of Freud on Surrealism

Surrealism was an artistic movement with a strong political component. It was the most highly organized and tightly controlled artistic movement in this century, and its moral and philosophical leader was Andre Breton, who held the unofficial title of the Pope of Surrealism. Surrealism was also a life-style and a philosophical outlook that informed artistic expression, political action, and social life:

At the heart of Surrealism lay the belief that "objective chance"--by which was meant inexplicable coincidence--is central to reality, which is not an orderly system of events apprehensible by logical thought. Hence, it was believed, knowledge of true reality can be gained only through a-logical insights of the unconscious mind and these insights can only be achieved by certain (a-logical) automatic procedures (Osborne 529).

Surrealism did not involve on specific style but several styles, all based on the same basic tenets. Breton always remained the chief theorist of the movement, writing Surrealist manifestos and various works explaining and promoting Surrealist ideas. He also create

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"Freud's disciples." In an interview in 1956, Salvador Dali discussed Freud and his influence when asked if he had ever underdone psychoanalysis: I met Sigmund Freud two years before Sigmund Freud died in London. My first period is influenced by Freud completely. Now psychoanalysis is no more interest for me because now I am interested only about nuclear physics and the extraordinary heavens in the metaphysics. It is not necessary for me psychoanalysis, because I am not crazy. You see my kind of craziness is one craziness of precision and clarity, to the contrary of a psychopathological's craziness (Cowles 267). Whether or not Dali had ever met Freud was long controversial. Few believed that such a meeting had ever taken place, for there is no mention of Dali in Freud's own papers. Freud's biographer does not mention such a meeting, and Freud's family has no memory of it. However, Dali consistently boasted that he had met Freud. In his autobiography, Dali does not describe such a meeting and instead only says that he tried to visit Freud three times and found the great man out of town each time. Cowles describes evidence he has found that such a meeting did take place, however, including letters from Freud describ
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Approximate Word count = 2466
Approximate Pages = 10 (250 words per page)