The Imagery Of Surrealism
Condition: SECONDHAND
This is a secondhand book. The jacket image is a photograph of the exact copy we have in stock. This image shows the condition of this book. Further condition remarks are below.
Edition: First ed.
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: Worn/faded, no tears
Pages: Good
At the heart of one of the twentieth century's most radical and provocative artistic movements lies a question that The Imagery of Surrealism boldly confronts: what exactly is Surrealist imagery, and by what mechanisms does it achieve its uncanny, destabilising power? J. H. Matthews, a leading Anglophone authority on Surrealism, presents a rigorous and wide-ranging examination of the visual and verbal image as it manifests across the full breadth of Surrealist practice — from the dreamlike canvases of Salvador Dalí and Max Ernst to the charged, hallucinatory prose of André Breton and Louis Aragon. Drawing on the movement's own manifestos and theoretical writings, Matthews illuminates the philosophical underpinnings of Surrealist aesthetics, arguing that the image, in Surrealist terms, is not merely a pictorial device but a revolutionary act of the unconscious mind. Matthews writes with the precision of a scholar and the passion of a true advocate, situating Surrealism within the broader intellectual currents of Freudian psychoanalysis, Marxist politics, and early twentieth-century avant-garde thought. His analysis charts the movement's restless ambition to dissolve the boundaries between dream and reality, reason and madness, the beautiful and the grotesque. This is an indispensable work for anyone seeking to understand not just what Surrealism looked like, but why it continues to haunt the imagination — leaving the reader to wonder where, precisely, the dream ends and the waking world begins.
Author: J. H. Matthews
Format: Hardback
Published: 1977, Syracuse University Press
Genre: History of arts
Edition: First ed.
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: Worn/faded, no tears
Pages: Good
At the heart of one of the twentieth century's most radical and provocative artistic movements lies a question that The Imagery of Surrealism boldly confronts: what exactly is Surrealist imagery, and by what mechanisms does it achieve its uncanny, destabilising power? J. H. Matthews, a leading Anglophone authority on Surrealism, presents a rigorous and wide-ranging examination of the visual and verbal image as it manifests across the full breadth of Surrealist practice — from the dreamlike canvases of Salvador Dalí and Max Ernst to the charged, hallucinatory prose of André Breton and Louis Aragon. Drawing on the movement's own manifestos and theoretical writings, Matthews illuminates the philosophical underpinnings of Surrealist aesthetics, arguing that the image, in Surrealist terms, is not merely a pictorial device but a revolutionary act of the unconscious mind. Matthews writes with the precision of a scholar and the passion of a true advocate, situating Surrealism within the broader intellectual currents of Freudian psychoanalysis, Marxist politics, and early twentieth-century avant-garde thought. His analysis charts the movement's restless ambition to dissolve the boundaries between dream and reality, reason and madness, the beautiful and the grotesque. This is an indispensable work for anyone seeking to understand not just what Surrealism looked like, but why it continues to haunt the imagination — leaving the reader to wonder where, precisely, the dream ends and the waking world begins.