Surrealism

'Christ is like cheese, a whole mountain range of cheese' declared Salvador Dalí. His flaccid, melting shapes have, as their source, a dream he had about runny camembert cheese.

Surrealist artists sought new sources for image-making to reflect the liberation of, rather than the suppression of, human desires. Their paintings and sculptures often allude to the consumption of food or its symbolic social (sometimes sexual) parallels.

Two works of art in the exhibition Surrealism: Revolution by Night reflect consuming passions and at the same time are examples of two types of surrealist art.

Hans Arp's Shirtfront and fork 1922 is in the collection of the National Gallery of Australia. This wood assemblage is about the size of a large serving tray (58.0 x 71.0 cm) and is created from layers of wood. Colours are muted — black, white and grey; their formality is at odds with the informal shapes.

Shirtfront and fork tilts at social conventions and eating. A diner's position in society may be identified by observing his table manners and dress. The white shirtfront is a 'dicky' — a detachable, false shirtfront with studs often worn beneath a suit. Perhaps it gently mocks the sometimes illusory nature of formal, civilised behaviour. The other readings of the 'shirtfront' shape — as a face with two eyes or as a tooth — reinforce the ambiguity of the frame of reference. The fork, its tines blunted, becomes an arm. The multiplicity of interpretations evokes the shifting undercurrents in a formal dinner conversation.

Arp sought simple, elemental shapes for his art which he likened to the natural fruiting of a plant. He produced his first wooden reliefs in 1917. The prevailing style in Europe was cubism with its rectangular forms; Arp's rounded, natural shapes were distinctly different, particularly with their subconscious allusions. Arp sometimes used randomly torn paper shapes as a starting point for his works. Artists such as Joan Mir6, André Masson, Yves Tanguy and Arshile Gorky, who are represented in this exhibition, were influenced by Arp's natural or 'biomorphic' shapes as they are sometimes described. ('Morphology' here carries double meanings as the study of form and structure both in animals and plants, and in language.)

Giorgio de Chirico was a precursor of another aspect of surrealism — the precisely painted dream. His influence can be traced through the works of Salvador Dalí, René Magritte and Paul Delvaux in this exhibition.

The bananas in de Chirico's painting The uncertainty of the poet 1913, by their shape and location, are sexually suggestive. However their references are broader. This painting combines unexpected elements which refer to the consumption of time: the broken sculpture of the female form evokes an ancient past full of mystery; it is placed against a train speeding to an unknown destination. This is a world produced by dreaming or hallucination, contrasting the cubist world which was disassembled and recreated from its concrete components. Bananas in 191 3 in Italy would have been exotic fruit redolent of warmer climates and curious cultures. These bananas have just been hacked from the plant. They are ripe and ready for consumption or they will soon pass their peak, go limp and decay. Just as Dalí's melting cheese-like shapes refer to the devouring of time, so de Chirico's bananas are a direct foil to the timeless, lifeless female sculpture.

There are other references to eating in the exhibition. Lobster telephone 1936, by Salvador Dalí, refers quite directly to food and sex; the sexual organs beneath the lobster's tail are located over the mouthpiece of the telephone. For an image of a body devouring itself, look for James Gleeson's painting, Citadel 1945. This is a metaphor for war. A limp hand dangles from a cavernous mouth full of ancient teeth and the face is a cliff-face formed from the viscera of the body.

The surrealists knew that reality is richer and far more complex than the merely visual world. They recognised other realities, too. The dream world of the night was seen to mirror the daylight world of everyday reality. The unconscious as a source of new imagery dominated the conscious mind. Surrealist art digs deeply into the human psyche — it can be amusing, it can be thoughtful and it can be provocative. Like a good meal, this exhibition combines much substance and flavour with some interesting spice. Bon appetit!

Barbara Brinton
Education Department