Surrealism will usher you into death, which is a secret society. It will glove your hand, burying therein the profound M with which the word Memory begins.
Andre BretonRead
The simplest act of surrealism is to walk out into the street, gun in hand, and shoot at random.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote highlights the spontaneous and often chaotic nature of surrealism in art.
Andre Breton's quote emphasizes the unpredictability and freedom of surrealism, suggesting that true surrealist expression can be found in impulsive and chaotic actions. By illustrating a surreal act such as randomly shooting into the street, he conveys the idea that surrealism breaks away from conventional artistic boundaries and reality, allowing for a raw and unfiltered exploration of the subconscious.
Themes
SurrealismArtSpontaneityChaosCreativity
In practice
Example use cases
In an art critique about surrealism, one might say, 'As Andre Breton said, the simplest act of surrealism...'
More from Andre Breton
All quotes →The mind, placed before any kind of difficulty, can find an ideal outlet in the absurd. Accommodation to the absurd readmits adults to the mysterious realm inhabited by children.
Andre BretonRead
Beauty is like a train that ceaselessly roars out of the Gare de Lyon and which I know will never leave, which has not left. It consists of jolts and shocks, many of which do not have much importance, but which we know are destined to produce one Shock, which does...The human heart, beautiful as a seismograph...Beauty will be CONVULSIVE or will not be at all.
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I maintain that anyone who still refuses to see, for instance, a horse galloping on a tomato, must be an idiot. A tomato is also a child's balloon - Surrealism, again, having suppressed the word "like."
Andre BretonRead
There is no use being alive if one must work. The event from which each of us is entitled to expect the revelation of his own life’s meaning - that event which I may not yet have found, but on whose path I seek myself - is not earned by work.
Andre BretonRead
Let us not mince words: the marvelous is always beautiful, anything marvelous is beautiful, in fact only the marvelous is beautiful.
Andre BretonRead
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