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
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.
In practice
In an art critique about surrealism, one might say, 'As Andre Breton said, the simplest act of surrealism...'
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.
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.
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.
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."
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 lifeβs meaning - that event which I may not yet have found, but on whose path I seek myself - is not earned by work.
Let us not mince words: the marvelous is always beautiful, anything marvelous is beautiful, in fact only the marvelous is beautiful.
...And, all at once, the moon arouse through the thin ghastly mist, And was crimson in color... And they lynx which dwelleth forever in the tomb, came out therefrom. And lay down at the feet of the demon. And looked at him steadily in the face.
Every time I paint a portrait I lose a friend.
An abstract painting need in 50 years by no means look "abstract" any longer.
There's blood, a taste I remember. It tastes of orange popsicles, penny gumballs, red licorice, gnawed hair, dirty ice.
Proficiency in a craft is essential to every artist. Therein lies the prime source of creative imagination. Let us then create a new guild of craftsmen without the class distinctions that raise an arrogant barrier between craftsman and artist!
I think of guitar players in terms of doctors: you have the doctor for your heart, the cardiologist, then one that works on your feet, your leg. But I believe George Benson is the one that plays all over. To me, he would be the M.D. of them all.
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