Surrealist Sorcery
Objects, Theories and Practices of Magic in the Surrealist Movement
- 240 pages
- English
- ePUB (mobile friendly)
- Available on iOS & Android
About this book
Often regarded as an artistic movement of interwar Paris, Surrealism comprised an international community of artists, writers, and intellectuals who have aspired to change the conditions of life itself over the course of the past century. Consisting of a wide range of dedicated case studies from the 1920s to the 1970s, this book highlights the international dimensions of the Surrealist Movement, and the radical chains of thought that linked its followers across the globe: from France to Romania, and from Canada to the former Czechoslovakia. From very early on, the surrealists approached magic as a means of bypassing, discrediting, and combatting rationalism, capitalism, and other institutionalized systems and values that they saw to be constraining influences upon modern life. Surrealist Sorcery maps out how this interest in magic developed into a major area of surrealist research that led not only to theoretical but also practical explorations of the subject. Taking an international perspective, Atkin surveys this important quality of the movement and how it's remained an important element in the surrealist project and its ongoing legacy.
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Information
Table of contents
- Cover
- Halftitle Page
- Title Page
- Dedication Page
- Contents
- List of illustrations
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction: Surrealism, magic and the surrealist object as instrument of magic
- 1 Of gold, meteors, stones and crystals: Alchemy and the object in the works of André Breton, Salvador Dalà and Ithell Colquhoun, 1929–49
- 2 Satanic sorcery: Black magic, demons and vampires in the objects and writings of Ghérasim Luca, 1939–45
- 3 Cosmic magic: Talismans and ciphers in the objects of Victor Brauner, 1940–6
- 4 Primordial myth and magic in the writings of André Breton and Benjamin Péret, 1942–59
- 5 Ritual magic in the masks and fetishes of Mimi Parent and Jean Benoît, 1959–76
- Conclusion: Surrealist lessons in the study of magic, as past and future craft
- Notes
- Index
- Imprint