Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2004/05/12

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Subject: [Leica] Surrealism ?]
From: DouglasMSharp at netscape.net (Douglas M. Sharp)
Date: Wed May 12 16:58:50 2004



I think it's a hard job  trying to define surrealism and where it starts.
Whatever your own reality is and how you define it, automatically 
creates your personal unique  border to surrealism.

Maybe in photography it's Man Rays "Nude Descending a Staircase" , on 
the other hand, Bill Brandts hyper wide angle
nudes on a beach, or even Martin Parrs hyper realistic flash images of 
British eating habits or Germans at home?
In music the group of  "Les Six", or Charles Ives ?

In art maybe Breughel or Arcimboldo, even Turner in his own time, In 
literature Borges, Bradbury,Vonnegut, what about  Edward Lear - is 
nonsense surreal ?

The definitions are endless, and, IMO, as such, pointless, except as a 
reason for further attempting to define "beyond reality"
for someone with a completely different frame of reference.  I can only 
define the limits of what is real for me, which may or may not
match the reality boundaries of anyone else.

Whose self -defined reality can we use as a reference, or is reliable 
enough, that we can accept his/her definition. Some art critic who
moves in ethereal climes to which we may have little access ?
In that case, if we accept such opinions, and  above all the wording of 
them, then wine critics are just as surreal, as
are most politicians.
Douglas
>From Hannover, one time home of Erich Maria Remarque and Kurt 
Schwitters ( whose picture in the Nazi display of Entartete Kunst was 
hung upside down,
I'm sure this was one of the greatest compliments he ever had)





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