Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2004/05/12
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]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)