Re: [Leica] art, manual focus & other misunderstanding

[Mark Rabiner <mrabiner@concentric.net>]

Art Peterson wrote:
> 
> Eric,
> 
> Earlier you wrote that Cartier-Bresson would say, "I am a surrealist," and
> you added, "Photojournalism and art are not so far apart."  But your comment
> below contradicts that.  There you say that you too "can fake pictures all
> day long" and don't find certain "pictures all that compelling, because I
> know that with money and models, I could do the same," and that "My
> composition would be different, [and] it would be in color, but it would be
> just as fake."  The notion of what's "fake" is germane to photojournalism,
> but it's irrelevant to art (except, of course, where one perpetrates a
> forgery of an exiting work of art).
snip
> Surrealism is an artistic style, and whether Cartier-Bresson considers
> himself that or something else is of far less importance than what he
> created in whatever style.  He made it SEEM that "Photojournalism and art
> are not so far apart," perhaps, because he, extraordinarily, while
> practicing photojournalism, produced some great works of art.
> 
> :)
> 
> Art Peterson

I was intrigued by Cartier-Bressons' calling himself a Surrealist. I
didn't think of melting clocks when I thought of HCB and I had a feeling
he was kidding us by really being serious... That there  might be less
known aspects of Surrealism that he really was keyed in on. I think I
was right. As a Frenchman he knew the origions and basic real meanings
of Surrealism were not nearly as well known outside of France. And these
were concepts that he really did relate with. Here's two I dug up which
show some of that.The first one is better:
Surrealism 
A term that is much abused and misused nowadays. It was coined in 1917,
but was really given birth by the French poet André Breton in 1924 when
he defined it as "pure psychic automatism by which it is intended to
express..... the true function of thought. Thought dictated in the
absence of all control exerted by reason, and outside all aesthetic or
moral preoccupations." Surrealism followed hard on the heels of Dada. It
was a psychological approach to Dada art. It went in two directions in
the 1920's, one the dream world of painters like Salvador Dali which
were painted in precise realist style, the other, was the work of
painters such as Joan Miró and André Masson. These were loosely drawn
figures or form shown in shallow space. The last official surrealist
painter was Ashile Gorky working in New York. Other painters of note are
Jean Arp, Max Ernst, Man Ray, Yves Tanguy, Remedios Varo, Pablo Picasso,
and René Magritte. From the Aliceville Art Museum 

Surrealism 
Literary and art movement influenced by Freudianism (see FREUD,
SIGMUND), dedicated to expressing the imagination as revealed in DREAMS,
free of the conscious control of reason and convention. Founded (1924)
in Paris by André BRETON with his Manifesto of Surrealism, it can be
traced back to French poets such as Arthur RIMBAUD, Charles BAUDELAIRE,
and Guillaume APOLLINAIRE and to the Italian painter Giorgio de CHIRICO.
In literature, surrealism was confined almost exclusively to France, and
was based on the associations and implications of words. Its adherents
included Paul Éluard and Jean COCTEAU, famous for his surrealist films.
In art the movement was dominant in the 1920s and 30s. Salvador DALI and
Yves TANGUY used dream-inspired symbols such as melting clocks. Max
ERNST and René MAGRITTE used incongruous elements realistically painted.
These verists differed from absolute surrealists, such as Joan MIRó, who
used images from the subconscious.  From the Electric Library,