The other day, I shared the first part of my article in which I explain what surrealism and being a surreal means. I also stated the two characteristics of the this trend which are automatism and poetic.

For this day, let me continue the said topic as I go on to it's 3rd characteristic.

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Juxtaposition

Juxtaposition is the form of combining unlike or unrelated things to each other, for example we have the night and day, good and evil, the light and darkness. Since surrealism is all about combining the dream and reality as one, most written works is kind of weird that's to impossible to be possible in reality, but only exist in dream. In literary works, seems like you are living in a dreamworld as the reality. For you to fully understand this, I recommend the novel The Third Policeman by Flann O'brien.

Use Images and Metaphors

Surrealism in art and literature is a kind of symbolic. This characteristic can be seen more in written works, so while reading a story, novel or any literature made by the surrealist artists, you need to think deeper and pay attention to all details. Sometimes the writers put the hidden meaning in the characters, objects, places or eve in conversation.

Mystery

In written works surrealism for me feels like a horror, and it feels mystery in a way that there's a lot of questions running into your mind. I can say that the movie Alice in Wonderland is a kind of surrealism too, in which Alice have a journey in a dreamworld as a reality, if you have watched this movie up to the end then you will understand what I mean. Solving a mystery on how she can escape in that magical world, also if you have observed in that movie, that the characters are so magical that doesn't exists in reality.

Express themselves(basic drives)

Andre Breton's idea about surrealism was influenced by Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis, going back to the Part I of this article, Andre Breton use the surrealism as a method of healing from the traumatic experience of World War 1. Sigmund Freud wrote a book, The Interpretation of Dreams, in which he explain the conscious and unconscious mind of a person. That the conscious mind is the part of ourselves which we are aware on what we are thinking and doing, while the unconscious mind is the part wherein we are not aware on what we are doing and thinking, and this part is where we can find our hidden thought, desires, problems, fear, and other negative things that affects our personality. Base on Andre Breton's interpretation, since negativity is located in our unconscious mind, why not to set it free. By this, surrealist artist, prefer to get inspiration in their art base on their basic drives, their thoughts about asexuality, love, pleasure, hunger, etc. In this way, the surrealist can set their negativity out, free from the control of negative unconscious thought.

Surrealism is an interesting trend to know, especially when you're into mystery and talking about bizzare ideas. To sum up, surrealism is combining our conscious and unconscious thought, to make our dreams into reality, that's why some artist draw their dream as an inspiration.

If you want to read more written works about surrealism, you can try the works of;

• Yves Tanguy

• Rene Migritte

• Max Ernst

Every morning in TV 5(Filipino Channel) there is also the cartoon, Uncle Grandpa, you can watch it or search in yt, so you can understand more how surrealism works.

That's it for surrealism everyone! Hopefully you understand and appreciate it too just like how I do:D

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July 3, 2022

-Ling