wither goest thou, secretcinema1: Andre Breton, 1930, Man Ray ...

secretcinema1:

Andre Breton, 1930, Man Ray
”During World War 1 Andre Breton worked as an intern at the Saint-Dizier psychiatric centre, treating shellshock victims - an experience that deeply marked him. Helping patients to analyse their dreams ‘constituted,’ as he recalled much later, ‘almost all the groundwork of Surrealism…interpretation, yes, always, but above all liberation from constraints - logic, morality and the rest - with the aim of recovering their original powers of spirit.’ One patient in particular impressed him: a young, cultivated man whom trench warfare had driven into such an illusion of invulnerability that he made up a parallel world for himself. He would stand on the parapet of a trench during a bombardment, pointing to the explosions with his finger, in the calm belief that the corpses were dummies, the wounds greasepaint, the shells blank, and the whole war a sham played out by actors. No bullet ever touched him, and no argument could convince him that the war was real. This man, Breton thought, epitomised the relation between the artist and his chosen reality. The only poetry worth having must be so obsessive that it would create a parallel world.”

Andre Breton, 1930, Man Ray

”During World War 1 Andre Breton worked as an intern at the Saint-Dizier psychiatric centre, treating shellshock victims - an experience that deeply marked him. Helping patients to analyse their dreams ‘constituted,’ as he recalled much later, ‘almost all the groundwork of Surrealism…interpretation, yes, always, but above all liberation from constraints - logic, morality and the rest - with the aim of recovering their original powers of spirit.’ One patient in particular impressed him: a young, cultivated man whom trench warfare had driven into such an illusion of invulnerability that he made up a parallel world for himself. He would stand on the parapet of a trench during a bombardment, pointing to the explosions with his finger, in the calm belief that the corpses were dummies, the wounds greasepaint, the shells blank, and the whole war a sham played out by actors. No bullet ever touched him, and no argument could convince him that the war was real. This man, Breton thought, epitomised the relation between the artist and his chosen reality. The only poetry worth having must be so obsessive that it would create a parallel world.”

Post source:

secretcinema1

Share this post:

Notes:

grhmjngl likes this
awfulconsequences likes this
immoralintricacies reblogged this from secretcinema1
pegsforlegs reblogged this from secretcinema1
daydreamsforjack reblogged this from secretcinema1
punchblog reblogged this from secretcinema1
thinkingitmakesitso likes this
fenec likes this
mantequillas likes this
stellikerk likes this
these-summer-nights-in-december likes this
secretcinema1 posted this