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For today’s post I wanted to focus on the Dada Movement and Surrealism because it is something that I have always been intrigued by when studying Modern Art History.  I also wanted to understand the movement and it’s relationship with Max Ernst and Une Semaine de Bonté.

Dada was an art movement that Ernst was very involved in that was developed as a reaction to the changing world following WWI.  They were an “anti-art” movement and this was also a common theme in Surrealism.   I am focusing on this idea of “anti-art” because I think it is clearly evident in Ernst’s collages and art. He takes the typical human form in the Victorian Era and completely adapts it to his own vision.  Whether it is adding wings to a female body or a lions head to a man, he is going against what would normally be seen in depictions of human beings and creates “anti” human beings.

This then peaked my interest further as I considered what his reaction was to the Victorian Era itself?  He is depicting these powerful individuals in compromising situations, as beasts, and he even contrasts situations on opposing pages.  I think that you can look at the book as his reaction to society during that time, and how he responds to what is going on both in and out of the city.  Thinking back to the Dada movement and Surrealism, these artists were in general reacting to WWI, but then applied it to varying situations that they were experiencing in the world.

The last couple classes showed me ways of utilizing collage techniques that I had never seen before. The concept of juxtaposing different sources and of combining parts from fiction and non-fiction to form a greater whole gives the audience a chance to look at the piece from different angles and with different perspectives. A collage thus can never be “one-sided” as its essence resides in that it encompasses many points of view to create something original that has never been crafted before. Often times, the collages we looked at in class were politically inclined and used the different parts of the collage to create a stinging satire on politics. For instance, some of the ones we looked at exemplified black rights, post war representations, and issues with gender roles and class-consciousness. Thus, collages remind me of perhaps an early form of political cartoons contrasting and comparing different styles and sources in order to comment on events.

There’s so little and so much to on with Une Semaine de Bonté. On one hand, if we assume there’s a plot, the structure of that plot is a lot of speculation. For simplicity’s sake I go with what we decide in class and make alterations from that. On the other hand, there is so much content to experience! Every plate is its own work, and we could go into depth on all of them.

All that is just to say that I’m going to talk about one aspect of a few images, but that’s only because I have to focus to get anything said.

Looking at Tuesday today in class, Professor Serrano pointed out just how many images it takes for the sleeping lady to notice the flood. As the city is ravaged around her, as so many crowds and individuals can’t escape the water, it takes her four plates to wake up, even when she’s knocked out of bed. And as soon as the water touches her, it skips to her servants drying her feet. And that’s the last we see of her, because as a beautiful woman of the upper classes, that’s as much as the drama touches her. As much as Ernst considers femininity to be sacred, there seems to be an injustice illustrated by the ease, even the laziness, of her escape when others struggle so. It seemed like one of the plainer class statements so far. The fact that it was a woman is interesting, though, because they are often depicted here being violated or erased, not usually as figures in power unless you count their power to captivate the male gaze.

What do you guys think of the implication that class superseded gender as  a fact of life for the Victorians, as far as their power over their own worlds? Can they even be equated?

While I’m unsure how relevant and interesting this thought on Une Semaine de Bonté might be, the same thought keeps creeping back into my mind as we’ve looked further into Ernst’s collage-novel this week, so I figured I’d share…

Reading this work has reminded of reading or viewing children’s books or movies… as an adult. As I leaf through the pages, admiring Ernst’s meticulously crafted images, I notice that I feel an odd emotion I experienced when I turned 20. My friend had told me to go back and watch old Disney movies. She noted that as an adult, it’s funny to look back on what were once simply colorful displays of princesses and pick up on some of the hidden inappropriate symbols or themes. For some reason, reading Une Semaine de Bonté has made me feel this weird emotion again. I feel as though I’m looking at this images a few times over, seeing lines and shapes, but it is not until the 4th time that I view all the images together that I am able to discover the violence, brutality, and hyper-sexualization that exist among the pictures. To me, the commentary Ernst is making is not strikingly obvious right off the bat.

Although I’m not sure if other people can relate to this sentiment, I figured I’d share anyways!

I found our discussion on Monday about collages very interesting. I typically do not regard collages as a traditional form of artwork. Rather, my mind immediately thinks of painting, photographs, or drawings when thinking about types or art. However, our discussion and analysis of some of the collages we viewed opened my eyes to this artwork. After our class, I asked myself the question of why someone would make a collage over a painting or a drawing? What does this technique offer that makes it special? I came away with the conclusion that a piece of art is not always about the final product. In fact, I think a great deal of art is appreciated because of the process that the artist underwent to create their work. As we talked about in class, a collage is formed different pieces of material in order to create one image. The vision, talent, and thought process that goes into making an amazing collage is daunting to even think about! While an artist can fix an improper stroke of their paintbrush or retake a poor photo, a mistake on a collage will not go unnoticed. Each piece must work with each other in order to create the final product. Because of this, I believe creating a collage is one of the more difficult art forms to master.

When we were looking through the images in  Une Semaine De Bonte in class today, I found it interesting to follow the appearance and disappearance of the dragon wings found on characters in the images for Tuesday. The wings first appeared when a woman was peeking into a shop, suggesting that she was doing something that she wasn’t supposed to. It is interesting that the wings first appear on a woman, as opposed to a man, and if the wings are removed from the woman in an image, a small dragon often appears at her side instead. The wings seem to be placed on the woman for images in which the woman is clearly doing something wrong, such as peeking into the shop (p. 74), standing over a child in such a way that is reminiscent of a vampire (p. 76), or having her husband ask for forgiveness (p. 92).

As the story of the romance unfolds throughout the Tuesday images, it is clear that the man is not blameless. While the wife may have resorted to spying to uncover the fact that her husband was cheating on her, the husband was guilty for having the affair and being the source of the drama in these images. The wings first appear on the man in an image that seems to depict the mistress begging the man to continue the affair (p. 89). The next few images seem to depict the couple breaking up and the wings next appear on the man when the couple makes up (p. 93). The wings on the man in the scene where the couple makes up foreshadows the fact that the man does not remain faithful to his wife and continues to cheat on her.

The element that Tuesday is based on is fire and this is represented by the dragon and what the dragon symbolizes. The dragons found in these images are all small and are often found on or close to the floor. The dragon is often linked with reptiles and snakes, and perhaps by extension sin. Tuesday depicts images of deceit and trickery and it is possible that the dragons, and the appearance of the wings, symbolize the wrongdoings of the husband and wife.

Ernst’s Tuesday chapter of Une semaine de bonté focuses loosely on the element of fire through imagery of dragons, but at root it is a commentary upon his society’s understanding of romance and sexuality. Figures in the collages are increasingly divorced from humanity by the growing presence of various beastly body parts: heads, wings, tails, and more. Ernst’s animalization of the female figures in his collages struck me as a commentary upon female sexuality. As society began to break out of the constraints of the Victorian era, women found themselves in a ‘liberated’ position in comparison to the past. This moderate degree of sexual freedom posed a fierce threat to Victorian masculinity. Throughout Une semaine de bonté,Ernst espouses this fear of compromised masculinity and attempts to compensate for it by animalizing the women in his collages. The “privilege” of the male gaze becomes an assumption, the  objectification of women: a natural way to view the opposite sex. Collage works to the artist’s advantage, for he often cuts out human heads to replace them with animal ones, while retaining the most sensual parts of the female body. This follows an understanding of the woman as “Other:” an exotic entity who perhaps required  objectification to be understood. Just as white males would do with people of other races, women were quite easy to exoticize and eroticize. Ernst’s collages in the Tuesday chapter are a hyperbolic expression of this perspective. He seems to see mere bodies instead of women, strange, static spectacles instead of living, thinking entities. Yet in these heavy-handed examples of objectification, is Ernst accidentally highlighting the power of women in his society? To reframe it with a question posed in class: Are men “trapped” by women and their beauty?

When we viewed some of Max Ernst’s collages in class, I immediately thought of the illustrations in Maurice Sendak’s, “Where The Wild Things Are”. While Sendak’s illustrations may be relatively easy to interpret and don’t appear to be collages, the “Wild Thing” characters and style of illustration remind me of the surrealism Ernst played with in his collages. Sendak’s illustrations have a sort of dark feeling like Ernst’s collages. Below I’ve included some works from both artists:

Ernst’s collages can be complex and difficult to decipher, and while they are more sexualized than Sendak’s, I think there is a parallel between their styles. Both create characters that the viewer will be able to objectively recognize, but subjectively interpret. For Sendak we see monsters, but monsters mean different things to different people. Some people find them scary and evil while others see them as an exciting narrative of friendly or cute symbols. I think the monsters aren’t necessarily depicted in a child-friendly manner, they can come off as quite frightening with their teeth, horns, and claws; despite their harmlessness. With Ernst, we see genders. Men and women that have abstract components attached to them like the bird or lizard (I think it’s a lizard) in the pictures above. This allows for a variety of interpretations, which makes collages interesting objects to look at. Sendak and Ernst have a similar storytelling styles that portrays abstract and uncommon content.

Before class on Monday, I had never really given much thought regarding what a collage was. The first thing that comes to mind when I think of collage is the organization of newspaper, magazine, or picture cutouts that are displayed artistically. I recently, however, watched a movie called “500 Days of Summer” and realized that collage has a place in film as well. The movie cover itself consists of scenes compiled close together, slightly overlapping (possibly 500 pictures of the character named Summer). A bright yellow sun is also overlaid transparently over a section of the faces. Finally, the two main characters look as if they have been cut out and pasted in front of the face collage, each person outlined with a sliver of white boarder.

Collage is also apparent within the movie, as fictional items (such as the bird shown below) are sporadically juxtaposed with the realistic setting and actors and actresses. This example of collage illustrates the versatile nature of the art form. For example, the term can even be extended to music in the form of a montage. The unifying theme that relates all these forms of collage is the notion that they all use different forms that result in a new whole.