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outcolder's review
4.0
A series of essays and over 100 full page reproductions... if all you want is the art, this is well-worth a long look. The essays were excellent though. I learned a lot about how the artists and other members of the movement increasingly became more interested in magic, witchcraft, tarot, alchemy, and Jung, using not only the motifs and visual tropes from those traditions but also more and more the epistemologies behind them to inform their work and their philosophy of art in general. A huge plus for this book is the inclusion of many female artists who worked to change how the female figures were represented in surrealism, increasingly making the female forms more the subject (as opposed to an often dismembered object of either horror, eroticism, or chaos), and connecting magic themes to female power and agency. It's a great treat to see reproductions of Leonor Fini, Dorothea Tanning, Leonora Carrington, and Remedios Varo artwork. It's also great fun to learn how images from tarot, alchemy and other mystery traditions are in the works from all the artists here, with examples of tarot cards and other objects that inspired the surrealists. Great fun and especially interesting for artists confronting the horrors of our century.
I read the German edition.
I read the German edition.
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