Daring, bold and beyond the imagination, Surrealism was a revolutionary movement that seized Europe in the 1930s. Based on the manifestation of the subconscious, Surrealism challenges audiences with shocking, disorientating and sometimes nauseating imagery. The many contrasting emotions provoked by surrealist art are so potent that they liberate the viewer’s imagination from the ‘constraints of reality to re-open impossibilities and make them possibilities’.1 The method of disruption and ambiguity used by artists of this movement continues to exert an influence on art. Famous surrealist artists provide examples for contemporary artists to continue to communicate through the elements of Surrealism. This is evident, for instance, in the evocative iconic imagery of René Magritte, with his Le Ciel Meurtrier (The Murderous Sky) (1927), and Rosemary Laing, particularly in her photography series Bulletproof Glass (2002). These recurring elements may be the ambiguity of compressed or disorienting space, the motif of the sky and bird as well as the notion of anti-gravity as an expression of the irrational dream state of Surrealism.
Magritte’s painting depicts a scene of four birds travelling across a ravine in an almost realistic style, however with the surreal twist of unexplainable abnormality. Every bird appears dead—upturned with their bellies ripped, torn and bloodied. They float in the air as if suspended by fishing wire attached from their tiny ribs to the roof of the sky. A silent and haunting mist of death seems to ooze from the crimson wounds of the small birds, infecting the viewer’s mind with unanswerable questions. How did these birds receive their gashes and for what purpose? How is it possible for them to be in flight whilst hung upside down and... The rest of this article is available to subscribers of Eyeline