In The Rise of Surrealism, Willard Bohn examines the various literary and artistic developments that prepared the way for the international Surrealist movement—including Cubism, Metaphysical Art, and Dada—as well as the triumph of Surrealism itself. In an analysis that spans the first two-thirds of the twentieth century, Bohn surveys writers and artists from France, Italy, Germany, Spain, Argentina, Mexico, Chile, and the United States, examining both their aversion to mimesis and the solutions they devised to replace it. Much of the book is concerned with competing artistic models and with different strategies for creating avant-garde works, and focuses on such figures as Guillaume Apollinaire, Max Weber, Marius de Zayas, Francis Picabia, Giorgio de Chirico, André Breton, J. V. Foix, and Joan Miró. The dynamics of the imagery that painters and poets chose to employ and the new roles this imagery assumed in their compositions are also discussed.

List of Illustrations

Acknowledgments

1. Introduction

2. Probing the Fourth Dimension: Guillaume Apollinaire and Max Weber

3. The Demise of the Object: Francis Picabia and Marius de Zayas

4. Giorgio de Chirico and the Solitude of the Sign

5. From Surrealism to Surrealism: Guillaume Apollinaire and Andre Breton

6. The Surrealist Image in Literature and Art

7. An Extraordinary Voyage: J. V. Foix and Joan Miro

8. The Hour of the Sphinx: Andre Breton and Joan Miro

9. Coda

Notes

Bibliography

Index