AI Generated Art through a Surrealist Lens

The digital age has brought incredible advancements to the art world from developments in audio/visual technologies and virtually interactive technology to the boom in Non-Fungible Token (NFT) trading. To me the most interesting development we have seen is the introduction of art made by artificial intelligence (AI) programs, a hot topic of current internet discourse and debates. The main question being asked is simply whether these computer-generated images can really be considered art, this question is as much philosophical as it is to do with the law and neither argument is ‘right’. I will argue not just that these images are art but that they are fundamentally surrealist and I will highlight parallels between this new age, digital artform and the twentieth century Surrealist group practices.

My personal interest here lies with the surrealists, their influence on the art world and how their practices can live on in the modern world. I am not a computer person, but I was fascinated by AI art from the first time I came across it, specifically text-to-image pieces; “Text to image synthesis refers to the method of generating images from the input of text automatically” (Singh, Anekar, Ritika, & Patil, 2022, p. 194). Arthur I Miller’s book The Artist in the Machine- The World of AI Powered Creativity (2019) has been immensely valuable in helping me understand the more technical and scientific aspects of the world of AI and specifically it’s relation to art, it’s capabilities, limitations and history. ­

There is a large community of creators who are engaging with AI in their practices, some who create their own programs and others who use readily available ones such as the popular DALL●E●2 and Midjourney to create their work; many members of the community post their work to online photo-sharing sites like Instagram where they use hashtags such as #aiart, #digitalart and #generativeart to network and connect. “Generative” here refers to the type of AI that I will be focusing on, “AI can be broadly defined as computer applications that attempt to emulate human capabilities” (Troshani, Hill, Sherman, & Arthur, 2020, p. 181) but I am writing specifically about Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs). GANs are a type of artificial neural network or more simply a computer that is designed to mimic the human brain’s neuronic structure (Miller, 2019). Miller writes that “Artificial neural networks…need not be extensively preprogrammed…they are based on another sort of [unsupervised] machine learning in which data is fed into the machine with no specific instructions, in other words, the machine learns by itself.” (Miller, 2019, p. 43). GANs operate with the specific instructions to create images based on what the user inputs as well as its knowledge that it has acquired through this machine learning which involves two competing artificial neural networks: the Discriminator (D) and the Generator (G). GANs learn how to both recognise and produce images through a back and forth process between D and G, to simplify this process: if the user were to request the program to generate an image of a cat, the G will formulate a noisy, blobby image (known as latent space) based on D’s preprogrammed knowledge of what a cat looks like, G sends this image to D, D does not recognise this image as a cat and rejects the image, simultaneously D learns more about what a cat isn’t, with this new information G generates a new image and the cycle continues until the latent space resembles a cat enough for D verify that the image resembles cat and the program provides the user with the final product (Miller, 2019).  “The use of AI in the process of creating visual arts was significantly accelerated with the emergence of generative adversarial networks” (Cetinic & She, 2022) which came in 2014 when Ian Goodfellows thought of this breakthrough invention over a pub debate while he was studying at the University of Montreal (Miller, 2019).

 Dr Anahruda Reddy writes that “contemporary AI systems…appear to have imaginations of their own as they newly contribute to human creativity by adding layers of data-driven interpretation, prediction and generativity.” (Reddy, 2022), which brings to light the question of what is creative imagination? “Creativity is the production of new knowledge from already existing knowledge and is accomplished by problem solving” (Miller, 2019, p. 5). In his book, Miller summarises psychologist Graham Wallas’ four stage model of creativity as

(1) Conscious thought;

(2) Unconscious thought;

(3) Illumination;

 (4) Verification (Miller, 2019).

To simplify the AI process of image generation according to this model the user’s conscious thought (1) is processed by a computer program (2), the image is generated (3) and verified (4) by the computer’s D- if it follows the four stages of creativity then why should we not acknowledge the creative process and call this art? Miller highlights (2) unconscious thought as essential to the creative process- “During unconscious thinking, the mind mulls over many different approaches to a problem, using facts stored in our deepest memory” (Miller, 2019, p. 36) or known knowledge.

 The surrealists had  a deep fascination with the unconscious, their main aims can be summed up as a plight to rid their art and literature of conscious thought; the group practiced automatic writing and drawing, painted from dreamscapes, held ‘sleeping parties’ and used Freud’s practice of ‘free association’ to unlock their repressed fantasies, memories and fears in the name of art. In September of 1922, forefather of Surrealism Andre Breton and his wife Simone Collinette hosted a type of séance at their home. The séance was proposed by René Crevel and they would go on to host multiple through to the spring of 1923, eventually being known as “sleeping sessions” thanks to Breton (Bauduin, 2014) . It is important to note that although this precedes the common notion that the surrealist movement was born in 1924 when the first Surrealist Manifesto (1924) was published, Guillaume Apollinaire coined the term in the title of a play that he wrote in the turn of the twentieth century (Ellison, 2021), members of the group that we now know as the surrealists adopted the term later on; many were working and acquainted before the manifesto was published. Attendees include names such as Max Morise, Robert Desnos, Gala Diakonova, Paul Eluard, Max Ernst, Man Ray and others. Activities would include certain attendees slipping into a trance or ‘sleeping state’, they themselves and others made drawings and writings based on the experience. Some members of the group such as Breton and Ernst have been reported as unable to reach these trance states  while other members were adept (Bauduin, 2014); “In one of Man Ray’s photographs of a trance session conducted by the Bureau of Surrealist Research in 1923, the poet Robert Desnos is shown at the typewriter. According to Breton, he was particularly good at entering ecstatic states and bypassing conscious control”  (Turner, 2011).

 Another member, or more so outsider, of the group with a particular skill for entering sleep states was the “near phantom…surnameless Suzanne” (Rosemont, 1998, p. 67). Not much is known about Suzanne, just that she was a ‘sleeper’, she offered her ability to enter sleeping states, like an unconscious muse (Rosemont, 1998). Artists and writers would make work, sometimes automatic writings or drawings, based on Suzanne’s behaviour and accounts of her trances, through the process of drawing on known knowledge through unconscious thought. Suzanne’s participation in these sessions allowed the Surrealists to subvert the four step model of creativity, this process became:

(1)unconscious thought;

(2)unconscious thought;

(3) illumination.

Conscious thought became secondary, if not altogether useless compared to unconscious thought and verification was no longer necessary because what they created through this process were pure interpretations of unconscious knowledge- they were able to achieve their main goals. When comparing these practices, Suzanne and the sleepers become the text prompt, the writers and artists become the GAN and the end result is the same- art produced by interpreting knowledge through means of unconscious thought. Unfortunately, the sleeping sessions ended due to the sessions becoming “increasingly dark in time and even violent” to the point where a small group of members were planning a collective suicide attempt in a side room (Bauduin, 2014). Bauduin begs the question of whether the “emotional or psychological dependency upon Breton” (Bauduin, 2014) pushed the attendees, including Suzanne, to overexaggerate or perform rather than to organically experience these sleeping states; I cannot possibly testify as to whether they personally could have reached a trance like state or not but after witnessing my mother be hypnotized in Ibiza, 2013, I am inclined to believe that it is possible.

In the first Surrealist Manifesto (1924), although it’s a physiological term, Breton defined automatism as “the dictation of thought in the absence of all control exercised by reason and outside all moral or aesthetic concerns” (Breton, 1924) and became an essential part of the surrealist practice through automatic production to scratching techniques such as frottage and grattage where the marks made are largely down to chance (Tate, nd). Frottage, meaning rubbing, was developed by Ernst during the twentieth century; it is a technique that involves laying paper over a textured surface and rubbing a drawing material like pastel or graphite over the paper (Tate, nd). Also developed by Ernst, Grattage involves painting a layer of oil paint, laying the canvas on top of a textured object and then scraping the paint from the canvas to emphasise these textures (Tate, nd).

Chance became a key part of surrealism, most notably in games of Exquisite Corpse which was a favourite at dinner parties but also long distance via post. Although the name is not well known today, the premise of the game is that each participant draws a head on a piece of paper, folds it over so as not to be seen and passes it to the next player who draws the neck and the game repeats until the creatures, or corpses, are complete. When inputting a text prompt into a GAN program, the user will have a general idea of what the image will look like but it is ultimately out of the users hands and down to chance much like a game of exquisite corpse or a gratted painting.

 Mike Tyka, a researcher working with Google started to experiment with artificial neural networks in 2015. Tyka has a PhD in biophysics and studied both biochemistry and biotechnology at the University of Bristol before he became an artist, since then his work has been shown in the New Museum in Karuizawa, Japan and at Ars Electronica in Austria (Interalia Magazine, 2018). Tyka used the GAN program DeepDream (2015) to produce his series Portraits of Imaginary People of which he published a book in 2019. Tyka fed the GAN’s D with thousands of images of faces  from the image sharing site Flickr (Interalia Magazine, 2018), this part of the deep learning process is known as supervised learning. The results of his request for DeepDream to generate images of faces resulted in eerily uncanny portraits,  “the brain instinctively registers that these are not real people” (Miller, 2019, p. 89) yet these faces are compellingly human. That is the epitome of the uncanny, a staple of surrealism. “The 'uncanny' is that form of terror that leads back to something long known to us, once very familiar" (Freud, 1919); the uncanny relates to the two German concepts of Heimlich and Unheimlich. There are no direct translations for these words but roughly, Heimlich refers to a feeling of homeliness and familiarity and unheimlich is the opposite- when combined they form the uncanny which is somewhere between an emotion and an experience, a comfort in discomfort or comparable to that nagging feeling that something is not quite right but not being able to put your finger on it. Obviously, Freud’s uncanny is much more complicated but these concepts form the basis of his theory. Like the story about my Mother in Ibiza Tyka’s portraits are merely anecdotal here, the truth is that all images generated by AI are ‘imaginary’, they do not exist in our physical realm, they are interpretations of the imagination of the person who inputs the text created by a machine. Professor Kriss Ravetto-Biagilio suggests that digital artwork has created a “new type of uncanny experience” (Ravetto-Biagioli, 2019, p. 5), he writes that “the uncanny no longer emerges from our inability to tell what is a machine from what is human…but from the fact that it is no longer possible to make such distinctions.” (Ravetto-Biagioli, 2019, p. 4). A number of AI programs are capable of style transfer, a skill that enables them to create pieces of art in the style of a particular human artist, the images that are created are familiar, the style is recognisable but the image itself, maybe also the subject matter is unfamiliar and there may be some tell-tale signs that it isn’t by the artist the viewer thinks it is which creates this sense of uncanny. The thought that a computer is capable of mimicking human creativity is uncanny, the knowledge that something so inhuman is capable of human tasks is uncomfortable. Juxtaposition is at the heart of the uncanny.

 Some AI artists who are sharing their work online are experimenting with mundane subjects, trying to create the most realistic face or a family of cats wearing socks, others are creating surreal worlds with their own narratives or imaginary creatures. The Surrealists are renowned for creating dreamscapes like Salvador Dali’s Persistence of Memory (1931), uncanny spaces such as Dorothea Tanning’s Eine Klein Nachtmusik (1943) and unusual creatures such as Max Ernst’s Fireside Angel (1937). The surrealists were not tied down stylistically, nor did their work share content or context unanimously in the movement so it is difficult to summarise their interests in terms of what they painted, drew, wrote about and imagined but generally the surrealists are associated with dream/nightmare-scapes, occultism, psychological study and distorted realities- all of which are similarly associated with AI art. The introduction of GANs has allowed users, who may otherwise not be able, to express the thoughts and concepts that they don’t fully understand whether it is visualising a dream or helping them to envision their idea of what a utopia would look like. In this way, AI acts as a surrealist tool, much like the group used psychological tools such as Freud’s theory and practice of free association to aid their creativity. Free association was developed by Freud as hypnotism fell out of his favour, rather than inducing the patient to talking about their trauma, they were encouraged to speak freely and without thought to what they were going to say next (Storr, 2001).

 In the first Surrealist Manifesto (1924) Breton defined surrealism as “psychic automatism in its pure state, by which I proposes to express- verbally or in any other manner- the actual functioning of thought. Dictated by thought, in the absence of any control exercised by reason, exempt from any aesthetic or moral concern” (Breton, 1924) I would argue that the use of GANs is absolutely  a form of psychic automatism, if not the most pure; computers are not able to think consciously and impurify the product of creative unconscious thought. And if Breton himself accepts these expressions in any manner, then AI generated images are fundamentally surrealist. Not only this, AI art has given rise to not just a “new type of uncanny” (Ravetto-Biagioli, 2019) but also a new form of surrealism, one that has the uncanny ingrained into everything that it generates.

­An Exploration of Valerie Steele’s Three Categories of Corsetry Motivations

Corsets- tight laced, constrictive and sexy- have an extensive history; according to ‘Vogue’  “Corsets were worn by women – and sometimes men – in the Western world from the 16th to the early 20th century, although corset-like garments can be traced as far back as 1600 BC.” (Bass-Kruger & Timms, 2021) although prior to the 1800s they were known mostly as ‘stays’ (Lynn, 2010). The appeal of the corsets themselves and the act of tight lacing varies from person to person, in their book FETISH: Fashion, Sex & Power (1996) costume historian Valerie Steele identifies three main motivations for corset wearers: “(1) extreme body modification, which involved wearing tight corsets day and night; (2) a sadomasochistic delight in pain and an emphasis on erotic scenarios involving dominance and submission; and (3) corsetry as an element in cross-dressing.” (Steele, 1996). In this essay I am aiming to explore these motivations and evidences of them throughout history.

To begin with, body modification via corsetry was popular among the Victorians as the “famous, cartoonish hourglass body shape emerged…[and] the cultural desire for a small waist hit its peak…By the end of the 19th century, tightlacing became a dangerous competition between women in order to see who could achieve a “wasp waist” measuring 18 inches or less.” (Harding, 2018). Corsets redefine the body shape by cinching in the waist to exaggerate the hips into a caricature of the female frame sometimes in a bid to display fertility or womanhood or a “hyperbolic version of the curvaceous feminine ideal” (Riordan, 2007) which also links to Steele’s latter category of cross-dressing as well as sounding about-right to the armchair bio-psychologist. It is a myth that corsetry was only enjoyed by upper class women, they were actually used by men and children through the social classes, also; Leigh Summers writes in her book Bound To Please (2003) that “by the 1880s magazines and women’s newspapers were peppered with articles and advertisements promoting juvenile corsetry”; these adverts often listed skeletal support as a benefit and the selling point was the ways  in which they could help children to grow with proper posture (Summers, 2003).  Female Victorian corsetiers in the middle and working classes used home-made binders (traced back as far as the 1830s) that aimed to negate post-partum changes to the body that, at the time, were regarded as unsightly- it was impolite to even mention pregnancy in good company (Summers, 2003).

There are claims of tight-laced Victorians with waists as small as nine inches (Steele, 1996) but as Steele points out, these have little credibility. The smallest recorded waist measurement belongs to Ethel Granger (1905-1982) who reduced her waist size over ten years of corseting to a mere thirteen inches (Steele, 1996) (Anon., n.d.). Granger’s motivation for corseting is said to have been to appease her husband who had been an enthusiast of extreme body modification throughout his life, taking his passion as far as performing multiple piercings on Ethel’s body (Steele, 1996).

A revival of the corset came in the early 2010s, despite shapewear being available before then, the growing desirability of the Kardashian body-type in popular culture brought with it the widespread availability of modern waist trainers, which are essentially low-budget, non-decorative corsets that aim to give the wearer a flatter tummy and a smaller waist. The 2010’s felt like a transitional time in terms of body ideals, the grasp that ‘heroin chic’ of the 90’s, bore partly from the punk-culture, had on fashion was loosening but the expansion of photo-based social media sites, such as Instagram, and photo editing software triggered the widespread obsession with ‘Yassification’ and the need to present ourselves as refined and retouched thanks to the growing number of influencers and the increased visibility of celebrities in our day-today lives. ‘Yassifcation’ is internet slang referring to a recent trend of satirically applying multiple beauty filters and editing softwares to radically distort images of naturally styled people into glammed-up, hyper-feminine, uncannily cartoonish images (Anon., n.d.), but here I am using it to describe the non-humorous use of beauty filters and editing.  In the ‘Insta-age’, it has not been uncommon to see social media adverts from trendy, ‘slim-thick’ influencers for waist-trainers and other shapewear items (London, 2021) and in 2019 Kim Kardashian herself launched a shapewear brand called Skims (Anon., n.d.). Skims’ waist trainers market for £66 with the tagline “Accentuate your natural curves with SKIMS waist trainers for women. Available in sizes XXS-4X, our high support waist shapers are comfortable and breathable for all-day wear.” (Anon., n.d.) The waist-trainer usually uses hook-and-eye closures rather than being laced which takes away the traditional ritualistic qualities that set the waist trainer apart from the corset that is so popular amongst fetishists which I will explore next.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines ‘fetishism’ as “A form of sexual behaviour, often resulting from earlier repression, in which desire is stimulated by, or has as its goal, some kind of inanimate object (often shoes, rubber, or underclothes), or a particular non-sexual part of the body (feet, hair, etc.), or the performance of certain non-sexual actions.” (Anon., 2021). The erotic appeal of the corset is not just visual but tactile and experiential too. Art historian, David Kunzle, writes in his book Fashion and Fetishism; Corsets, Tight-lacing and Other Forms of Body Sculpture (2004) “the erotic function of the corset is illuminated in certain popular currents of eighteenth and nineteenth century graphic art and illustration, notably in France, where erotic art flourished with the greatest freedom and sophistication.” (Kunzle, 2004).  Corsets require lacing and what is lacing if not binding? What is being bound if not engaging in bondage? Steele notes that corset fetishism is a popular interest amongst ‘kinky’ heterosexual couples usually with the man having an initial interest in binding his partner (Steele, 1996), here we encounter the sadomasochistic qualities of the corset. Sadomasochism, the sexual phenomenon of obtaining pleasure from inflicting and/or receiving pain and humiliation that usually relies on a power imbalance (Anon., 2022). The act of binding and being bound by another person brings with it this powerplay, however it is not as black and white as, for example, ‘corset wearer = submissive party’; within fetish circles different material corsets have been associated with different sexual roles based on their individual properties for example, “some sadomasochists believe that leather corsets are only for dominants and rubber corsets are only for submissives” (Steele, 1996) in the case of the dominant corset wearer the piece takes on a different meaning, the corset becomes an armour rather than a restraint.

Gender, the way that we express our identities through, or against, the conventions of the binary view of biological sex, is beyond complicated. In recent decades, the western world has begun to recognise that gender can be fixed or fluid. ‘Transvestism’ refers to the act of deriving gratification from wearing the clothes associated with the opposite gender (Dictionary, 2022) though the term has fallen out of preference in recent years and ‘cross-dressing’ has become the agreed term (Nissim, 2018) but I have found that it is still used by a large number of fetishists and in fetish literature. Cross dressing forms the basis of drag which combines cross-dressing and entertainment. In The Drag Queen Anthology (2004),  Judith Lorber writes that drag’s core elements are “performance and parody. Drag exaggerates gendered dress and mannerisms” (Lorber, 2004). Although in recent years we understand that drag performers are not a monolithic group of people, they can come in any size or shape, race, or gender, here, I will concentrate on male queens (men who perform as women). Drag performers play on stereotypes and exaggerations of gender and sex, which is why corsets have such an appeal, the corset can transform the male figure into a more ‘womanly’ shape using illusion as well as extreme body modification. A large portion of drag queens’ performances are high energy and for this reason Glamourouscorset.com recommends, in its guide ‘Drag Queen Corsets: A Feminizing Guide to Waist Cinchers’, that ‘waspie’ style corsets tend to be the best fit due to their small side seams (Anon., n.d.) although they recommend longline and under-bust styles as well, highlighting just how personal and individualised the process of finding the right corset for you can be. Every performer has their own persona, performers construct the image of their female persona using makeup, wigs, clothes, accessories, corsets (also referred to as ‘cinchers’ among queens) alongside extra padding used to add curves to the hips, bosom, thighs, and backside.

Now I will provide some examples of other motivations for corset wearers that lie outside of Steele’s categories. In the case of the tight-lacing Victorians, the corset doubled as a symbol of status. The compromised gait adopted by the wearer doubled as a symbol of status; (Steele, 1996) upper-class women were able to lead leisurely lives rather than having to work or bear the full weight of child-rearing as the working class did whereby being tight-laced would cause medical problems or extreme discomfort, much the same in the case of high heels. There are many other parallels that can be drawn between corsets and shoes such as the link between tight-lacing and Chinese foot binding, but it would be redundant to try to condense such a complex subject into this paper. Upper-class women could also afford more comfortable corsets with luxurious textiles and fleece linings to minimise chaffing. Leigh Summers observed that “Middle-class women … used corsetry to strengthen and protect their class hegemony, while working-class women corseted (in part) to obfuscate or escape their working-class origins with the hope of entering the world of their ‘betters’.” (Summers, 2003) by making themselves more attractive in terms of  the beauty standard of the time in hopes of setting themselves apart from other women of their class to attract a socially ‘superior’ marital partner. This could be categorised under Steele’s ‘extreme body modification’ category but I think it’s important to point out the role that social status and the desire to climb the social classes played in Victorian tight lacing.

In the early 20th century corset production moved away from whale bone to cheaper steel rods and eventually plastic became popular boning material (Lynn, 2010). Although corsets have never truly left us, women began to opt for girdles and straight stays that gave a ‘boxy’ silhouette as opposed to the once desirable ‘wasp-waist’ in the early twentieth century and corset use declined (Steele, 1996) . Since then, they have been reimagined over time. The first major revival of the corset and its introduction into mainstream fashion came when punk icon Vivienne Westwood rebranded her Kings Road based shop to be the legendary SEX in 1974 (Anon., n.d.), here, ‘normal’ streetwear was sold alongside fetish wear such as leather harnesses and corsets as well as biker gear like studded leather jackets and tight leather pants. At a time that diet culture was becoming more popular than body sculpture  (Bass-Kruger & Timms, 2021) Westwood was busy being a vanguard of the punk counterculture that aimed to subvert expectations and binaries. One way in which this was achieved was the introduction of underwear-as-outerwear and the corset subsequently became a fashion item rather than a functional undergarment. Westwood enabled the women of the sexual revolution to reclaim the corset and denounce it’s perception as a patriarchal tool of oppression and in doing so gave women an opportunity to instil power into themselves through tight lacing, undermining what we knew as femininity and the female experience. (Sherbert, n.d.).

Today, traditional corsets are harder to come by although are still used by enthusiasts, fetishists, performers and in high fashion. Thierry Mugler recurrently uses corsets in his designs and is lorded for the fetish imagery in his work, although he was criticised for the severely tight-laced corset worn by Kim Kardashian at the 2019 Met Gala (Radon, 2018). Corset-style tops with hook and eye details have become popular and are available to the history-of-corsetry-ignorant at most major fast-fashion retailers such as ASOS, Boohoo, Prettylittlething and Misguided. Bridal lingerie is available at any lingerie retailer, designer brand or low-budget retailer and waist trainers are still popular thanks to the plethora of celebrity and influencer endorsements. Steele’s categories provide a good basis for understanding the world of corsets, but they seem, to me, slightly reductive. Corsets have served and continue to serve so many purposes, some that I haven’t even been able to touch on (such as medical uses and in costume) that cross boundaries between Steele’s identified categories or even have nothing to do with them.

Anon., 2021. Oxford English Dictionary- Online. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Anon., 2022. Sadomasochism,n.. s.l.:Oxford Univeersity Press.

Anon., n.d. Drag Queen Corsets: A Feminizing Guide to Waist Cinchers. [Online]
Available at: https://www.citethisforme.com/cite/sources/websiteautociteeval
[Accessed 12 03 20222].

Anon., n.d. reship.com. [Online]
Available at: https://www.reship.com/info/online-shopping-uk.html
[Accessed 07 March 2022].

Anon., n.d. Skims- Wikipedia. s.l.:s.n.

Anon., n.d. Smallest Waist. [Online]
Available at: https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/67529-smallest-waist
[Accessed 09 March 2022].

Anon., n.d. Vivienne Westwood. [Online]
Available at: https://blog.viviennewestwood.com/history/1971-1980/
[Accessed 06 March 2022].

Anon., n.d. Waist Trainer | Shapers & Waist Trainers for Women | SKIMS. [Online]
Available at: https://skims.com/collections/waist-trainers
[Accessed 07 March 2022].

Anon., n.d. Yassification- Wiktionary. [Online]
Available at: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/yassification

Bass-Kruger, M. & Timms, E., 2021. Vogue. [Online]
Available at: https://www.vogue.co.uk/article/history-of-the-corset
[Accessed 06 March 2022].

Dictionary, O. E., 2022. Transvestism,n.. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Harding, L., 2018. How the Cultural Becomes Biological: Evidence for Corseting in the Skeletal Record | The Classic Journal. [Online]
Available at: https://theclassicjournal.uga.edu/index.php/2018/10/31/how-the-cultural-becomes-biological-evidence-for-corseting-in-the-skeletal-record/
[Accessed 13 03 2022].

Kunzle, D., 2004. Fashion and Fetishism: Corsets, tight-lacing and other forms of body-sculpture. Stroud: Sutton.

London, L., 2021. How The What Waist Trainer Outlived The Instagram Trend. [Online]
Available at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/lelalondon/2021/01/08/how-the-what-waist-trainer-outlived-the-instagram-trend/?sh=21a271ea7f6d
[Accessed 09 March 2022].

Lorber, J., 2004. Preface. In: S. P. Schacht, ed. The Drag Queen Anthologgy: The Absolutely Fabulous but Flawlessly Customary World of Female Impersonators . New York : Harrington Park Press, p. 9.

Lynn, E., 2010. Slate Magazine. [Online]
Available at: https://slate.com/culture/2010/11/a-short-history-of-corsetry-from-whalebone-to-lycra.html
[Accessed 05 March 2021].

Nissim, M., 2018. What should you call trans people?. [Online]
Available at: https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2018/03/19/transsexual-transgender-transvestite-what-should-you-call-trans-people/
[Accessed 13 03 2022].

Radon, S., 2018. Corsets Were One of 2019’s Biggest Fashion Trends — Here’s the History Behind Them. [Online]
Available at: https://www.teenvogue.com/story/trending-corsets-fashion-history
[Accessed 12 03 2022].

Riordan, G., 2007. The Corset Controversy: Author(is)ing the Subject in/of Tight-lacing. Social Semiotics, 17(3), pp. 263-273.

Sherbert, B., n.d. Document Journal. [Online]
Available at: https://www.citethisforme.com/cite/sources/websiteautociteeval
[Accessed 07 March 2022].

Steele, V., 1996. Fetish: Fashion, Sex & Power. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Summers, L., 2003. Bound To Please: A History of the Victorian Corset. Oxford: Berg.

Images

Figure 1- Engraving of a woman lacing her corset (Circa 1830). Black and white illustration of two women, one is lacing a corset. [Online] Accessed 23/04/2022 https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2016/apr/20/victorian-magazines-tight-lacing-letters-could-be-concocted-soft-core-porn

Figure 2- Photograph of Ethel Granger (1959). Ethel’s body faces forward showing her tiny waist with her head to the side, her facial piercings are visible. [Online] Accessed 23/04/ 2022 https://www.facebook.com/ethelgranger/photos/a.288716171164953/2439002122803003/

Figure 3- Bimini Bon Boulash (2021). RuPaul’s Drag Race star and non-binary drag performer Bimini Bon Boulash wearing a white, jewelled corset. [Online] Accessed 23/ 04/ 2022 https://www.manchestersfinest.com/articles/the-stars-of-rupauls-drag-race-uk-are-coming-to-manchester/

Figure 4- Kim Kardashian at the 2019 Met Gala (2019). Kim Kardashian wearing Thierry Mugler. [Online] Accessed 23/ 04/ 2022 https://www.cosmopolitan.com/entertainment/a27441747/kim-kardashian-met-gala-corset-breathing-lessons/

Semiotics

Semiotics, or semiology, is the study of how symbols acquire and develop their meanings, this process of acquisition is called Semiosis (Hamel, 2011). This field is multidisciplinary and brings together the study of culture, linguistics, visual communications as well as history and philosophy. Semiology was  defined by Swiss philosopher and linguistic Ferdinand Da Saussure in 1916 as the study of the “life of signs within social life” (Anon., 2020); before this semiology had actually been used to describe a branch of medical research relating to physical symptoms, laboratory and somatic signs as early as 1839 and prior to that in 1641 it was used by J. Wilkens to describe a type of ‘sign-language’ and the interpretation of gestures in his book Mercury : or the Secret and Swift Messenger: Shewing How a Man May With Privacy and Speed Communicate His Thoughts To a Friend at Any Distance (Anon., 2020).

The word ‘semiology’ can be split into semiotics + -ology; Semiotics comes from Greek root word ‘Semeion (Adj).’ meaning a sign or a mark derived from the base ‘Semaino (V)’ meaning to signify or indicate (Anon., n.d.) (Anon., n.d.) which also informed the development of French adjective ‘Sémantique’ which was applied to the study of linguistics by Michel Bréal in 1883 to describe the investigation of meaning in language (Anon., n.d.). The -o/logy suffix signifies the study or scientific knowledge of a subject; so, in this case, Semiology can be broken down into the study and knowledge of the acquisition of meaning and the communicative intentions of signs and visual signifiers.

Saussure’s model of semiotics is bilateral, it considers what he identified as “concept” and “sound image” meaning the sign itself and the verbal communication. Philosopher Charles Peirce’s theory of semiotics proposed a triadic structure which takes into account the representamen or the form that the sign takes, the interpretant which is the immaterial imprint left on the psyche by the representamen and finally the object- that which the sign is representing or communicating (Anon., n.d.). The French philosopher, semiologist and literary academic Roland Barthes developed his own theory of semiotics which really is an extension of the latter two theories in which he identified four main components: “I. Language and Speech. II. Signified and Signifier. III. Syntagm and System. IV. Denotation and Connotation.” (Barthes, 1964). Language and speech are not interchangeable here, language refers not just to verbal communication but also body and visual language- we have to consider not just what one individual symbol means but how it exists in relation to other symbols and other modes of communication. Consider the dialect of the place that the symbol exists or originated from; consider what the symbol is trying to communicate- if or how that message could be translated verbally and consider why the maker/marker decided to communicate in a visual mode (Barthes, 1964). ‘Signifier’ here refers to the investigation of the sign itself- are there any parts that have a direct translation to verbal language (significant units). Are there any components without (distinctive units)? The signified is what the sign stands for; “The signified is the information received by the viewer in communication.” (Thipphawong, 2021). Saussure’s semiotic theory in its most basic form can be broken down into signifier and signified where content is the signifier and verbal communication.

Syntagm is the combination of signifiers and can contain ‘smaller’ syntagms (Chandler, n.d.), as mentioned above, symbols can act as visual languages and can be used in combination to carry different  meanings; for example, written languages. Each combination of characters (signifier) carries an entirely different meaning (signified). One word is one syntagm that acts in combination with other words to form a sentence or ‘larger’ syntagms that have a more developed meaning. Denotation and connotation refer respectively to the literal and abstract meaning of words.

Similar to semiology, Iconography is the study of symbols and their meanings. The word Iconography is derived from the Greek noun ‘Ikon’ which means ‘image’ which narrowed by around the seventh century to be the name given to images depicting Christ in the Greek Orthodox Church; eventually ‘icon’ became used to describe images, objects and even people with some ‘special’ quality that they are ascribed. (Anon., n.d.)In Art of Art History: A Critical Anthology Donald Preziosi describes how Erwin Panofsky, influential German art historian and iconologist , believed that a certain “ideal set of procedures” (Preziosi, 1998) needed to be undertaken for meaning to be ascribed to something. Panofsky uses the analogy of hat-tipping in polite society- the action is understood as a polite and proper display of display of respect and acknowledgement but how  did this action become synonymous with respect? Here lies the difference between Iconography and Semiology- Iconography deals with the meanings ascribed to symbols whereas semiology deals with how  the item acquired this meaning.

Mieke Bal and Norman Bryson argue that “Human culture is made up of signs, each which stands for something other than itself, and the people inhabiting culture busy themselves making sense of those signs” (Bal & Bryson, 1991) which suggests, sensibly, that social culture is made up of observing and decoding signs and thus that semiology is a fundamental part of the human experience. Bal and Bryson state that “Art is one such arena…that semiotics has something to offer to” (Bal & Bryson, 1991) and insists that semiotics and art history have been co-morbid long before either concept officially existed (Bal & Bryson, 1991). It is important to note in quotation from William Pencak that “while historical study is inherently semiotic- the historian selects and collects signs to tell a story or make a point” (Pencak, 1995). Artists by nature work with visual and pictorial signs and often work according to rules or standards of a visual language, (Ferreira, 2007) it is the role of art historians to decode the signs and marks within a piece and to investigate the construction of the work as an arrangement of signs in order to understand what they are communicating.

Anon., 2020. Semiology.n. [Online]
Available at: https://www-oed-com.mmu.idm.oclc.org/view/Entry/175715?redirectedFrom=semiology#eid
[Accessed 31 March 2022].

Anon., n.d. Iconography/ Tate Terms. [Online]
Available at: https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/i/iconography
[Accessed 03 31 2022].

Anon., n.d. Semaino Meaning in Bible - New Testament Greek Lexicon - New American Standard. [Online]
Available at: Semaino Meaning in Bible - New Testament Greek Lexicon - New American Standard
[Accessed 31 March 2022].

Anon., n.d. Semeion Meaning in Bible - New Testament Greek Lexicon - New American Standard. [Online]
Available at: https://www.biblestudytools.com/lexicons/greek/nas/semeion.html
[Accessed 31 March 2022].

Anon., n.d. semiotic | Etymology, origin and meaning of semiotic by etymonline. [Online]
Available at: https://www.etymonline.com/word/semiotic?ref=etymonline_crossreference
[Accessed 31 March 2022].

Anon., n.d. Semiotics| Keywords | The Chicago School of Media Theory. [Online]
Available at: https://lucian.uchicago.edu/blogs/mediatheory/keywords/
[Accessed 29 03 2022].

Bal, M. & Bryson, N., 1991. Semiotics and Art Hitory. Semiosis is not necessarily based on interpretation and, 73(2), pp. 174-208.

Barbieri, M., 2009. Three Types of Semiosis. Biosemiotics , pp. 19-30.

Barthes, R., 1964. Elements of Semiology. [Online]
Available at: https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/fr/barthes.htm
[Accessed 28 03 2022].

Chandler, D., n.d. Semiotics for Beginners : Paradigms and Syntagms. [Online]
Available at: http://visual-memory.co.uk/daniel/Documents/S4B/sem03.html
[Accessed 2022].

Ferreira, A., 2007. How useful is semiotics as a method for analysing works of art? | Art & Perception. [Online]
Available at: http://artandperception.com/2007/02/how-useful-is-semiotics-as-a-method-for-analysing-works-of-art.html
[Accessed 29 03 2022].

Hamel, S. C., 2011. Semiotcs: Theory and Applications. New York: Nova Science .

Pencak, W., 1995. Guest Editor's Introduction to the Special Issue: History and Semiotics. American Journal of Semiotics, 12(1), p. 7.

Preziosi, D., 1998. Art of Art History: A Critical Anthology. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press.

Thipphawong, L., 2021. Art Theory: Semiotics. [Online]
Available at: https://www.artshelp.net/art-theory-semiotics/
[Accessed 29 03 2022].

How Does Clam Diggers (1963) Relate to Abstract Expressionism?: Exploring Criticism of Post War American Art

Paris was considered the cultural center of art in, at least, the western world for centuries but the turbulent early decades of the twentieth century saw surrealism as the last Parisian art movement before influential artists fled or were exiled from Paris such as Max Ernst and Marc Chagall amongst others, most of which arrived in the United States of America (USA). After the war concluded in 1945, Paris had lost its claim as the capital of Painting and New York had taken its place. A new cultural centre brought new ideas, challenges, theories, techniques, subjects, interests, artists, and criticisms thus a liminal period of experimentation began which saw the birth of a number of collectives, movements and groups that despite being their own distinguishable factions were inarguably influenced by each other in some way or another. This essay will explore the Abstract Expressionism ‘movement’ born in this period including its critics, criteria, artists and the work of Willem De Kooning, a key artist of the time.

In the 1940-50s, Clement Greenberg was one of the most influential art critics: a contributor to numerous magazines such as the Nation and ARTnews as well as an editor for Partisan Review between 1940-42. When the influence of Paris was shifted to the USA it was imperative, in the eyes of Greenberg, that American painting should be an extension and continuation of French Painting like that of Edouard Manet and Paul Cézanne (Figures 1&2). Greenberg believed in ‘pure’ art and the idea that all art should strive to be so; the way in which to achieve this was to refine and purify the medium to only what is essential which for Greenberg meant only the fact that it is a painting; separation from modern life and mass culture was crucial to the continuation of tradition (Kleeblatt, et al., 2008, pp. 1-2).“It is a law of modernism that applies to almost all art…that the conventions not essential to the viability of the medium be discarded as soon as they are recognized” (Greenberg, 1955); Context, figuration, subject and depth were needless and thus impure. Greenberg wanted American artists to strive for flatness in a bid to avoid illusionism of depth in a show of respect for the flatness of the canvas (Kleeblatt, et al., 2008, p. 6).

Greenberg’s was obviously not the only influential critic of his time, while his critical output lessened as he took a position advising commercial galleries in the 1950s, Harold Rosenberg’s output increased and despite not writing a lot about specific artists before the late 1950’s he had strong personal connections with a number of those operating at the time such as De Kooning and Arshille Gorky  since the 1930s (Kleeblatt, et al., 2008, p. 3). In 1952 Rosenberg’s seminal essay ‘The American Action Painters’ was published in ARTnews in which he coined the term ‘action painting’ (Kleeblatt, et al., 2008, p. 3), he wrote “at a certain moment the canvas began to appear to one American Painter after another as an arena in which to act…What was to go on the canvas was not a picture but an event” (Rosenberg, 1952) and went on to rebuff Greenberg’s idea of ‘pure art’ in an analogy: “The new American Painting is not “pure art”, since the extrusion of the object was not for the sake of aesthetic. The apples weren’t brushed off the table in order to make room for the perfect relations of space and colour. They had to go so that nothing would get in the way of the act of painting.” (Rosenberg, 1952). Rosenberg’s use of ‘arena’ highlights the growing showmanship in art at the time- the photographs taken by Martha Holmes for LIFE magazine in 1949 do a similar job. Holmes photographed Pollock and his wife, fellow painter Lee Krasner, at their home and in their Long Island studio. (Cosgrove, n.d.)The photographs, such as Jackson Pollock in His Studio (1949) (figure 5)  show pollock in black and white creating his large drip paintings in his studio where he worked on the floor and usually with a cigarette in his mouth. Holmes’ photographs are raw, unposed and communicate a great sense of Pollock’s immersion in the creative process. It is possible to see in his paintings faint cigarette burns, ash stains and accidental marks like footprints which remind the viewer that the work has a creator and was created. Rosenberg was concerned with creating a new type of art in America when “[the] laboratory of the twentieth century had shut down”(Rosenberg, 1940) -why should American painting strive for what the French had already achieved when the opportunity to create something new was right there?

Greenberg and Rosenberg, or ‘The Bergs’ as called by Tom Wolf in their book The Painted Word (1975) had been contemporaries writing for the same publications. Both were young, Jewish Marxists in the art world but despite their similarities the two ended up in radically different places in terms of their art criticism as well as having a strained personal relationship. After the publication of ‘The American Action Painters’ in 1952, the personal divide became and ideological split, also. Greenberg went on to publish ‘American Type Painting’ three years later in which he criticized Rosenberg’s concept of action painting. (Kleeblatt, et al., 2008, p. 7).  “For Greenberg the independent, alienated avant-garde remained one of the few instruments with which to transform capitalist society…the avant-garde was clearly separated from, even elevated above, the banality of both bourgeoisie and the anti-bourgeoise”  (Kleeblatt, et al., 2008, p. 5). Greenberg also finding inspiration in Immanuel Kant’s ‘art for art’s sake’ philosophy wrote  “’art for art’s sake’ and ‘pure poetry’ appear, and subject matter or content becomes something to be avoided like the plague” (Greenberg, 1939). The term ‘avant-garde’ is derived from the military term ‘Vanguard’ which refers to a specific branch of soldiers who would lead the way for the troops behind them; in terms of art, avant-garde describes work that is new, innovative and leads the way for a new form of art. It is interesting that Greenberg considers the post war American painters to be avant-garde in a positive regard despite his strong belief in the continuation of tradition as opposed to Rosenberg’s lust for a new type of art America that aimed to deal with “with the connections between art and life……and, not least, creation as the personal, psychic expression of individuality” (Kleeblatt, et al., 2008, p. 9).

A group of the time’s living artists and poets were operating as The New York School, a collective of modern creatives in the USA including painters De Kooning, Jackson Pollock (figure 6) , Mark Rothko and Robert Motherwell (figure 7)  as well as poets Barbara guest, Frank O’Hara and John Asherby (executive editor of ARTnews for almost a decade )to name a few (Anon., 2014). Despite being recognised as a school, Rosenberg did not accept this- “The American Action Painters took oppositions between mass culture and individual will …Refusing to define this art as a recognizable school or movement, Rosenberg saw artists’ individual expression- their gestures and process- as a radical shift, a break with the history of art” (Kleeblatt, et al., 2008, p. 7). Rosenberg wrote “This new painting does not constitute a school. To form a school in modern times not only is a new painting consciousness needed but a consciousness of that consciousness…A school is the result of the linkage of practice to terminology…In the American vanguard the words, as we shall see, belong not to the art but to the individual artists.” (Rosenberg, 1952, p. 2). The group was informal, but most were working under or in response to Abstract Expressionism. Stephen C. Foster commented, not until the mid-1970s, that “what became clear in the fifties is that these critical positions were conceived by their authors as mutually exclusive” (Foster, 1975, p. 77). Fifteen years earlier, O’Hara had already criticised this exclusivity in a an exhibition catalogue from a Frankenthaler exhibition at the Jewish Museum: “One of the crucial decisions for the contemporary artist…is the very question of conscious composition, whether to ‘make the picture’ or ‘let it happen’…Each has its pitfalls, the one dry formalism, the other a complete mess”  (Frank O'hara, 1960), highlighting the pressure that the two critics were inadvertently placing on the artists under the school.

De Kooning worked within the New York School and was featured in articles by both Greenberg and Rosenberg, but never truly ascribed to the Greenbergian criteria of abstract art. De Kooning never abandoned figuration in his work and continued to paint until 1990 at which time he had begun to show signs of mental decline (Anon., 2001). In Greenberg’s Art and Culture (1961), he addresses this refusal to abandon the figure-“De Kooning’s figurative paintings are haunted as much as his abstract ones are by the disembodied contours of Michelangelo’s, Ingress’s and even Ruben’s nudes…De Kooning has won quicker and wider acceptance in this country than any of the other original “abstract expressionists”; his need to include the past as well as to forestall the future seems to reassure a lot of people who still find Pollock incomprehensible.” (Greenberg, 1961, pp. 205-207). Considering Greenberg considered figuration an impurity, he suggests here that De Kooning’s warm reception from the American public was due to his use of the human form derived from the classical nude, perhaps even insinuating that De Kooning’s work could be deemed kitsch rather than fine art. Greenberg considered De Kooning a cubist painter, rather than an abstractionist- “he does remain a Late Cubist in a self-evident way…The method of his savagery continued to be almost old-fashionedly(sic), and anxiously Cubist underneath the flung and tortured colour,” (Greenberg, 1961, p. 207) but despite De Kooning’s refusal to follow the ‘rules’ set out by Greenberg, the critic wrote kindly about him, describing him as a “completely independent force…and perhaps the strongest and most original painter” (Greenberg, 1961, p. 225).

De Kooning’s painting Clam Diggers (1963) (figure 8) certainly does not resemble the work of other abstract expressionists. The piece lacks the ‘all-over quality’ that Greenberg deemed crucial in abstraction, ‘all-over’ links back to the idea that the canvas should appear flat and void of illusion, it should be balanced with no part standing out more than any other, like a wallpaper- “the “all-over” painter renders every element and every area equivalent in accent emphasis” (Greenberg, 1961, p. 151). The work of Pollock and the color-field painters such as Rothko, Frankenthaler (figure 9) and Morris Louis (figure 10) perfectly represent this quality. Clam Diggers clearly shows two female figures stood side by side in positions that obscure their face from the viewer even though their faces are already obscured by thick coagulations of oil paints applied in layers and layers. Their pale bodies are on display; they stand out against the muddy background thanks to some gestural brush strokes around the figures. The painting is indefinable, the figures are reminiscent of art brut painter Jean Dubuffet’s The Three Fluids (1950) (figure 11),  a crude portrait from a series of warped female nudes, similarities between this Corps De Dames series and De Kooning’s Woman series that spanned from 1950-1953 (Anon., n.d.) (figure 12). The palate resembles that of the early expressionists, especially those involved in the Vienna Secession nearly five decades prior such as Gustav Klimt and Egon Schiele (figure 13) who often dealt with distorted versions of the human form. De Kooning was happy for his work to be separated from French taste- “…French artists have some ‘touch’ in making an object. They have a particular something that makes them look like a ‘finished’ painting. They have a touch which I am glad not to have.” (De Kooning & Tauchman, 1971, p. 27). Clam Diggers is but one example of De Kooning’s work that does not fit in with Greenberg’s theory of art, amongst others are Abstraction (1950)(figure 14) , Devil At the Keyboard (1976) (figure 15) and paintings from his Women series which shows that De Kooning was happy to work according to his own motivations; in an interview he said “Every man works for himself…I force my attitude upon this world, and I have this right” (De Kooning & Tauchman, 1971, p. 29). On the other hand, De Kooning did create a number of Greenbergian abstract artworks such as Excavation (1950), Rose Fingered Dawn at Louise Point (1965) (figure  16) and Police Gazette (1975) amongst others that possess the all-over quality and formlessness that was desirable at the time. Even still, De Kooning’s ability to work in different modes highlights the importance of freedom and individuality in art that Rosenberg promoted.

It's clear that the mutual exclusivity between Greenberg and Rosenberg’s theories created a confusion amongst artists operating in America under the umbrella of abstract expressionism. While Rosenberg’s theory provided artists with an opportunity to be expressive and experimental, Greenberg’s prescriptivist position limited this. Although I find value in Greenberg’s commitment to the continuation of tradition it seems that, with hindsight, his criticism was redundant to a degree. The success of De Kooning’s ‘impure’ artwork and his legacy are proof of this alongside the multitude of other post war American artists who found success and inspired new generations despite their refusal to adhere to strict rules in art.

Anon., 2001. Willem de Kooning’s Final Years, 1985-1997 | de Kooning Experts. [Online]
Available at: https://dekooningexperts.com/de-kooning-info/de-kooning-biography/willem-de-koonings-final-years-1985-1997/
[Accessed 09 November 2021].

Anon., 2014. Poets.org. [Online]
Available at: https://poets.org/text/artists-poets-new-york-school
[Accessed 10 November 2021].

Anon., n.d. Tate. [Online]
Available at: https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/dubuffet-the-tree-of-fluids-t07110
[Accessed 18 11 2021].

Cosgrove, B., n.d. LIFE. [Online]
Available at: https://www.life.com/people/jackson-pollock-early-photos-of-the-action-painter-at-work/
[Accessed 17 11 2021].

De Kooning, W. & Tauchman, M., 1971. New York School: Abstract Expressionism in the 40's and 50's- Group Statements. London: Thames and Hudson.

Foster, S. C., 1975. The Avant-Garde and the Privacy of the Mind. Art International, November, p. 77.

Frank O'hara, H. F., 1960. An Exhibition of Oil Paintings by Frankenthaler: Catalog of the Exhibition Held at the Jewish Museum of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, January 26th-March 2nd, 1960. New York: The Jewish Museum.

Greenberg, C., 1939. Avant-Garde and Kitch. Partisan Review 6, Autumn.

Greenberg, C., 1955. 'American type' Painting. Partisan Review.

Greenberg, C., 1961. Art in the United States. In: Art and Culture . Boston: Beacon Press, pp. 205-207.

Greenberg, C., 1961. The Crisis of the Easel Picture. In: Art and Culture. Boston: Beacon Press Books, p. 151.

Kleeblatt, N. L., Berger, M. & Balken, D. B., 2008. Action, Abstraction, Reaction. In: N. L. Kleeblatt, ed. Action/Abstraction. New Haven: Yale University Press, p. 7.

Rosenberg, H., 1940. On The Fall of Paris. Partisan Review 7, November-December.

Rosenberg, H., 1952. The American Action Painters. ARTnews, January, p. 2.

Psychoanalysis in Art History

Psychoanalysis, created by controversial theorist and Austrian ‘Father of Psychology’ Sigmund Freud in the 1890s (Encyclopaedia & Duignan, 2020), is “A therapeutic method…for treating mental disorders by investigating the interaction of conscious and unconscious elements in the patient's mind …using techniques such as dream interpretation and free association.” (Anon., 2022). In simpler words, Psychoanalysis aims to resurface unconscious and repressed thoughts and behaviours to understand how they influence our conscious behaviours. ‘Repression’ is a coping mechanism (again, identified by Freud) whereby the brain blocks out hurtful and anxiety inducing memories as a trauma response (Anon., n.d.).

’Free Association’ is a psychoanalytical tool, still used in modern psychology, that involves having the patient talk freely about whatever comes to mind first (Rabeyron & Massicotte, 2020). Freud used free association alongside hypnosis (Early French psychologist Charcot “presented the use of hypnosis as an experimental technique, without any attempt to turn it into a therapy, on February 13, 1882 “ (Walusinski & Bogousslavsky, 2020). ) with his patients and would ask the patient to say whatever came to their head after he had placed his hand on their forehead (Rabeyron & Massicotte, 2020) and would instruct them to “Act as though, for instance, you were a traveller (sic) sitting next to the window of a railway carriage and describing to someone inside the carriage the changing views which you see outside” (Freud, et al., 1958). Then, he would enter a state of ‘free-floating’, a mental state not too dissimilar to that which free association strives for, where the therapist can use their own unconscious to interpret and understand the patients’ answers (Rabeyron & Massicotte, 2020). “In these settings, free association defines the way the patient may spontaneously and unreservedly say anything that comes to mind. The clinician will then be attentive to the way in which the patient goes from one representation to another with more or less fluidity during the therapeutic sessions.”

Although Freud’s theories have been disputed, they provided a basis for modern psychology. Freud believed that our desires, traumas, and fears were present allegorically in our dreams, ready to be decoded and understood through psychoanalysis and that mental ailments were the result of ‘fixations’ that occurred during a person’s sexual development or through trauma during childhood. “Sexuality, erotic desire, and violence are at the heart of Freudian theories of the mind. What lies buried in the unconscious are powerful and instinctual drives, repressed by civilization and rationality, which if inadequately resolved are detrimental to the individuals’, and ultimately society’s, mental health” (Cramer & Grant, n.d.).

The Surrealists, a group of philosophers, artists, writers, and general intellectuals active in the early twentieth century  (Anon., n.d.) are most often associated with psychoanalysis; their artworks and writings often relating to Freudian case studies or being steeped in layers of symbolism relating to repressed desires or psychological phenomena. The Surrealists sought to subvert the effects that civilised society had on us, they wanted to revolt “against   the constraints of the rational mind; and by extension, the rules of a society they saw as oppressive.” (Anon., n.d.) The leader of the group and prolific writer, André Breton, had studied medicine in his younger years which led him to work through the first world war in a psychiatric hospital, undeniably a massive factor in his interest in the inner workings of man and thus the assembly and  development of Surrealists (Cramer & Grant, n.d.) (Anon., n.d.).

In the first Surrealist Manifesto Breton defined surrealism as “SURREALISM, n. Psychic automatism in its pure state by which one proposes to express—verbally, by means of the written word, or in any other manner, the actual functioning of thought. Dictated by thought, in the absence of any control exercised by reason, exempt from any aesthetic or moral concern.” (Breton, 1924). This definition is reminiscent of free association and shows just how close the link between art and psychoanalysis can be. The Surrealists were inspired to induce dreamlike states and the produce automatic writings and drawings which were influenced massively by the study of hypnosis and psychological automatism.

Surrealist artist André Masson adopted a pre-Pollock dripping technique using paint, ink, sand, and canvas primer. In Masson having no clear intention of where he should allow the paint to drip, the task of deciding and maneuvering the hand fell to his unconscious mind. After he felt his piece was finished, figures and shapes would reveal themselves in the traces of ink, Masson interpreted these scenes as communications of his true, deep desires and fears which he sometimes developed into more intricate artworks. Here, we see psychoanalysis used as the therapeutic method (the act of creating connecting to the unconscious) and also as a post-therapy investigative tool helping us to interpret what those desires and fears may be. Masson also used plain ink on paper to complete automatic drawings, being ushered by an unconscious thought stream to push the pen around the page (Cramer & Grant, 2020) such as in Automatic Drawing (1924) which features long, elegant, and flowing lines of black ink on paper. Masson had no predetermined outcome in terms of subject, style, or composition in mind for this piece, but suggestions of cartoonish figures appear; there are multiple hand and eye-like shapes that recur throughout the work. The vertical lines resemble long, gangly limbs while the horizontal lines carve out suggestions of torsos, breasts, and internal organs. Freud, or a number of other psychoanalysts, might have concluded that Automatic Drawing (1924) communicates a desire or fear of people, intimacy, social interaction, touch, etc. where the untrained eye may only see mindless scribbles.

Psychoanalysis and Art History were becoming legitimised fields of study at around the same time in Europe and have been applied together since then (Harris, 2006). Both disciplines aim to extract and investigate deeper, hidden meanings- they both analyse profoundly personal expressions of our inner workings. Despite this, Freud did not see the two disciplines as necessarily connected. In Freud’s Art: Psychoanalysis Untold Janet Sayers details how Freud likened psychoanalysis to sculpture which involves chipping away at the outer layers to reveal what is underneath, rather than painting; that is an additive method of applying layers of paint to make something from ‘nothing’ (Sayers, 2007). But, with psychoanalysis being a therapeutic method rather than a defined action it could be interpreted that the process of creating art itself acts as the therapeutic tool, like free association does; art can allow us to enter a space of creativity and free thinking and to connect with a work in progress which can induce emotions and evoke memories that we had forgotten or avoided without the need for, or alongside, talking therapy. Sayers goes on to say that “Art can make us conscious of what was previously unconscious or subconscious” (Sayers, 2007).  

Anon., 2022. Psychoanalysis. n. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Anon., n.d. MoMA/ Tapping the Unconscious: Automatism and Dreams. [Online]
Available at: https://www.moma.org/learn/moma_learning/themes/surrealism/tapping-the-subconscious-automatism-and-dreams/#:~:text=Surrealists%20were%20also%20deeply%20interested,%2C%20text%2C%20and%20their%20meanings.
[Accessed 30 March 2022].

Anon., n.d. Repression (Psychoanalysis) Wikipedia. s.l.:s.n.

Anon., n.d. Surrealism- Tate Terms. [Online]
Available at: https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/s/surrealism
[Accessed 30 March 2022].

Breton, A., 1924. Manifeste du surréalisme. Paris: Éditions du Sagittaire.

Cramer, D. C. & Grant, D. K., 2020. Surrealist Techniques : Automatism. [Online]
Available at: https://smarthistory.org/surrealist-techniques-automatism/
[Accessed 30 March 2022].

Cramer, D. C. & Grant, D. K., n.d. Surrealism and Psychoanalysis (article) | Khan Academy. [Online]
Available at: https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/art-1010/dada-and-surrealism/xdc974a79:surrealism/a/surrealism-and-psychoanalysis
[Accessed 29 March 2022].

Encyclopaedia, T. E. o. & Duignan, B. eds., 2020. Psychoanalysis. s.l.:s.n.

Freud, S. et al., 1958. On the Beginning of Treatment (1913). In: J. Strachey, ed. The standard edition of the complete psychological works of Sigmund Freud. London: The Hogarth Press, The Institiute of Psycho-Analysis, pp. 123-144.

Harris, J., 2006. Art History: The Key Concepts. London: Routeledge.

Rabeyron, T. & Massicotte, C., 2020. Entropy, Free Energy, and Symbolization: Free Association at the Intersection of Psychoanalysis and Neuroscience. Frontiers in Psychology, Volume 11.

Sayers, J., 2007. Freud's Art: Psychoanalysis Untold. London & New York: Routeledge.

Walusinski, O. & Bogousslavsky, J., 2020. Charcot, Janet, and French Models of Psychopathology. European Neurology , 83(03), pp. 333-340.