74

Photography and surrealism

75
1he automatic image
is no Surrealist painting, he claimed.
63
Breton objected
and took over editing ot the journal and, going
turther, asserted in tour separate issues ot La Rvolution
surraliste: Ie Surrealisme et la peinture (Surrealism and
Painting,.
64
1hese tour articles vere then collectively
published as a separate book, Le Surralisme et la peinture
(Surrealism and Painting,, in +,:: vith photogravure
plates ot various vorks by ten artists, as illustrations to
support the argument: Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque,
Giorgio de Chirico, lrancis Picabia, Max Lrnst, Man
Pay, Andre Masson, oan Mir, Yves 1anguy and ean
Arp.
63
All this vas not merely a pover play betveen
Naville and Breton, but also a theoretical dispute over
vhat torms a surrealist image could take. Hitherto
the automatic image had been primarily conceived in
literary terms. Automatic vriting, dream recitals and
monologues under hypnosis all had understandable
relations to states ot psychic automation as the mode
ot producing images. But could a state ot distraction be
maintained vith highly technological processes Hov
could the contrived teld ot painting, tor example, relay
visually the automatic images ot mental or psychical
images 1his vas Navilles objection.
In the trst Manifesto the issue had been made quite
clear: psychic automatism is surrealism, no matter vhat
torm ot representation it takes: verbally, by means ot
the vritten vord, or in any other manner. Whatever
Breton or Naville personally privileged as the means
to surrealist images, the torm ot psychic automatism
vas not dogmatically proscribed. Lven in the later essay
1he Automatic Message (+,, vhere Andre Breton
claims auditory (verbo-auditive, automatism to be the
intnitely richer source ot visual meaning, he does so
vith a caution that lays dovn a gauntlet tor artists: 1his
much having been said, the painters obviously are nov
the ones to speak, vhether to contradict or not.
66
In the early episodes ot Surrealism and Painting
Breton railed, as he had in the Manifesto, against art
based in mimetic realism. What does it matter to me
vhether trees are green, vhether a piano is at this
moment nearer to me than a carriage, vhether a
ball is cylindrical or round
67
And it Breton envisages
a picture as a vindov and poses the question to
o Pierre Naville, Plus per-
sonne nignore quil ny a pas de
peinture surraliste (see his Beaux-
Arts, in La Rvolution surraliste,
no. , April +,:, p. :;,.
o Bretons vievs are recorded
in his intervievs vith Andre
Parinaud, Conversations: The
Autobiography of Surrealism, p. ,:.
1he essays by Breton, Ie Surreal-
isme et la peinture, appeared in
La Rvolution surraliste, no. ( uly
+,:,, pp. :oo, no. o (March
+,:o,, pp. o:, nos ; and ,+o
(October +,:;,, pp. o. 1he
+,:: book included additional
vritten material.
o Andre Breton, Le Surral-
isme et la peinture (Paris: Gallimard,
+,::,. 1he cover is metallic green
vith black lettering. Bretons essay
vas printed in its entirety vith
the photogravure plates set at the
back in sections by individual
artists.
oo See Andre Breton, 1he
Automatic Message, in Pose-
mont (ed.,, What is Surrealism?,
p. +o:.
o; Breton, Surrealism and
Painting, p. :.