Surrealism

André Breton
1896-1966
writer and poet

André Breton studied medicine and psychiatry.  During the First World War, he meets the writer Jacques Vaché, whose anti-social stance and contempt for established artistic tradition mark him deeply.  In 1919, Breton founds the review Littérature with Louis Aragon and Philippe Soupault.  In the collection of poems Les champs magnétiques (1919) and in collaboration with Soupault, he develops the principles of 'écriture automatique'. In 1924 he publishes the Surrealist Manifesto and, under his direction, surrealism becomes a European movement that influences all areas of art.  André Breton is also editor-in-chief of the review La Révolution surréaliste.  And it is in this review that appears, on December 15th 1929, René Magritte’s photomontage Je ne vois pas la [femme] cachée dans la forêt, including portraits of, among others, André Breton and René Magritte with eyes closed.  Amidst these surrealist photographs one finds the image of La femme cachée (1929), a painting by Magritte that Breton then acquired.  Upon the death of André Breton, René Magritte would return to the subject of their friendship: "In 1927, André Breton and I, each in turn, caught sight of an ad for a certain aperitif hanging from the wall in a bistro. We exchanged looks that neither reason nor insanity could explain. We had the same complicit look another time, when I suggested taking his picture with his eyes closed.  Well, his eyes are closed, but eyes open or shut, one can’t forget that his mind was seeking the Truth through poetry, love and liberty".