Surrealism and the Reimagining of the Female Image

Abstract

Focusing on the female form and the concept of identity construction and its fluidity as reflected in works of surrealist art, this paper analyzes visual images, including painting, works of collage, sculpture and photography. As the surrealist movement migrated and transformed over the past one hundred years, so too has the image and meaning of the female form. This focus on the female image and the role of women in surrealism deals with notions of identity and gender norms, reframing the concept of the “ideal” woman, ideas of embodiment/disembodiment, existential tensions, and the various ways these concepts are portrayed.

This paper touches on the theoretical Freudian influences of surrealism, investigates the ways artists over time have redefined the ideological grounds for the movement, and how it inspired interrelated transcultural exchanges. By looking at the influence and legacy of surrealism from a global scope, not confined to a time period, and not confined to those artists who attempted to lay claim to the label, its definition, and its membership, my research starts with and then moves away from a historically hegemonic Paris-centered viewpoint—instead as something dynamic and dislocated.

The method of my research is influenced by Mark Miller Graham’s critique of art historical discourses in terms of canonicity, chronology, closure, and subjectivity, leading me to look at surrealism beyond traditional narratives and to apply that method to questions about the representation of the female body in surrealist art.