Table Of ContentEnchanted Ground
i
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Enchanted Ground
André Breton, Modernism and the Surrealist
Appraisal of Fin- de-Siècle Painting
Gavin Parkinson
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Th e fate of our times is characterized by rationalization and intellectualization and,
above all, by the ‘disenchantment of the world.’ Precisely the ultimate and most sublime
values have retreated from public life either into the transcendental realm of mystic life
or into the brotherliness of direct and personal human relations. It is not accidental
that our greatest art is intimate and not monumental, nor is it accidental that today
only within the smallest and intimate circles, in personal human situations, in
pianissimo, that something is pulsating that corresponds to the prophetic pneuma,
which in former times swept through the great communities like a fi rebrand, welding
them together. If we attempt to force and to ‘invent’ a monumental style in art, such
miserable monstrosities are produced as the many monuments of the last twenty years.
If one tries intellectually to construe new religions without a new and genuine
prophecy, then, in an inner sense, something similar will result, but with still worse
eff ects. And academic prophecy, fi nally, will create only fanatical sects but never a
genuine community.
Max Weber
‘Science as a Vocation’ (1919)
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Contents
List of Illustrations viii
Acknowledgements xviii
Introduction: Art aft er Impressionism aft er Surrealism 1
1 Greengrocer, Bricklayer or Seer? Psychoanalysing Paul Cézanne 31
2 Painting as Propaganda and Prophecy: René Magritte and
Pierre-Auguste Renoir 75
3 Method and Poetry: Georges Seurat’s Surrealist Dialectic 113
4 Between Dog and Wolf: Georges Seurat, Brassaï and the City of Light 155
5 Civilization, Realism, Abstraction: Paul Gauguin and Surrealism, 1948–53 201
6 Dialectic of Brittany: Paul Gauguin’s ‘Myth’ and Surrealist ‘Celtomania’ 245
7 Magic Art, Folklore and Rural Tales in Le Pouldu: André Breton,
Paul Gauguin and Charles Filiger 273
Epilogue: Disenchanted Ground, or Vincent van Gogh, Antonin Artaud
and Magic in 1947 293
Coda: On André Breton 323
Select Bibliography 327
Index 339
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List of Illustrations
List of Plates
1a. Paul Cézanne, Th e Abandoned House (1878–9). Oil on canvas,
50.5 × 60.4 cm. Private collection. © Christie’s Images/Bridgeman
Images.
1b. P aul Cézanne, Th e House of the Hanged Man, Auvers- sur-Oise (c . 1873).
Oil on canvas, 55 × 66 cm. Musée d’Orsay, Paris. © Photo Scala,
Florence.
2a. Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Woman Reading (1874–5). Oil on canvas,
47 × 38 cm. Musée d’Orsay, Paris. © Photo Scala, Florence.
2b. René Magritte, Th e Submissive Reader (1928). Oil on canvas, 92 × 73 cm.
Private collection. © BI , ADAGP , Paris/Scala, Florence. © ADAGP , Paris
and DACS , London 2018.
3a. René Magritte, Treatise on Light (1943). Oil on canvas, 55 × 75 cm.
Private collection. © Christie’s Images. © ADAGP , Paris and DACS ,
London 2018.
3b. Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Bathers (1918–19). Oil on canvas, 110 × 160 cm.
Musée d’Orsay, Paris. © Photo Scala, Florence.
4a. Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Young Shepherd in Repose (Portrait of Alexander
Th urneyssen) (1911). Oil on canvas, 73 × 91 cm. Rhode Island School
of Design Museum, Providence. © World History Archive/Alamy
Stock Photo.
4b. René Magritte, Th e Ocean (1943). Oil on canvas, 50 × 65 cm. Private
collection. © Bridgeman Images. © ADAGP , Paris and DACS ,
London 2018.
5. Georges Seurat, A Sunday on La Grande Jatte – 1884 (1884–6).
Oil on canvas, 207 × 308 cm. Th e Art Institute of Chicago. © Th e
Art Institute of Chicago/Art Resource, NY /Scala, Florence.
6a. Paul Gauguin, T e Rerioa (Th e Dream) (1897). Oil on canvas,
95 × 132 cm. Th e Courtauld Gallery, London. © Th e Samuel
Courtauld Trust, Th e Courtauld Gallery, London.
6b. Paul Gauguin, N evermore (1897). Oil on canvas, 60.5 × 116 cm.
Th e Courtauld Gallery, London. © Th e Samuel Courtauld
Trust, Th e Courtauld Gallery, London.
7a. Paul Gauguin, R iders on the Beach (1902). Oil on canvas, 66 × 76 cm.
Museum Folkwang, Essen. © Photo Scala, Florence.
7b. Edgar Degas, R acehorses (Leaving the Weighing) (1878). Oil on panel, 32.5 ×
40.4 cm. Private collection. © Christie’s Images, London/Scala, Florence.
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List of Illustrations ix
8a. C harles Filiger, Pouldu Landscape ( c . 1890–3). Gouache on paper,
26 × 38.5 cm. Musée des Beaux-Arts, Quimper. Transfert de propriété
de l’Etat à la Ville de Quimper en 2013 – Collection du musée
des beaux- arts de Quimper.
8b. Paul Gauguin, Th e Loss of Virginity (1890). Oil on canvas, 90 × 31 cm.
Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Virginia. © 2018 Chrysler Museum of Art.
List of Figures
Introduction
I.1 Arnold Böcklin, Th e Isle of the Dead (1890). Oil on wood, 73.7 × 121.9 cm.
Th e Metropolitan Museum of Art New York. www.metmuseum.org. 2
I.2 Salvador Dalí, Th e Birth of Liquid Desires (1932). Oil and collage on
canvas, 96.1 × 112.3 cm. Th e Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation Peggy
Guggenheim Collection, Venice. © Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venezia
(Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, New York). © Salvador Dali,
Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí, DACS 2018. 3
I.3 Pablo Picasso, Man with a Clarinet (1911–12). Oil on canvas, 106 × 69 cm.
Museo Th yssen-Bornemisza, Madrid. © Museo Th yssen-Bornemisza/Scala,
Florence. © Succession Picasso/ DACS , London 2018. 8
I.4 Alfred Barr diagram for exhibition C ubism and Abstract Art ,
Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1936. © Digital image, Th e Museum
of Modern Art, New York/Scala, Florence. 17
Chapter 1
1.1 Francis Picabia, S till Lives (1920). Mixed media, dimensions
unknown. Reproduced in Cannibale , no. 1, 25 April 1920. Current
whereabouts unknown. Image © University of Iowa Libraries.
© ADAGP , Paris and DACS , London 2018. 33
1.2 Paul Cézanne, H ouses at L’Estaque (1880). Oil on canvas,
80.2 × 100.6 cm. Art Institute of Chicago. © Th e Art Institute of
Chicago/Art Resource, NY /Scala, Florence. 35
1.3 ‘Ouvrez- vous’ in Médium: Communication surréaliste ,
November 1953, 1. Author’s collection. 37
1.4 Paul Cézanne, H ouse on the Hill (1904–6). Oil on canvas, 65.7 × 81 cm.
National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C., White House Collection.
Image courtesy of the Board of Trustees, National Gallery of Art,
Washington. 39
1.5 Max Ernst, ‘Cézanne et Rosa Bonheur’, collage from Th e Hundred
Headless Woman (1929). Private collection. © ADAGP , Paris and DACS ,
London 2018. 40
