In his ‘First Manifesto of Surrealism’, Andre Breton describes Surrealism as “a pure psychic automatism through which it is intended to express…the true functioning of thought”. Automatism is a technique experimented with by the Surrealists that stems from Freud’s work. The artist will suppress conscious control of the process of making the art, allowing the unconscious mind to take over, releasing the creative ideas from the imagination and determining the method of delivering the imagery.
The art of the movement aimed to create its visual imagery by accessing the unconscious mind, deferring from directed logic. Influenced by the work of Freud, the artists within the movement strived to liberate the irrational and release a form of subconscious creativity that was illogical, striking, provocative and dreamlike. Surrealism caused an emergence of ‘pure expression’, for often the works settings were unchanging in time or place. Motherwell makes the point that whilst the Abstractionists reduced “the content of the superego” to make it aesthetically pleasing, the Surrealists saw no value in the aesthetic features of their works. They were primarily comments on their current social or political situations, and then secondarily, aesthetic; linking the “banal of common places and the most astonishing poetic form”. Surrealist art was constantly revived and replenished. Many of the works were deliberately controversial and unconventional, often confronting subjects that were taboo at that time. Similar to Dadaism, works were designed to withhold the directness of the logic of the themes within in the painting. The rejection of authority from the external world forms “the Dada strand in the fabric of Surrealism”.
One subject much explored by Surrealist artists was the role of the female in motherhood. In fact, the Surrealists had an intrinsic revulsion of maternity and went so far as to advocate childlessness. By pursuing the mistress and ignoring the mother, they fooled themselves into believing that they could avoid what they found most threatening. This investigation will predominantly discuss the projection of the figures of the mother and child in three artists’ works: Joan Miro’s ‘Maternity’ (1924), Dorothea Tanning’s ‘Maternity’ (1946-1947), and Max Ernst’s ‘The Virgin Spanking the Christ Child Before Three Witnesses: Andre Breton, Paul Eluard, and the Painter’ (1926). In addressing the differences between Miro’s intentionally vague biomorphic imagery, Tanning’s alienating scene, and Ernst’s violent depiction of the Madonna and Child, this essay shall ascertain whether in these particular examples, the Surrealists offer a sympathetic light to the role of women as mothers.
Whilst nature was frequently used imagery, Salvador Dali’s works often included ants or eggs, and Max Ernst seemed obsessed with birds even having a bird alter ego, Joan Miro undertook a different approach, relying heavily on vague biomorphic imagery. The particular theme of maternity predominant in Miro’s named work of 1924, is the act of breastfeeding, a special and unique relationship between mother and her child. Here Miro has reduced this intimate act to the simplest form, through his use of lines and shapes. It is an example of Miro’s colored wash canvas, upon which he then proceeded to draw lines and shapes until his perception of the image took shape. Miro’s fluctuation between his conscious and unconscious decisions in his work creates the automatism in which he is able to express the theme of maternity using very abstract shapes.
The subject would be hard to recognize if it were not for the title. The title of his work helps the viewer identify the composition of the maternal features on the canvas and to appreciate how the process of automatism has led to the artist identifying his own theme as it emerged from the two lines from which the piece evolves. The basic forms of this work are the lines which cross in the middle of the canvas. These act as both an axis of the human body, and to determine the place from which he uses a compass to both define the anatomy of the female form and to geometrically balance the work. The hole made by his compass is discernible to the naked eye at the intersection of the two straight lines.
The image makes clear a figurative representation of a human head, feminine through the flowing locks and the grounding mass on the opposite length, shaped as if it were a skirt. The other line alludes to two breasts, one in profile and one face on. Miro has reduced the female form into its very basic composition through lines and shapes. She has no identity and is not individual. The artist depicts her only through her natural shapes. The sexual organs are the defining feminine features. Maternity, therefore, as the title of the work and in Miro’s interpretation, is not about the warm natural act of love affection and nurturing, but the reduction to the basic necessity of sustenance after birth. On the end of both figurative nipples, insect like cells are attached, which appear to be suckling. Each cell is oppositely gendered, the female form has a hollowed stomach with a womb, suggested by a black dot, whereas the stomach of the male is painted in solid. Both genders stay latched on tight as the female form resembling a pendulum, sways. Breastfeeding is thus portrayed as an act of survival and dependency. Although Miro has made a clear focus on the female sexual organs, these infant cells emphasize the life that procreation gifts and hence the subject matter, even in its simplest form, highlights the connection and bond between mother and child.
The work has been conceived by Miro from his subconscious, yet it demonstrates the conception of life in a conscious form. This work has been imagined in a world that is hard to access and to comprehend, and yet it creates the most simplistic understanding of life in a modern representation.
In contrast to Miro’s representation of maternity, Dorothea Tanning’s painting of the same name, presents the image of maternity as a mother and a child. Unlike Miro’s abstracted forms, Tanning’s view of motherhood is presented by a mother holding her infant to her shoulder, wrapping a protective arm around its back. Where Miro presents a geometric representation of a mother, Tanning gives the mother and child their own identity through the inclusion of recognizable faces. Although both are unidentifiable in name, Tanning classifies the act of the mother holding her child in an act of comfort and reassurance. However, she then undermines this by presenting the two figures in an isolated desert expanse, under dark oppressive clouds, creating a feeling of foreboding. There is a sense that this dream-world is actually one of both solitude and the alienation of a mother with her child, perhaps indicate a despairing contemplation of the biological destiny of women.
Tanning’s life-like rendering and expressive facial features of her characters gives the painting an emotional outlook for the viewer, imparting feelings of tenderness, care and maternal love. Yet this is foreshadowed by the anxious or fretful look on the mother’s face, which looks away from her child. The physical isolation, stranded in this bleak featureless landscape, with only a grubby rug protecting them all from the sand below, creates the feeling of loneliness, remoteness, alienation and emotional isolation; and the clothing of the woman, ripped, creased and torn to the lower front, is likely an indication of Tanning’s fear of the possible adverse effects of childbirth on the female form.
As is characteristic of the Surrealist style of painting throughout the movement, her landscape is not one defined by time or specific location. It is purely a figment of her imagination. The impossibility of scale, with the foreground compared to the horizon, creates dreamlike opposition to the reality of the space. With the inclusion of two doors and their frames, Tanning manages to enclose the seemingly open scene of the sandy plateau. Through her use of a muted color palette, with only hints and breakthroughs of the primary blue compared to the vast base tones of yellow, she creates a dullness which echoes the feeling of the characters.
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Although opposite to Miro’s presentation of Maternity as the biology of sustenance and survival in his geometric forms, Tanning’s setting is representational of the Surrealist’s subconscious and alludes to the biological form of motherhood with the inclusion of a womb like structure in the background. In placing this organ behind the open door, Tanning makes a comment on how the cervix is the door to life. In her painting, this door in the background opens onto the scene. This is possibly a reference to the artist’s fear of feeling restricted by her gender to the role of motherhood, and a comment on the inevitability of a woman’s confinement after childbirth. Ironically, Tanning, who was against having children, treated her beloved pet Pekingese dog, whom she shared with Max Ernst while living in Sedona, to the love and affection normally shown by a mother to her child. The inclusion of the baby-faced dog in this maternal scene, creates an interesting juxtaposition for the viewer to contemplate the reference to Tanning’s own views on maternity. This emotion perhaps highlights the stark contrast between life and death. Life is represented by the living, breathing beings of the mother and her child and by the inclusion of the baby-faced dog. This is not unusual for the Surrealist artists to create such beings, this inclusion alongside the depiction of the landscape has an air of Salvador Dali.
Rather than Miro’s comment on the generic form of maternity being an ability to sustain life through breastfeeding, Tanning’s representation of maternity is a very inward reflection of her own perception of her distaste for the role of motherhood and the adverse effects it would have upon her career and life. Tanning’s presentation of maternity embodies the Surrealist ideals of turning inward to create their outwardly projected art.
In complete contrast to both Miro’s and Tanning’s depictions of maternity, is Max Ernst’s ‘The Virgin Spanking the Christ Child Before Three Witnesses: Andre Breton, Paul Eluard, and the Painter’ (1926). Here Ernst addresses the most famous religious motif – the Madonna and Child. Unlike the typical portrayals found throughout art history of this iconic imagery of the divine Christ Child in his mother’s protective embrace, Ernst portrays the extreme opposite. Here the Virgin Mary is depicted as an earthy, frustrated woman, who the viewer witnesses in the act of spanking her unruly son. Ernst successfully questions his own Catholic faith and challenges the respectful and devout beliefs that this denomination of the Christian church traditionally holds for the mother of Christ. Ernst himself was already in turmoil about his beliefs, as he blamed the death of his sister on his devoutly Catholic father. Ernst knew that his subject would be controversial and that he risked persecution. When the painting was exhibited in Cologne, Ernst was excommunicated from the Catholic Church for the act of blasphemy.
In the work, Ernst attempts to create a simultaneously controversial and sharply humorous scene. By including three witnesses, two of whom are fellow Surrealist artists, along with a self-portrait, he infers that their presence has little interest in the events unfolding before them. This is accentuated through their muted tones and color palette which sees the three blend into their particular background. In stark contrast, the Virgin and Child are projected to the foreground through the use of the bright primary color base. The landscape in which the holy figures are represented is disjointed through the pastel walls with the light blue sky behind. Her blue knee blanket, pulled taught at her frustrated strain in supporting the Child on her lap, reflects the classical association of the Virgin Mary and the distinctive ultramarine blue used by Renaissance painters due to its vivid and rich consistency. The high cost of extracting the ultramarine pigment from the stone Lapis Lazuli made it one of the most precious artist materials and was almost exclusively reserved for use in depictions of the robes of the Virgin Mary and Christ Child. The deep celestial blue remains symbolic in the representation of royalty, honor and power. It is also a universal symbol of wisdom and truth.
What is most shocking about this Surrealist piece and the cause of outrage at the time, is the sacrilegious image of Christ’s ‘fallen halo’. Where the Virgin’s head is adorned with her halo, separating her from the three mortal witnesses, in the act of Christ’s reprimand, the Child’s halo is shown fallen to the floor. Christ appears no longer the ‘Savior of man’, but becomes just another child at the hands of his mother. Furthering this point, Christ’s bare posterior displays the red marks already left by his mother’s chastising hand, indicating a level of severity in the punishment that borders on violence. This is a shocking and disturbing contrast to the traditional portrayal of the Virgin Mary as meek, mild and demure as formally depicted by the church for centuries. Rather indiscreetly and importantly, the author has outlined his own signature with the fallen halo, perhaps underlining his intention to offend and at the same time accept responsibility for his portrayal.
Although the Virgin stands out from the pastel background and her form is indicated through the geometric contortion of shapes, the Christ Child juxtaposes this and is presented like a classical cherub, contorted over his mother’s lap, echoing the Mannerist elongation of form.
Where Miro’s maternity acts as the base geometric form, and Tanning’s motherhood is presented in a lost landscape, Ernst’s maternal scene expresses not the care the other two artists cleverly indicate; instead, he has dared to present a distressing and thought, provoking representation of the epitome of the history of maternity. He subjects the son of the Holy Father to the pains of the mortal world, controversially at the hands of his own mother. The Madonna and Child have typically, throughout artistic periods, been depicted as divine and holy and are iconic images for the Christian and Catholic churches. Ironically, this work by Ernst has become iconic for the Surrealist movement.
Similar to Miro and Tanning, Ernst has created a scene conjured completely from his imagination. It is as if his subconscious, which is so important to the Surrealists, has tried to compare the realities of having children with the divinity that Christ traditionally represents. He has challenged the typical understanding of the Virgin and Child, much as his fellow the Surrealists in this essay have challenged exactly what is maternal.
Leo Steinberg, a well-known art critic, pointed out that in fact, the two poets who are supposed witnesses cannot actually see the act that is taking place from the direction that they are both facing. He also suggests that the artist himself is not looking at the spanking, but at the viewer. This dramatically changes the interpretation of the work and that the focus is actually not on the act itself but upon the reaction of the audience: “The viewer is being observed looking at the act and is therefore asked to examine the nature of his fascination with the violence”. Although the Surrealist movement and its art unashamedly aimed to provoke, Ernst’s depiction of the Christ Child in this manner caused considerable controversy and was seen as an attack on Christianity and its contemporary values. Steinberg noted that in fact the two poets can’t possibly see the spanking from their position and the painter isn’t looking at the act, but instead at the viewer. This radically changes the meaning of the painting, taking the focus away from the Virgin spanking the Christ Child to the fact that the viewer is being observed looking at the act, and is therefore asked to examine the nature of his fascination with the violence.
These three famous and notably extreme examples are all indicative of the way that the Surrealism movement allowed the role of the mother in both society and in art to be viewed differently and with a refreshingly new perspective. There was a clear plea for an honesty and for a social conscience to recognize the struggle and pressures on the maternal female, rather than to romanticize the relationship of a mother and her child with images of nurturing that were common throughout most periods of art history. The representation of the female in Surrealism reflects the developing views on feminism and the role of women in society. The depictions also show important contrasts when portrayed from the imagination of a male or female painter. The male-dominated Surrealist movement, with its strong views on the role of the female, had a major effect on the female artists. The men wanted muses and mistresses, not mothers. The women wanted to show their independence and creativity without the shackles of motherhood. Tanning was one example of many female artists of the time who made the decision to focus their life on their work at the expense of having their own family. Remedios Varo, the Spanish painter and lover of Surrealist poet Benjamin Peret, Leonor Fini, the Argentinian artist, Dora Maar, the Surrealist painter and muse of Pablo Picasso, all decided that motherhood was not for them. Varo’s ‘Celestial Pablum’ (1958) shows a lonely woman seated in an isolated tower feeding a caged moon is considered a commentary on how maternity enslaves women, wearing them down, so that all autonomy is lost. “In Varo’s ‘Celestial Pablum’, an isolated woman sits in a lonely tower, a blank expression on her face, and mechanically grinds up stars which she feeds to an insatiable moon. The somber palette and mat surface cast their own pall over the work [paintings such as this] are remarkable for their powerful imagining of the conflicts inherent in maternity: the physical changes initiated by pregnancy and lactation, the mother’s exhaustion and feared loss of autonomy” – Whitney Chadwick, ‘Women, Art, and Society’ (1996). It is therefore not surprising that the depiction of maternity by many Surrealists was not about love and affection, but about how maternity traps women. Whilst the male artists depicted maternity with disdain and lack of emotion, the works by female artists show fear and loathing of the life they envisaged that maternity would bring for them.
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