My Surrealism Speech

I've just done with my fist speech in the public speaking class!

It was worried a lot before I registered this class.
But it was not that bad than I thought rather I guess I kind of gained confidence about making a speech in front of others in ENGLISH.
Actually, I was the student who prefered to give a presentation than writing a paper in Korea.
However, in the last semester after I kind of failed to give the presentation I lost my confidence. I couldn't say things I wrote and I momorized well and couldn't concentrate on presentation in order to be conscious of other students who were sitting in front of me.
Anyway, it stirred me a lot and made me decide to take a speech class.
And now, I feeled like going up to a little bit upper level from the deepest bottom.
Here is my script about Surrealism that I picked for my speech.

Surrealism and Painting

“Drop everything. Drop Dada. Drop your wife, drop your mistress. Drop your hopes and fears. Leave your children in the woods. Drop the prey for the shadow. Drop if necessary your comfortable life and what they tell you is a position with good prospects. Start on your way” (Brown 8). This is a declaration of Surrealism which is stated by the main founder of Surrealism, Andre Breton. My name is Nari Shin and I want to give a speech about Surrealism.
Surrealism is one of the modern art movements born in 1924. “After the First World War, young artists needed to find new genres so that they could express their rage and revolt against the civilization responsible for the war” (Wilson 5). A term of Surrealism was made by the “French writer, Guillaume Apollinaire and he explained that it would embrace the underworld of the unconscious mind, of dreams, trances and the paranormal” (Brown 11). Surrealism is not confined only in art. It includes writing, film, music and others. Today, we are going to talk about one of them, painting. Surrealism has its’ own particular characteristics and they are shown by Surrealism paintings.

To begin with, Surrealism made new meaning by accordance of two different subjects. If we see each object separately it will make us look at different images, but the surrealism painters brought to our mind a new meaning as well as a sensible one. For instance, The Dominion of Light which is one of the famous paintings drawn by Rene Magritte shows the combination of night and day time. If we look at the upside in this painting the blue sky symbolizes daytime, but then if we look at down side of the picture, the dark house with lighting lamp also represents that it is night time simultaneously. It might be strange to many people because they are accustomed to the typical image of night and day time. However it makes sense because it is true that the day and night always coexist while we are not conscious of it. This opposition brings us an awakening that we have thought for granted for a long time. “From this picture we can broaden our idea to reality like happiness and sadness exists together or we always have to see both sides of an issue. People may not make a sure conclusion about what this painting means since it is the freedom of each viewer. Magritte also stated that he cannot define the explanation of the image, nevertheless we could acquire inspiration through Surrealism paintings” (Whitfield 111).

The second characteristic of Surrealism would be the curiosity for the new world. Surrealism painters have interest in the world that they have not experienced in reality such as death, dream and the three-dimensional world. Salvador Dali, a well known Surrealism painter, expressed well about the desire of different space. In his most famous painting, The Persistence of Memory, he illustrated his grief for “our awareness of the limitation of time on our own existence” (Wilson 27). There are three soft watches in a desolate plain and one of them covers a face of a man with his eyes shut. People cannot control time and they have to accept different aspects of their lives in time. “The man represents Dali himself or every person in the world who are managed by time and the idea of melting watch shows his hope for the break of time or eternal life” (Schiebler 76).

The last trait is abstract sexualism in Surrealism paintings. It was sometimes illustrated erotically or violently as a way of desire for love. If we see the painting of Picasso, Figures by the Sea, we can see a couple who caress each other. However, they don’t look like human at the same time but they have a human figure. This picture shows a side view of the couple but it also represents other parts of the body. “In addition, their hands remind us of fish-tail. So, the whole image is telling us that it is not general love between human-being, but an erotic fantasy of mermaid” (Wilson Plate.14). There is another way of Surrealistic sexualism. The name of this picture is The Titanic Days Drawn by Rene Magritte. In the picture, it shows “an attempted rape” (Whitfield 36). A man in this picture looks like a part of woman by cutting his other parts and it seems like he is involved in her body. “However, Rene didn’t make them overlap and the two people still have their own outline which represents they are different individuals. So, we could presume the intent of the artist that to rape might dominate one’s body, but it doesn’t mean to invade his or her inside” (Whitfield 36).

We saw three main characteristics of Surrealism paintings; accordance of mismatch, curiosity of new world and abstract sexualism. Although there are more characteristics about Surrealism over those three, one thing for sure is that Surrealism is the art movement which expresses more than reality. It didn’t turn its’ back on reality rather it suggested distinctive and innovative solution against problems in reality. Some people might think that Surrealism has already done its’ movement and consider it as a classic art movements. However, modern artists say that Surrealism has been transformed by influencing from pop-art to contemporary arts (Raynor). Surrealism paintings have influenced on people’s mind to be able to overcome their own problems in reality and to dream of better life.

Bibliography
Brown, Robert. “Landmarks of the Id : Surrealist Art in Exhibition.” Christie’s 3 Feb. 2003: 8-11.
Raynor, Vivien. “Art; Seven Thought-Provoking Approaches to Surrealism Today.” New York Times. 28 April. 1991. 20 February. 2009
Schiebler, Ralf. Dali : the reality of dreams. New York: Prestel, 2005.
Whitfield, Sarah. Magritte. London: South Bank Centre, 1992.
Wilson, Simon. Surrealist Painting. Oxford: Phaidon Press Limited, 1982.