The Frame In The World of Unconscious Thoughts

When visiting an art gallery or museum, one would take their time to admire the visuals of the artwork that were hanging on the walls, to study the composition, colours, aesthetics, and history of the work. However, one would rarely think of the “frame” that was containing the image and simply thought of them as, what the dictionary would generally explain, “a frame into which a picture fits” or “a frame made to hold a picture”. The remarkable imbalance between the attention paid to the artwork and the frame has prevented us from understanding the frame's purpose or role in the creation of the artwork or how it creates meaning for both itself and the objects it accommodates.[1] Books about “picture framing” were mostly writing about techniques and framing workshops, treating them as an ornamental and protective border for the artwork, which makes exhibiting it safer, and simpler and both distinguish the artwork from its surroundings and artistically tie it in.

One of the temporary exhibitions held in Tate Modern that just ended is the “SURREALISM BEYOND BORDERS”. Based on the name, the exhibition will go beyond what we usually understand about Surrealism, typically the 1920s in Paris that have been the subject of previous surrealism-related stories. This exhibition's global and multi-decade range is the result of thorough research where it will demonstrate how surrealism inspired and brought together artists from all over the world.[2] In the room after the entrance to the exhibition, visitors were welcomed by a painting by Marcel Jean, Armoire surréaliste (Surrealist Wardrobe), 1941 (Fig. 1). It was interesting at first glance we were to believe there was a frame but realized that it was actually a door casing that was painted on the border of the wood panel. Even without the physical picture frame, the artist already suggested that there was a frame creating a border of a painting, yet being in the painting itself. So this brings us to the main question, what is framing in the world of the Surrealist, the mind of unconscious thoughts?

Figure 1: Marcel Jean, Armoire surréaliste, 1941, Oil on wood panel (photo taken in Tate Modern, London, on 4th of June 2022)

In this essay, I will study works of surrealists from the surrealism era (especially the period between the 1920s to 1930s when surrealism first began) that used framing to represent their unconscious thoughts and how they were represented in surrealism exhibition settings. I will be dealing with not only those physical frames that artworks possess, but also focus on the “nonphysical frame” of surrealism art. The later part of the essay will also further explore how frames were used in the International Surrealist Exhibition as “cut-outs” that were arranged in a manner that was similar to the process of the Surrealist Collage or relating to Surrealist photography of “frame within a frame”. Other than that, as frame played an important role in photography, I’ll be relating the frame of the painting by using the theory of photography frame to create a different perspective on looking at a painting. The artworks that I will study will only be in the category of paintings and drawings that were hung on walls, not limited to just oil paints, but also other mediums such as assemblage and mixed mediums.

Surrealism art originally developed in Europe in the 1920s as a form of artistic and cultural resistance. It ignored standards of aesthetics instead of embracing artistic expression as a way to improve one's understanding of oneself. In his 1924 Surrealist Manifesto, Breton described surrealism as psychic automatism in its purest form, whereby one offers to express the actual working of thinking in the absence of any control performed by reason and free from any aesthetic or moral concern.[3] André Breton's declaration of "the omnipotence of the dream" in the first Surrealist Manifesto served as the foundation for a key Surrealist aesthetic.[4] The Surrealists systematized these techniques within the context of psychologist Sigmund Freud's beliefs on dreams and the subconscious mind, using techniques similar to Dada's concentration on automatism, found objects, and unconventional uses of language. However, other than dreams, as Pynchon explained that "one could combine inside the same frame, elements not normally found together to produce illogical and startling effects”[5]. Breton’s Manifesto mentioned the thought of the startling juxtapositions when he quoted Pierre Reverdy’s writing:

“The image is a pure creation of the mind. It cannot be born from a comparison but from a juxtaposition of two more or less distant realities. The more the relationship between the two Juxtaposed realities is distant and true) the stronger the image will be-the greater its emotional power and poetic reality…”[6]

Overall, the manifesto explained using imagination in general and how it might help to discover the unconscious mind's desires. Breton also stressed the importance of dreams and how they may provide insightful perspectives into the unconscious. With that, the canvas/papers (or anything that surrealists used to create works on) could be used as a space for dreams and the unconscious mind. In an effort to unleash the power of the unconscious mind onto the canvas that was framed, the surrealists employed automatism (unconscious artmaking) and took inspiration from dreams. This served as a way to free art from social restraints. However, although the Surrealists were free from social thoughts, the ‘frame of boundary’ affect a sense of consciousness towards the surrealist.

THE FRAME OF BOUNDARY

Figure 2: André Masson, Automatic Drawing, 1924. Ink on paper, 23.5 x 20.6 cm

(The Museum of Modern Art, New York)

Figure 3: Salvador Dalí, Untitled, 1927. Ink on paper, 25.1 x 32.6 cm

(The Museum of Modern Art, New York)

Automatism, which includes breathing, dreaming, and nervous tics, is a word used in psychology to characterise involuntary patterns and behaviours that are not under the conscious control of the individual. The writing was where surrealist "automatism" originally emerged. To fit with the idea, visual artists used markings as their medium rather than using words. Andre Masson discovered he could depict a detached state of mind on paper. Then he let his conscious mind create shapes from the marks.[7] Above are examples of Automatism drawings of two pioneer artists of surrealism, one that was mentioned, Andre Masson (Fig. 2) and Salvador Dali (Fig. 3).

“The central act of choosing and eliminating, forces a concentration on the picture edge – the line that separates in from out – and on the shapes that are created in it.”[8] As Szarkowski stated, focusing on the edge or frame directs our attention to the photograph as a picture and as a pictorial. As one could notice, the markings were concentrated in the middle while there was blank space near the border of the paper, which shows that although they are unconscious when making marks, they are aware of the given space that was limited, trying to avoid the edge of what I defined as a ‘frame of boundary’. Artists were aware of the edge even when doing unconscious activities because they knew the frame is what made a painting or drawing an artwork.

Figure 4: Max Ernst, The Entire City, 1934. Oil paint on paper on canvas, 50.2 × 61.3 cm (photo taken in Tate Modern, London, on 4th of June 2022)

Figure 5: Joan Miró, May 68, 1968–73. Acrylic paint and oil paint on canvas, 200 x 200 cm (photo taken in Tate Modern, London, on 4th of June 2022)

This automatism method was soon transmitted into paintings where artists also worked on the given space that was confined by the ‘frame of boundary’. The immediacy of the impulse was even less evident while painting automatically because of the difficult nature of the oil painting process. Enabling chance or a collaborative process to create the image was one approach to resolving the conscious problem.[9] Ernst (Fig. 4) would apply methods like grattage and frottage, which allowed for imaginative transformation by rubbing onto textured raw materials. These textures were created by chance and soon were altered according to the ‘frame of boundary’ to create a picture. When acrylic paint was introduced, Joan Miro turned to paint dripping and mark making on the space of the canvas. Though performed freely and unconsciously, the image was cut off by the ‘frame of boundary’ which again, sets a limit on their unconscious thoughts.

The ‘frame of boundary’ is a border that confined space for surrealists to express their freedom of the unconscious world in their minds. Although they were not limited to any subject to depict their dream in a given space, they are conscious of the edge of the work, the ‘frame of boundary’ that was set. However, this boundary may also be a ‘frame’ that became a connection between reality and the world of the unconscious. The previous paintings that I’ve discussed were the abstract style of surrealism painting, highlighting automatism and featuring absurd, sometimes unrecognizable visuals. The other style that I will analyse combined an unusual and contradictory mix of imagery with a three-dimensional hyper-realistic approach to represent typically unreal environments in exquisite detail. In relating to Breton’s mention of “startling juxtapositions”, one would often combine different elements of imagery to create an illogical world.

FRAME OF CONNECTION

Coming back to Jean’s painting (Fig. 1), his painting was an example of how a surrealist would use hyper-realism techniques in painting. A large closet painted with partially open shutters, Marcel Jean's fantastic Surrealist Wardrobe (1941), gives the paradoxical impression of locking us in while allowing us to see the meadows and sky that appear to be outside. There was a war that had marooned the Frenchman Jean in Budapest at the time he painted this.[10] The painting shows a complicated network of wooden doors with hinged panels piercing them, all of which open to reveal an interior fantasy realm. Here is a fine example of a surrealist painting that transforms items that are normally pretty common into something unique. This might be an attempt to escape the reality of the war as viewers of the painting are trapped in reality. The door case that was painted in such realistic details represented a ‘frame of connection’, the door case is now part of the painting and part of the real space we belong to, the ‘frame’ has now become a connection between reality and the unconscious mind of the surrealist.

Figure 6: René Magritte, La Durée poignardée, 1938, Oil on canvas (photo taken in Tate Modern, London, on 4th of June 2022)

Another painting that similarly used the frame as a connection between reality and unconscious thought exhibited in Tate was René Magritte’s La Durée poignardée, also known as Time Transfixed (Fig. 6). The painting was so realistic that it felt as though the train is traveling across from one world to another, from the fireplace in the painting into the reality of our world. The collector Edward James commissioned René Magritte to create paintings for the ballroom of his London residence after being impressed by the artist's contributions to the 1936 International Surrealist Exhibition. Magritte described that “I decided to paint the image of a locomotive…In order for its mystery to be evoked, another immediately familiar image without mystery—the image of a dining room fireplace—was joined.”[11] In addition to playing with other elements we frequently overlook, such as gravity, scale, and the connections between inside and outside, Magritte decided to give these things the recognizable physical solidity they have in reality. Magritte was able to mimic the dream world by building a convincingly false universe within his paintings.[12] With that, the fireplace, the wall, and the floor somehow imitated to become a ‘frame of connection’ that were part of reality, the viewer’s world, while the train coming out from the ‘frame’ became the subject of the connection between the world of dream and reality. However, the ‘physical frame’ of the painting reminded us that this is not a reality, but a painting imitating reality. In his writing on the theory of photography, Emerling claimed that the frame separates the work (of art) from the non-work (the gallery or museum). The divide helps us concentrate and serves as a technological tool that shapes our viewing habits. It makes us viewers, enables us to distinguish between work and non-work, and makes us capable of thinking artistically.[13]

Though the ‘physical frame’, serving as a “frame of boundaries” was there to help spectators differentiate between dreams and reality, by using the realism technique, surrealist was able to use the ‘frame of connection’ to clear the boundaries between reality and the dream. However, Ernst was able to connect his dream and reality a decade before Magritte by making use of three-dimensional objects that, like Magritte‘s train, literally “pop out” from the artwork and emphasized that these three-dimensional materials in his work could be part of the painting and also part of the real space that the spectators were standing.

THE PHYSICAL FRAME

Figure 7: Max Ernst, Two Children are Threatened by a Nightingale, 1924,

Oil with painted wood elements and cut-and-pasted printed paper on

wood with wood frame (photo taken in Tate Modern, London, on 4th of June 2022)

The eerie image depicted in the artwork was composed by Ernst, who said that it was inspired by a "fevervision" he had as a child while suffering from measles.[14] When observing this work in the museum, it felt more inviting to Ernst's childhood dreams because of the clever use of different materials in the painting that emerges towards us. The guy running on the top of the building on the right, with a child, on one hand, rushes for the physical "knob" on the ‘physical frame’ that distinguishes reality from his childhood dreams. At the same time, the gate on the left was open and facing out of the painting. In a way, it was suggested that the man is somehow trying to escape the world of Ernst’s childhood dreams and trying to reach for the viewer’s world by touching the “knob”, forming a connection. Another interesting move Ernst made on the ‘physical frame’ was to write the title of the painting on it and part of them were painted (the inner first level of the physical frame). The ‘physical frame’ that was supposed to help us distinguish between reality and his childhood dreams was made connected in both worlds by doing so.

Surrealism artists were able to use ‘unphysical frames’ such as what I called the ‘frame of connection’ by using realism and three-dimensional materials to clear the boundaries between reality and the unconscious world. I’ve also analyzed how ‘physical frames’ were used as a “frame of boundary” to remind spectators that the paintings were indeed painted dreams and don’t belong to the space of reality. However, some artists managed to use a ‘physical frame’ as part of their work, contributing meanings to better understand the artwork.

Figure 8: Salvador Dali, Couple with Their Heads Full of Clouds, 1937 (Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art of Trento and Rovereto, Italy)

Salvador Dali's masterpiece of surrealism Couple with Their Heads Full of Clouds (Fig. 8) is filled with very intimate motifs and displays Dali's concern with Freudian psychology. Dali was on the verge of delusions because he had serious illusions and saw things that weren't there. However, he always had his wife, Gala by his side and expressed his gratitude towards her saying: " I found Gala. Out of love she has been able to force my intelligence go be mercilessly critical, and I was willing to convert a part of my personality into a self-analysing device. My method, which I have called critically paranoid, is a constant triumph over the irrational."[15]

Here, the ‘physical frame’ of the artwork was purposefully designed to create the contour of the busts, representing the figure of Salvador Dali and his wife, Gala, as evidenced by the number of photographs that the couple was seen taking pictures with them holding one side of the portrait. Because the shape of the physical picture frame was not the usual rectangular that was usually used for a painting, even without the paintings, spectators would be able to see a contour of two figures instead of two frames. The ‘physical frame’ now contains its own meaning and were part of the story of the painting, giving out a message to viewers that this is the portrait of the couple.

Dali had a dramatic change as a result of the Spanish Civil War, which caused him to leave his home in Cadaques. Like Ballard’s mixture of random objects within a frame, Dali’s two paintings include a multitude of symbols that link to Dali's themes that were focused on childhood. The skipping girl, who symbolises the carefree condition of untarnished youth, reflects Freud's preoccupation with dormant childhood memories. The shoreline around Cadaques and Port Lligat, where Dali was born and spent most of his life, is also referenced in the rock landscape.[16] The physical picture frame of the work as a ‘frame of boundary’ played the part of containing the unconscious world of Dali, but the shape served as a ‘frame of connection’ to remind us that these were his personal childhood memories in his mind.

Figure 9: René Magritte, L’Évidence éternelle, 1930, Oil on five canvases

(The Menil Collection, Houston)

Another work by René Magritte, L’Évidence éternelle (The Eternally Obvious), 1930, (Fig. 9) also used the ‘physical frame’ with a purpose to express his ideas. A woman's figure was divided into five independent panels and arranged one on top of the other in Magritte's artwork. Visually, it looked as though the parts of the woman’s body were cut out from reality and framed in different pieces, and represented as forensic evidence on the wall. Toiles découpées, or cut-up paintings, were created by Magritte and put on glass.[17] Such a move reflected the surrealist collage that was practised and here the ‘physical frame’ acts like a ‘cut out’ of reality to create a dreamlike collage. “Surrealist Collage”, is a means of expressing what they saw as the basic poetic activity of the unconscious mind, which is the combining of many elements to create something new. Contrary to Cubist collages, which emphasise the distinct appearance of the individual components, surrealist collages conceal the connections between the constituent elements. This emphasises the "truth" of the final image rather than the methods and materials utilised to produce it.[18]

FRAME-WITHIN-A-FRAME [19]

‘‘Physical frame’ as ‘cut out’ for surrealist collage can also be seen in exhibition and gallery settings that were organized by the Surrealist group in the 1920s and 1930s. The Surrealists operated their own art gallery in the 1920s and held a number of bizarre exhibits there. From the beginning, the purpose of surrealist exhibitions has always been to fully immerse viewers in the surrealist experience and to motivate them to do their own imaginative surrealist acts. The Surrealism movement turned the art exhibition from a conventional showing of works of art into a staged atmosphere designed to elicit innovative thoughts and sensations.[20]. The Surrealist Gallery did not last for very long, but the Surrealists went on to conduct more ambitious and expansive shows in the 1930s.

Figure 10: Diana Brinton-Lee, Salvador Dalí (in diving suit), Rupert Lee, Paul Éluard, Musch Éluard, ELT Mesens at the International Surrealist Exhibition in London (1936) © Tate Archive

The International Surrealist Exhibition (Fig. 10), one of the earliest global surrealist exhibitions, was exhibited at the New Burlington Galleries in London from June 11 to July 4, 1936. The exhibition was so large that it attracted 25,000 people[21]. It fulfilled what surrealism could be, both to its adherents and its critics; it was profound, it was disturbing; it was also at times very silly[22].

Figure 11: International Surrealist Exhibition, New Burlington Galleries, London June 1936

Figure 12: International Surrealist Exhibition, View of the main gallery, New Burlington Galleries, London June 1936

Figure 13: Eileen Tweedy, International surrealist exhibition, London, 14 x 20.1 cm.

According to Emerling, the idea of the frame-within-a-frame appears frequently in surrealist work.[23] Based on the above photographs of the exhibition site (Fig 11, 12, 13), artworks were arranged closely and combined to create Irrational juxtaposition. Overall, the paintings were hung in a very collage manner, the frame acted like a “cut out” of the paintings, like bits and pieces of paper cuttings, and they were arranged onto the walls in the space of the gallery that acts as a bigger frame.

Figure 14: Salvador Dali, Phenomene de l’extase (The Phenomenon of Ecstasy), 1933.

The arrangement of the paintings in the New Burlington Galleries, London also reminded me of both Ballard’s Memory Boxes series and Salvador Dali’s photographic work The Phenomenon of Ecstasy (Fig. 14). In her writing, Krauss claimed that “…the very boundary of the image the camera frame which crops or cuts the represented element out of reality-at-large can be seen as another example of spacing […] Photographic cropping is always experienced as a rupture in the continuous fabric of reality. But surrealist photography puts enormous pressure on that frame to make itself read as a sign…”[24] Because the frame signals that there is a difference between the portion of reality that was taken away, photography depends on the frame to make itself read as a sign. According to Krauss, the image in the frame is "an example of nature as representation." She applies Andre Breton's definition of "convulsive beauty," the "presentation of that very reality as configured, or coded, or written," to her interpretation of the term.[25]

The ‘physical frame’ of the paintings acts like a ‘crop out’ of the mind of the surrealist, which enables spectators to differentiate the work and non-work. When exhibiting in the space of the exhibition, the frame of the painting indicates them as a sign for spectators to be read, or what I would say, as an unconscious thought to be seen by spectators. The whole exhibition as a presentation was configured or coded with different paintings of the surrealist, filled with different unconscious thoughts of many surrealists, thus creating a Frame-Within-A-Frame.

The 1938 International Exhibition of Surrealism at the Beaux Arts Gallery in Paris is the most well-known Surrealist exhibition. It featured 300 pieces and items created by more than 60 artists from fifteen different nations. The exhibition's magnitude was stunning, and its installation style made it genuinely outstanding. Visitors were immersed in a completely surrealist setting.[26] This transition to a new space across borders is what Carol suggested ‘Liminality’, to enable a person in having a liminal experience, which involves stepping beyond time and space in order to gain new, wider perspectives from mundane life.[27]

Figure 15: Roger Schall, Untitled (International Surrealist Exhibition, Paris), 1938, Gelatin silver print, 22.1 × 21.1 cm (MOMA)

Figure 16: Josef Breitenbach, The central grotto with a view toward the Rue Surréaliste, Exposition Internationale du Surréalisme

Here, on the above right side of the picture, it was even more evidence that the paintings were somehow, stacked by using the different depths of the walls to create collage effects on a space. Surrealists were using the techniques that they would usually use on paintings, to combine odd objects through collage and create an unconscious dream-like world not only on their canvas but in the exhibition space. A frame within a frame, the “cut out” of many paintings were represented as the many thoughts of a different artist, and putting them together in such an arrangement created a surreal space for the visitor to be in, to stand and experience the mind of the surrealist.

In conclusion, by relating to surrealism literature and photography theory on the frame, my essay has introduced two "nonphysical frames". The "frame of boundary" constrained space for surrealists to express their unconscious world while being aware of the edges of the frame. Although the "physical frame" act as a "frame of boundary," allowing viewers in differentiating between dreams and reality, surrealists were able to use the "frame of connection" to blur the lines between reality and the dream by employing the realism technique. Lastly, artists were able to employ the "physical frame" on painting as a "cut out" of different unconscious thoughts and arranged it in the gallery's space using a surrealist collage style that led to "a frame within a frame."

Footnotes: [1] Paul Duro, The Rhetoric of the Frame : Essays on the Boundaries of the Artwork. (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1996) P.1. [2] Tate, Surrealism Beyond Borders. (Tate, n.d.) [online] Tate. https://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/surrealism-beyond-borders. (accessed on 24th July 2022) [3] André Breton, Manifestoes of Surrealism, translated from the French by Richard Seaver and Helen R. Lane (Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1969), P.26. [4] Breton, Manifestoes of Surrealism, P.26. [5] Thomas Pynchon, Slow learner: Early Stories (Boston: Little, Brown, 1984), P.20. [6] Breton, Manifestoes of Surrealism, P.20-21. [7] Fiona Bradley, Surrealism. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), P.21. [8] John Szarkowski, The Photographer’s Eye. (New York: The Museum Of Modern Art, 1966) P.9. [9] Bradley, Surrealism, P.21. [10] Morgan Falconer, Did Surrealism really travel all that well? (Apollo Magazine, 2022). https://www.apollo-magazine.com/surrealism-global-breton-met-tate/. (Accessed on 30th July 2022) [11] Art Institute, Time Transfixed (The Art Institute of Chicago, 2018) https://www.artic.edu/artworks/34181/time-transfixed. (Accessed on 30th July 2022) [12] Randa Dubnick, “Visible Poetry: Metaphor and Metonymy in the Paintings of Rene Magritte." Contemporary Literature 21.3 (Art and Literature, 1980), P.416-419 [13] Jae Emerling, Photography: History and Theory. ( New York, Routledge. 2012) P.48. [14] MOMA, Max Ernst. Two Children Are Threatened by a Nightingale. 1924. (n.d.) https://www.moma.org/learn/moma_learning/max-ernst-two-children-are-threatened-by-a-nightingale-1924/. (Accessed on 30th July 2022) [15] Salvador Dali gratitude towards Gala and how this influenced his in his artistic career, cited in Erik Beenker, The collection: Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam, The Netherlands (Netherlands, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, 2005)P.186. [16] India Phillips, 5 Minutes on Salvador Dali’s ‘Couple with Their Heads Full of Clouds’ | Feature Series | THE VALUE | Art News. (TheValue ,2020) [online] Available at: https://en.thevalue.com/articles/salvador-dali-gala-surreal-painting-bonhams-india-phillips. (Accessed on 3rd of September) [17] The Museum of Modern Art. René Magritte. L’Évidence éternelle (The Eternally Obvious). Paris, 1930 | MoMA. (n.d.) [online] Available at: https://www.moma.org/audio/playlist/180/2378 [Accessed on 6th August. 2022]. [18] Conroy Maddox, Conroy Maddox: Surreal Enigmas (Staffordshire: Keele University Press, 1995), P.17 [19] Emerling, Photography, P.57. [20] Charles Cramer and Kim Grant, Surrealist Exhibitions, (smarthistory.org., n.d.) https://smarthistory.org/surrealist-exhibitions/. (Accessed on 24th of July 2022) [21] Maddox, Conroy Maddox, P.8 [22] Williampinfold, 11 June 1936: The International Surrealist Exhibition | A Motley Miscellany of Oddities, Buffoonery, Criticism & c. (2018). http://williampinfold.com/82-years-ago-today-the-international-surrealist-exhibition/#:~:text=The%20exhibition%20was%20hugely%20successful (Accessed on 25th July 2022) [23] Emerling, Photography, P.57. [24] Rosalind E. Krauss, The Originality of The Avant-Garde and Other Modernist Myths. (Cambridge, Mass. U.A.: Mit Press, 2010) P.115. [25] Krauss, The Originality of the Avant-Garde, P.113. [26] Cramer and Grant, Surrealist Exhibitions [27] Carol Duncan, Civilizing Rituals Inside Public Art Museums (London: Routledge. 1995) P.12.