Inspirations

• Search
• Timeline

      To understand more of the Surrealists it helps to know more about some of their 
      Inspirations and precursers: -

    * Agrippa (1486 - 1534)
    * Alphonse Allais -> (1854 - 1905) French author of humourous tales.
    * Guillaume Apollinaire (1880-1918); (French) Cubist poet, playwright and art critic who championed 
      the Cubists and invented the term surrealism.
    * Achim von Arnim ->; (1781 - 1834); German author of fantasy tales. (Contes bizarres).
    * Giuseppe Arcimboldo (1527 - 1593) painter.
    * Baudelaire; (1821 - 1867); late Romantic and decadent who first read Poe in 1847 and translated 
      a volume of his tales (1852);  he also translated Thomas De Quincey. 
      His Flowers of Evil (1857, 1861) was banned. 
      His art criticism was among the first written; his  most notable prose work was Artificial Paradises. 
      Infamous for his abuse of alcohol, hashish, opium and other substances.
      His work influenced the Parnassians, Symbolists, Impressionists, Imagists and Surrealists.
    * Georges Berkley ->; (1685 - 1753); Irish Bishop and Philosopher.
    * Aloysius Bertrand ->; (1807 - 1841); french Poet. Author of Gaspard de la nuit.
    * William Blake; (1757 - 1827 English Mystic, Poet and Painter.
    * Petrus Borel ->; (1809 - 1859); French romantic storyteller; Translated Defoe ->. 
      Author of Madame Putifar.
    * Hieronymus Bosch (c1450 - 1516) Painter see -> and wiki ->.
    * Giodorno Bruno ->; (1548-1600); and the Hermetic-alchemical tradition.
    * Giorgio de Chirico.
    * Nicholas Flamel ->;  (c. 1330-1417); French alchemist.
    * Xavier Forneret; (1809 - 1884); French writer; Humourist.
    * Freud -> (1856-1939).
    * Johann Fussli Painter.
    * Hegel -> (1770-1831); German transcendental-idealist philosopher who popularized the dialectic; 
    * Pierre Janet -> (1859-1947); pioneer psychologist who opposed Freudianism and inspired Andre Breton 
      as a medical student, but dismissed Surrealism. 
    * Alfred Jarry (1873 - 1907); author and playwrite famous for Ubu Roi (1896) and also his 
      invention of Pataphysics.
    * Lautreamont; author of Les Chants de Maldoror.
    * Eliphas Levi; latterday magician.
    * Ramon Llull (1232 - 1315); Medieval mystic and philosopher.
    * Stephanie Mallarme (1842 - 1898) Symbolist poet exemplar.
    * Henri Matisse - Painter.
    * Gustave Moreau -> (1826 – 1898) French Symbolist painter.
    * Paracelsus -> (1493-1541) Alchemical genius.
    * Poe (1809 - 1849); Writer; a prophet to the Symbolists and was termed by Andre Breton 
      a "Surrealist in adventure."
    * Pierre Reverdy (1889 - 1960) wrote poems, prose poems and notes on poetic theory, beginning just before 
      the formation of the surrealist group and continuing to influence it from a distance.
    * Rimbaud (1854 - 18910 called Baudelaire "the first seer, king of poets, a true God!".
    * Saint-Pol Roux -> (1861 - 1940) Symbolist poet to whom Andre Breton dedicated his first volume of 
      Poems and whom he called "the Master of the Image."
    * Marquis de Sade (1740 - 1814); prized for his atheism and his extreme open mindedness concerning the 
      definition of  love. 
    * Helene Smith (1861 - 1932) - The medium from Mars. 
    * Paul Valery (1871 - 1945); last of the Symbolist poets, inspired the surrealists as much by his 
      20-year silence as by his poetry and the story Evening with Mr. Teste. 
    * Edward Young whose Night Thoughts  -> was described by Andre Breton as Surrealist from beginning to end.
    * Horace Walpole in 1764 published The Castle of Otranto

      Many of these Inspirations are mentioned by Andre Breton in his  Surrealism and Painting ->.