Andre Breton "We reduce art to its simplest expression, which
is love" said Surrealist writer Andre Breton , who came to be
regarded by his colleagues as "master of thought". The critic, poet
and revolutionary was born in Tinchebray Orne, France on February
18, 1896, in the midst of a middle class family. Although he never
spoke of his childhood or studies, it is known that at an early age
became interested in medicine and psychiatry. According to
biographical data available, at age 19 he focused on neurosurgery
in accordance with the theoretical postulates of Sigmund Freud, and
in his professional life, he worked in hospitals in the city of
Paris, where he pioneered the psychiatric movement.
Still very young he made contact with the art world through the
Dada group in 1916, along with Louis Aragon and Philippe Soupault,
one of the founders of the French magazine Literature in 1919. It
was 1920 when Breton began his writing career by collaborating with
Soulpault in writing of magnetic fields, text referring to
automatic writing, one that does not obey reason or morality, his
first Surrealist text with an incision Dadaist. In 1921 he married
Simones Kahn; 13 years later, separately, he married Jacqueline
Lamba, with whom he had his daughter Aube, who was the muse of his
poem love crazy; 10 years later, in 1944, he divorced to marry now
with Elisa Claro. In 1924, André published his Manifesto of
Surrealism, which created a stir in the surrealist thought, whose
leadership brought together people like Antonin Artaud and Paul
Eluard. He promoted revolution, lashed out against the system and
all the official culture of that time. In 1927 he joined the
Communist Party, of which six years later was expelled. Meanwhile,
he published two of his most important texts: Surrealism in the
service of the revolution and Surrealism and painting, both in
1928. That same year, the poet wrote Nadia, portrait of a woman in
different fragments and impressions combined magic with everyday
life, becoming a masterpiece. By 1929 he wrote Second Manifesto of
Surrealism, without adding anything new.
During the following years, critical and revolutionary Surrealist
exhibitions opened in different cities. In 1938 he traveled to
Mexico and met Trotsky and Diego Rivera, and it was after this
trip, in 1940, he published Anthology of Black Humor, which was
banned by the censors. In 1941 he embarked on the
"Capitaine-Paul-Lemerle" to Martinique, where he interned in a
camp. After leaving bail he traveled to New York and remained in
exile for five years, with artists such as Marcel Duchamp and Max
Ernst. That same year World War II broke out. It is in this period
of his life that Breton founded in New York magazine VVV. Upon
returning to France, the writer was interested in the occult and in
1945 Arcane 17. Breton regularly published articles and various
essays until his death on September 28, 1966, when asthmatic
problems ended the life of the "patriarch of the Surrealists". His
remains were buried in the cemetery of Batignolles, where lies a
rock star on a tombstone, the French epitaph: "Je recherche du
temps heat" (I seek the gold of time).
André Bretón, de la psiquiatría al surrealismo |