Magical Realism in Art

I've always thought of Magical Realism as a literary movement, but an interesting essay on the Ten Dreams Galleries site explains the origins of the term in an art movement with its roots in World War I. The movement began in Europe just after the war (preceding Surrealism by a few years) and in North America a decade later.

"The term 'Magischer Realimus' was first used by German art critic Frank Roh in 1925 to describe a strong current in the arts toward realism...Art critics who had previously promoted Expressionism felt that a new generation of artists were producing superficial work, intended purely to exploit. At the same time, many artists felt that the Modernist movements had moved too far in the direction of abstraction. These same artists developed a realistic style, portraying everyday life but adding a twist of the bizarre and unusual. Magical Realism painters added dreamlike and fantastical elements to their art, but their subject matter still always remained within the realm of the possible." Go here to read the full essay and see examples of Magical Realist art.

The images in this post are by Pyke Koch, Alex Colville, Gino Severini, and George Tooker. The painting below by Dutch artist Paul Christiaan Bos is a contemporary work in the Magical Realist tradition.

       

Comments

[Lynette]

Thank you for the link to this article on Magical Realism. I wonder if the work of Remedios Varo could be considered in this category as well?

[Terri Windling]

Varo's work certainly has a Magical Realist quality, but I think she's more properly defined as a Surrealist. She was deeply involved with the Surrealist movement, after all -- first during her student years in Madrid, and then during her years in Barcelona and Paris. When the Germans invaded Paris, she was part of the Surrealist group who fled Nazi persecution (with the aid of the New-York-based "Emergency Rescue Committee," set up to save artists and intellectuals), settling down with other Surrealist writers and painters in Mexico in 1941.

Although her work changed and matured in Mexico (influenced by Mexican art, by her friendship with Leonore Carrington, and by her metaphysical explorations), I'm under the impression (someone correct me if I'm wrong) that Varo still defined herself as a Surrealist painter -- although she gradually broke with some of Breton and Peret's more strict ideas regarding Surrealist theory.

(I'm a big Remedios Varo fan. She was partially the inspiration behind the character of Anna Naverra in my novel The Wood Wife. Have you read Janet Kaplan's biograph of Varo, "Unexpected Journeys"? Terrific book.)

Charles Vess has defined a catagory of fantastical art that he calls "Visionary Art" -- as distinct from the tradition of the English Fairy Painters (including most of the Golden Age illustrators and their modern equivalents) and the American Pulp tradition (and it's modern equivalents). Visionary Art, if I'm understanding Charlie correctly, includes magical works by artists who seek to portray a deeply personal vision, one that's often spiritual or metaphysical in nature. Shulamith Wulfing's work, for example; or Odilon Redon's. Varo's later work, in Mexico, could fall into this catagory because it comes out of her personal explorations into spiritual, metaphysical and occult ideas.

[Lynette]

I'm a big Varo fan, too. Of course you are right; Varo is strongly associated with the Surrealists. But I also think that an artist can have characteristics that put her in more than one category. Although she doesn't seem to fit Schmeid's traits of Magical Realism, she does fit by other definitions that cite ordinary situations rendered in a magical way. The Surrealists seemed to rely on bringing the unconscious to the surface for examination in their work, while Varo and Carrington (and Fini) tend to examine the individual human condition, and very often, the feminine human condition. I think that Varo's work is much more personal and existential as opposed to the Surrealist's political and Freudian tendencies.