Methodos (Apr 2004)

Primitivisme et surréalisme : une  « synthèse » impossible ?

  • Philippe Sabot

DOI
https://doi.org/10.4000/methodos.109
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 3

Abstract

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The article puts questions on the complex status of “the Primitive” within Surrealism, and particularly within some works of André Breton. The author at first aims at showing that Surrealism prolongs some cultural and artistic movements based on critics about the intellectual and esthetical ideals of the occidental rationalism. But he aims especially at showing the fundamental ambiguity of a surrealist primitivism, which searches a kind of “Primitivity” (both distant and original), as operating a coincidence between the primitive man and the primitive in man. The varied forms of the surrealist primitivism, particularly its literary forms, finally testifies that the synthesis between the surrealist theory of the Primitive and a primitivist practice is impossible.

Keywords