The Surrealist Look: An Erotics of Encounter

A melting wristwatch. A man in a bowler hat flying through the air. Images such as these became the signatures of surrealism, an art form that tread a finer-than-usual line between avant-garde and hype. Its most famous practitioners were men--Man Ray, Salvador Dali, René Magritte, and André Breton--who often depicted women as little more than body parts. In The Surrealist Look, Mary Ann Caws examines the misogyny that ran rampant through surrealism. She also suggests that surrealism is descended from the baroque, another style of art that rejoiced in exaggeration. Whether you agree with Caw's ideas or not, The Surrealist Look is an interesting take on an unusual school of art.