Surrealism inside surrealism

After this note, my thousands of readers —aha— of what I write about will think or say: “But of course”, “He was always known to me”, and whatever other beauties. You only have a clue, finally, from the image I used of his work to illustrate my note or because you read his name.

Surrealism has its own surrealism inside the movement: the visual and philosophical proposal; one of those was the idea of burying—not forgetting—the less “important” or strident surrealist artists.

I wrote some notes a while ago about one of my sources of inspiration that sits between surrealism and “metaphysical” currents: Giorgio Di Chirico—to me, he’s a surrealist. However, the fella I’m talking about is one of my references in what I made, art or not. He’s a beacon in my life as an “artist”; he’s Yves Tanguy.

Maman, papa est blessé! - Yves Tanguy - 1927

I believe many of you know him and his work. However, I have the true feeling —I know the verb is wrongly applied, but who cares— that he’s not on the radar of most people. I won’t go deep into his career or bio; there’s a lot of it. What I find important to this note is that, in the surrealist art movement, he was surrealistically discreet, not to say —forgive me— aside and forgotten, not entirely, but enough to be possibly one of the last to be seen in the middle of a fireworks festivity in the pure Louis XV style that surrealism was and still is.

So, back to the core of this note, beyond my subjective view, I think his work and figure should be vindicated. If Miró was called by André Breton “la plus belle plume du chapeau surréaliste”—look for it in English— undoubtedly Tanguy is the hat; Dalí and the rest might be the suite, but it seems very few saw the hat, not the feather.

And that, my friends, is what it means to be inside surrealism as a brilliant and magnificent surrealist artist.

Surrealism inside surrealism