Originally published in 1928 and augmented throughout the author's life, Surrealism and Painting is the single most important statement ever written on Surrealist art. While many pages have been devoted to visual Surrealism, this is the only book on the subject by the movement's founder and prime theorist. It contains André Breton's seminal treatise on the origins and foundations of artistic Surrealism, with his trenchant assessments of its precursors and practitioners, and his call for the plastic arts to "refer to a purely internal model," to excavate the "dark continent" of consciousness. Also included are essays--many of them classics in their own right--on Picasso, Duchamp, Kahlo, Dali, Ernst, Masson, Gorky, Picabia, Miro, Magritte, Kandinsky, Hantai and others, as well as pieces on Gallic art, outsider art and the folk arts of Haiti and Oceania. But above and beyond the subject matter, what makes this book so enduringly compelling is Breton's signature mixture of rigorous erudition and visceral passion, his sense of art as adventure, and his discoveries of many of Modernism's most prominent figures early in their careers. Long unavailable in English, Surrealism and Painting is not only a supremely exciting work of art criticism, but also one of the three or four indispensable references for any serious discussion of modern art.

Surrealism and Painting

BRETON, André

Icon (Harpe)

Surrealism and painting (Icon editions ; IN-24)

Harper&Row

"Nadja" is a Surrealist romance, and has come to be known as a book which defined that movement's attitude towards life. With its blend of intimate confession and sense of the marvellous, "Nadja" weaves a mysterious and compelling tapestry of daily life as seen through a magical perspective. Combining autobiographical fact with memory and imagination, Breton spins one of the most unusual love stories in modern literature.

Nadja (Penguin Modern Classics)

Literature & Fiction

Contemporary

Penguin Classics

Ode to Charles Fourier

Cape Goliard Press

In 1941, as the Vichy regime consolidated its control of France, André Breton left the country for the island of Martinique. A poet and the principal founder of surrealism, Breton did not stay long, but his visit inspired the essays and poems of this book. Martinique: Snake Charmer is one of surrealism's most important texts, and it has been called "the most beautiful of all books" about the island. (Martinique: Snake Charmer also includes nine evocative drawings by the surrealist André Masson, a companion of Breton's during his stay on the island.) First collected into a single volume in 1948 and in print in France ever since, this is the first English translation of a work that, in series editor Franklin Rosemont's view, seeks "not merely to question the dogmas and platitudes of so-called common sense and 'established facts,' but to deviate from them, absolutely, in an imaginative quest for new and untried solutions to society's gravest problems."
In the tropical beauty of Martinique, Breton found what he called "the Marvelous"; he also found outrageous greed, corruption, and colonial brutality. His guide through this schizophrenic place was Aimé Césaire, a Martinican surrealist and writer who Breton later championed in the book's most important essay, "A Great Black Poet." Breton recognized how Césaire and others had adapted surrealism to the specific conditions of the West Indies, enriching the movement in ways he could not have imagined. As a result, Breton never succumbed to the gloom that afflicted postwar Europe. He and Césaire and others continued the surrealists' quest undaunted, propelled in large part by the spirit they captured in this dynamic book.

Martinique: Snake Charmer

History

Americas

University of Texas Press

Andre Breton (1896-1966) was the founder of Surrealism and a major leader of the avant-garde movement in France following World War I. Breton is internationally famous for his many prose works, including the "Manifestoes of Surrealism" and the novel "Nadja". Breton's poetry- imaginative, alive with the bizarre and striking images that are characteristic of Surrealism in the visual arts- is increasingly finding a wider audience that has come to appreciate his poetry as a witness to an influential movement and as an achievement unto itself. This exceptional volume brings together the most comprehensive selection of poems by Breton available in English. Here, in a bilingual French-English format are 73 poems representing all styles and stages of the writer's career. Introductory essays by the editors describe the significant themes and stylistic features of Breton's work, including the Surrealist concept of "convulsive beauty" and the practice of automatic writing. The book also includes extensive text-clarifying notes, a useful chronology of the poet's life, and a selected bibliography.

Poems of Andre Breton

History & Criticism

A representative sampling of the surrealistic poetry of the avant-garde author, Andre Breton, are presented in both the original French and English translation

Poems of Andre Breton: A Bilingual Anthology (English and French Edition)

CAWS, Mary Ann

Cauvin, Jean-Pierre

Poetry

Univ of Texas Pr

Text: English, French (translation)

Surrealism and painting;

Harper/Icon

Founder of the Surrealist movement, André Breton has also come to be recognized as one of the twentieth century's most innovative and influential poets. The inaugural volume in the Poets for the Millennium series, André Breton offers the most comprehensive selection available in English of Breton's poetry, along with a selection of his major prose writings. The translations, a number of which are published here for the first time, are by some of the most notable poets in our language, including David Antin, Paul Auster, Samuel Beckett, Michael Benedikt, Robert Duncan, David Gascoyne, and Charles Simic. This volume also includes an extensive biographical and thematic introduction by Mark Polizzotti, which sets the poems in the context of Breton's life and overall career.

André Breton: Selections (Poets for the Millennium)

University of California Press

Andre Breton: Selections (Volume 1) (Poets for the Millennium)

Polizzotti, Mark

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by BRETON, André. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by BRETON, André