Victor Brauner

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Born: 1903

Died: 1966

Summary of Victor Brauner

Brauner is most known for his studies of spiritualism, myth, and prophesy, in which he blended aspects of folk or primitive art with strange juxtapositions of materials and shapes. He was a major member of the Romanian avant-garde. Brauner is most known for his work with the Surrealists, and he was an active member of the group from 1925 until 1948, working closely with André Breton and others.

Brauner drew on a wide range of inspirations throughout his career to create a distinct personal style that included flattened perspectives, vibrant colours, and a complex iconography.

Brauner, who was known for his eclectic use of imagery, established his own visual language, integrating signs and symbols from a variety of sources, including religion and mysticism, into his work. He said that his art was mostly autobiographical since he used these images to convey his own feelings and relationships. The personal character of these emblems, on the other hand, makes it difficult for the observer to understand them precisely.

After 1938, when he appeared to properly foretell the loss of one of his eyes in a battle, prophesy becomes more prominent in Brauner’s work (eyes had been a reoccurring theme in much of his early work). As a result, he had a reputation as a seer among the Surrealists, and he believed himself to be one. His work grew more contemplative after the tragedy, and motifs like a prophetic cyclops eye were prevalent.

Many of Brauner’s paintings include fanciful and often horrific hybrid creatures that blend people, animals, and machinery to create strange and frightening pictures. The artist was able to depersonalise the human form and put his worries onto images of his own body and the bodies of others, notably women, while making them.

Childhood

Victor Brauner was born in 1903 in Piatra Neamț, Moldavia, Romania, to a Jewish family as the third of six children. His father was a wood dealer, and the family travelled frequently; in 1907, they relocated to Hamburg, Germany, and in 1912, they moved to Vienna, Austria. Brauner began experimenting with painting in 1913, when he built his own easel. He completed his education at the Lutheran school in Brăila, with an emphasis on biology, after the family moved to Romania in 1914.

Brauner was a prolific writer who corresponded with other artists and kept personal diaries in which he recorded his creative process and reflected on his life. Brauner published virtually little during his lifetime, despite the breadth of his writing, but his unpublished writings remain a valuable biographical resource. Brauner recalled his childhood experiences in a poem written in 1945 called “Memories of a One-Eyed Man,” which included poverty in Romania, the Moldavian riots of May 1907, and the appearance of Halley’s Comet on May 18, 1910, which was widely regarded at the time as an omen of the end of the world.

He also talked of his father, who was fascinated by spiritualism and planned hypnosis sessions with well-known mediums during which they spoke with ghosts from other worlds. Brauner’s life was affected by his early interest in spiritualism and magic. Brauner’s interest in the Kabbalah was sparked by the Hasidic Judaism he was exposed to in Moldovia, and its elements can be found in many of his work.

Early Life

Brauner studied at Bucharest’s National School of Fine Arts from 1916 to 1918, and subsequently at the Horia Igiroşanu private school of painting and Bucharest’s Beaux-arts school, where he created landscapes in the manner of Paul Cézanne. He was eventually kicked out of school for “misbehaviour and anti-conformist painting” He then travelled across Romania, stopping at Fălticeni and Balchik (where he got fascinated by a sleepwalker, a topic he would return to). He dabbled with Dadaism, Abstractionism, and Expressionism at this time.

Brauner was also a contributor to the Dadaist publication UNU, which included copies of his paintings and graphic works. In 1925, he was a teacher at the ‘Integral’ Constructivist arts programme. While his subsequent work became more strongly associated with Surrealism, he retained his links to Dadaism by his participation in these magazines and his humorous juxtaposition of language and picture in both his creative and writing pursuits. Brauner also included the Dadaist usage of readymades, as well as collage and assemblage methods, into several of his works, such as Wolf-Table (1939-47).

Brauner first visited Paris in 1925, staying in the same building as Swiss artist, painter, and printer Alberto Giacometti and French Surrealist painter Yves Tanguy, who introduced Brauner to the Surrealists, on Moulin Vert Street. In Paris, he met Romanian sculptor, painter, and photographer Constantin Brancusi, who taught him art photography techniques, as well as Romanian poets Gellu Naum and Benjamin Fondane, and other artists such as Robert and Sonia Delaunay, Marc Chagall, Jacques Hérold, Marcel Duchamp, and Man Ray.

Brauner moved permanently to Paris in 1930 and married Margit Kosch, whom he divorced nine years later. Self-Portrait with Plucked Eye, which he created in 1931, was hauntingly prophetic, because on August 28, 1938, Brauner lost his left eye in a violent altercation between Spanish Surrealist painters Oscar Domnguez and Esteban Francés. Brauner was struck by a glass thrown by Domnguez while attempting to defend Francés.

Mid Life

In 1934, Brauner had his first solo display in Paris, at the Galerie Pierre, for which André Breton penned an ecstatic catalogue preface praising Brauner’s “violently unleashed imagination” The show, however, was not well received, and Brauner returned to Bucharest in 1935, discouraged and short on funds, where he joined half-heartedly in the Romanian Communist party. He ceased painting at this time and instead created a series of caricatures and drawings, notably the Anatomy of Desire series (1935-36). In 1938, he returned to Paris, where he met Jaqueline Abraham, his second wife, whom he married in 1946.

Brauner’s background as a Romanian, Jew, former Communist, and producer of “degenerate art” prompted him to flee to Southern France when World War II broke out. Perpignan, Cant-Blame, the Eastern Pyrenees, and ultimately Saint Feliu d’Amont were his residences. During this time, he maintained touch with fellow Surrealists in Marseilles, and in 1941, after receiving formal authorization to live there, he joined them. He also sought, but failed, to acquire a visa to travel to the United States around this period.

The Surrealists, who had convened at the Villa Air-Bel in the winter of 1940-1941, produced a variety of collaborative works, including a visual version of the game consequences, ‘exquisite corpses,’ and a deck of Tarot cards that rejected the previous Tarot’s military and religious connotations. Each contributor chose the names of two people to represent on their cards when designing the Tarot. Brauner depicted both the philosopher Hegel and the well-known medium Helen Smith as hybrid human-animal creatures. Brauner was a fan of the Surrealists’ fun collaborative endeavours.

Brauner fled to Switzerland at the end of the war to avoid Nazi persecution of Romanians from other countries. He reduced the proportions of the canvases he used as a result of his many relocations, so that he could easily put the works into his baggage when he wanted to travel quickly (he referred to these as’suitcase paintings’). Brauner found M-A. Sèchehaye’s works on Schizophrenia while in Switzerland, which impacted his later paintings.

Late Life

Brauner returned to Paris in 1945, and his work was included in the International Surrealist Exhibition at Galerie Maeght in 1947. However, in 1948, Breton expelled Brauner from the Surrealists because he refused to accept the expulsion of important member Roberto Matta (the grounds for Matta’s removal have never been revealed). He began working more with drawing on paper, encaustic painting, and thin oil paint on boards from this point forward, making flatter, more stylized, and abstracted pieces.

The artist moved into a studio at 72 Rue Lepic in Montmartre in 1959. In 1961, he travelled to Italy and subsequently resided in Varengeville, Normandy, the same year that his art was shown in a solo exhibition at the Bodley Gallery in New York City. He was chosen to represent France in the Venice Biennale in 1966, and he was given his own hall. Brauner died in Paris on March 12, 1966, after a lengthy illness. “Peindre, c’est la vie, la vraie vie, ma vie” a phrase from his journals is engraved on his tombstone in the Montmartre cemetery (“Painting is life, the real life, my life”).

Brauner contributed to the advancement of Surrealist art by expanding its lexicon and taking inspiration from new sources such as alchemy, mythology, Judaism, Hinduism, and Aztec religions, as well as Native American belief systems. This broadened the group’s scope and provided new instruments for his contemporaries to convey their thoughts. This is especially true in regards to Brauner’s presentation of Theosophical concepts, since his depictions of the etheric body had a direct influence on the work of other Surrealist artists such as Leonora Carrington and Remedios Varo.

Famous Art by Victor Brauner

Self-Portrait with Plucked Eye

1931

The artist’s visage is depicted in Self-Portrait with Plucked Eye, with one ocular gone and the eye cavity hanging open. The figure is viewed from the front, with the one surviving eye penetratingly looking at the spectator. This painting, unlike many of Brauner’s others, depicts a self-portrait painted in the mirror, which is exact except for the eye. The piece’s subdued hues and absence of blood or gore give it a dreamlike quality, emphasising the odd contrast of reality with Surrealism.

The Surrealist

1947

The Surrealists were fascinated by tarot and frequently incorporated tarot images in their work. Brauner collaborated with other Surrealists to develop their own tarot deck in 1940. Brauner represents himself as a young man in this clearly autobiographical piece, based on the Surrealist tarot card picture of the Magician (also known as the Juggler). In his 1947 painting The Lovers, Brauner employed the same motif. Brauner’s Surrealist, like the Magician, wears a big hat and mediaeval garb, as well as imitating the card’s stance and arrangement.

Prelude to a Civilization

1954

In this piece, a huge cow-like animal houses stylized representations of around forty creatures, people, masks, and abstract symbols. The piece is painted in encaustic, just like Consciousness of Shock (1951). Brauner owned a sizable collection of primitive art, and it’s probable that he drew inspiration from it. The entire effect is evocative of an early cave painting, and the characters shown are reminiscent of Plains Indian art, which depicts similar artwork on animal hide robes to record the exploits and victories of the warriors who wore them.

BULLET POINTED (SUMMARISED)

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• Brauner is most known for his studies of spiritualism, myth, and prophesy, in which he blended aspects of folk or primitive art with strange juxtapositions of materials and shapes.
• He was a major member of the Romanian avant-garde.
• Brauner is most known for his work with the Surrealists, and he was an active member of the group from 1925 until 1948, working closely with André Breton and others.
• Brauner drew on a wide range of inspirations throughout his career to create a distinct personal style that included flattened perspectives, vibrant colours, and a complex iconography.
• Brauner, who was known for his eclectic use of imagery, established his own visual language, integrating signs and symbols from a variety of sources, including religion and mysticism, into his work.
• He said that his art was mostly autobiographical since he used these images to convey his own feelings and relationships.
• The personal character of these emblems, on the other hand, makes it difficult for the observer to understand them precisely.
• As a result, he had a reputation as a seer among the Surrealists, and he believed himself to be one.
• His work grew more contemplative after the tragedy, and motifs like a prophetic cyclops eye were prevalent.
• Many of Brauner’s paintings include fanciful and often horrific hybrid creatures that blend people, animals, and machinery to create strange and frightening pictures.

Information Citations

En.wikipedia.org, https://en.wikipedia.org/.

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