Reverdy's theory of the image
 

proto-Surrealist Reverdy's theory of the image--"the dynamic union of unrelated objects" // Watten's translation?
 
translated elsewhere (outside of Watten) thusly:
"The image is a pure creation of the mind. / It cannot be born of a comparison, but only of the bringing together of two more or less distant realities. / The more the relations of the two realities brought together are distant and fitting, the stronger the image – the more emotive power and poetic reality it will have."
 
Reverdy, interestingly, doesn't think the two realities/objects can be totally unrelated, or contrary to one another:
"Two realities without any relation cannot be usefully brought together." // "Two contrary realities will not come together. They are opposed."
 
the association of ideas/objects must be "distant," yet also "fitting"
"two distant realities whose relations can be grasped by the mind alone."
 
Breton discusses Reverdy in Surrealist Manifesto of 1924

> from Barrett Watten's Total Syntax (1984)

> tagged with #surrealism, #objects, #juxtaposition, #image

> created January 23, 2025 at 2:13:59 PM


> part of unfinished everything


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