Andre Breton (1896 – 1966)
French writer, poet and theorist of Surrealism.
I have always been amazed at the way an ordinary observer lends so much more credence and attaches so much more importance to waking events than to those occurring in dreams... Man... is above all the plaything of his memory.
As we liked to do as children, , extracting from the soft forest floor the light chestnut trees only a few centimeters high at the base of which the chestnut continues to shine to the sun its clods of soil from the past, the chestnut conserving all of its presence and witnessing with its presence the power of green hands, of shadow, of airy white or pink pyramids of dances… and of future chestnuts which, under new dust, would be discovered by the marveled sight of other children. It is in this perspective that the work of Hans Arp, more than any other, should be situated. He found the most vital in himself in the secrets of this germinating life where the most minimal detail is of the greatest importance, where, on the other hand, the distinction between the elements becomes meaningless, adopting a peculiar under the rock humor permanently.
What I have loved, whether I have kept it or not, I shall love forever.
Truly the eye was… …made to cast a lineament, a conducting wire between the most heterogeneous things. Such a wire, of maximum ductility, should allow us to understand, in a minimum of time, the relationship which connect, without possible discharge of continuity, innumerable physical and mental structures… …the key (of the mental prison, ed.) lies in a free unlimited pay of analogies… …one can admire today a canvas signed by Gorky, “The liver is the Cock’s Comb”, which should be considered the great open door to the analogy world.