For Obama, Picasso's Surrealism Has Strong Aesthetic & Political Undertones: What Would 'Reality' Mean to an Obama Administration?

http://money.aol.com/special/lifestyles-of-2008-presidential-candidates?icid=100214839x1203389166x1200134264

In a recent article entitled, Lifestyles of the 2008 Presidential Candidates - How Our Potential Presidents Live in Real Life, AOL Money and Finance (June 3, 2008), Democratic Presidential Candidate Barack Obama reveals that one of his ''personal heroes' is famous Spanish Surrealist artist Pablo Picasso.

According to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, "The artistic genius of Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) has impacted the development of modern and contemporary art with unparalleled magnitude. His prolific output includes over 20,000 paintings, prints, drawings, sculptures, ceramics, theater sets and costumes that convey a myriad of intellectual, political, social, and amorous messages. His creative styles transcend realism and abstraction, Cubism, Neoclassicism, Surrealism, and Expressionism." See Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) at: http://www.metmuseum.org/TOAH/HD/pica/hd_pica.htm .


Similarly, Encyclopedia Britannica reflects that,

"Although Picasso never became an official member of the group, he had intimate connections with the most important art movement between the two world wars, Surrealism. The Surrealist establishment, including its main propagandist, André Breton, claimed him as one of their own, and Picasso's art gained a new dimension from contact with his Surrealist friends...

... Life and career » Surrealism

Although Picasso never became an official member of the group, he had intimate connections with the most important art movement between the two world wars, Surrealism. The Surrealist establishment, including its main propagandist, André Breton, claimed him as one of their own, and Picasso’s art gained a new dimension from contact with his Surrealist friends, particularly the
writers. Inherent in Picasso’s work since the Demoiselles were many elements that the official circle advocated. The creation of monsters, for instance, could certainly be perceived in the disturbing juxtapositions and broken contours of the human figure in Cubist works; Breton specifically pointed to the strange Woman in a Chemise (1913).


("In 1931, Universal Studios released the movie 'Frankenstein,' in which the monster as most of us recognise him today made his first appearance. The 1934 drawing appears to contain an inverted double portrait of Frankenstein's monster derived from this movie...

Picasso, who was often described as a monster, loved the cinema and probably saw the 1931 'Frankenstein' soon after its release in France. It appears clear from the drawing that he went on to identify a number of symbolic associations between himself and the monster and identified other symbolic associations between the monster and Hitler's Aryan Superman. Frankenstein's monster, like Oedipus and Picasso, were all in a sense responsible for the destruction of their fathers*. All three also Picasso symbolically, Oedipus by self infliction and suffered a form of blindness; Frankenstein's monster because at first his eyes were too sensitive to light. All three also underwent a form of crucifixion; Picasso symbolically, Oedipus when he is exposed by his father, the monster when he is created as well as when he dies under the sign of a burning cross. Finally, all three also experienced a form of exile; Picasso at the turn of the century in Paris and again in the 1930's as a protest against Franco, Oedipus by his own edict and the monster by being violently ostracised from the day of his creation." See Mark Harris, The Picasso Conspiracy, Symbolism in the 1934 Drawing - Frankenstein, at: http://web.org.uk/picasso/toc.html http://web.org.uk/picasso/symbolism.html http://web.org.uk/picasso/frankenstein.html ).

[IS GLOBAL WARMING SUCH A MONSTER??]


Moreover, the idea of reading one thing for another, an idea implicit in Synthetic Cubism, seemed to coincide with the dreamlike imagery the Surrealists championed.


What the Surrealist movement gave to Picasso were new subjects—especially erotic ones—as well as a reinforcement of disturbing elements already in his work...the effect of distortion on the emotions of the spectator can also be interpreted as fulfilling one of the psychological aims of Surrealism (drawings and paintings of the Crucifixion, 1930–35).


In the 1930s Picasso, like many of the Surrealist writers, often played with the idea of metamorphosis.

For example, the image of the minotaur, the monster of Greek mythology—half bull and half human—that traditionally has been seen as the embodiment of the struggle between the human and the bestial, becomes in Picasso’s work not only an evocation of that idea but also a kind of self-portrait.

Finally, Picasso’s own brand of Surrealism found its strongest expression in poetry. He began writing poetry in 1934, and during one year, from February 1935 to the spring of 1936, Picasso virtually gave up painting. Collections of poems were published in Cahiers d’Art (1935) and in La Gaceta de Arte (1936, Tenerife), and some years later he wrote the Surrealist play Le Désir attrapé par la queue (1941, Desire Caught by the Tail).


...After the war Picasso resumed exhibiting his work, which included painting and sculpture as well as work in lithography and ceramics. At the Autumn Salon of 1944 (“Salon de la Liberation”) Picasso’s canvases and sculpture of the preceding five years were received as a shock. This plus the announcement that Picasso had just joined the Communist Party led to demonstrations against his political views in the gallery itself...


... Because Picasso’s art from the time of the Demoiselles was radical in nature, virtually no 20th-century artist could escape his influence. Moreover, while other masters such as Matisse or Braque tended to stay within the bounds of a style they had developed in their youth, Picasso continued to be an innovator into the last decade of his life."


See: Pablo Picasso, Surrealism, at Encyclopædia Britannica.com at: http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-59635/Pablo-Picasso ; and
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/459275/Pablo-Picasso .

Isn't It Surreal How Obama & Clinton Are Employing Psychology Tactically to Evoke Unconscious Voter Emotions and Illusions??

http://www.newsweek.com/id/137548


Unconscious Votes: predictions of political psychology have held up pretty well on the campaign trail.


By Sharon Begley


Newsweek


May 17, 2008


"Give the democrats of West Virginia points for honesty. As Hillary Clinton romped to a landslide of 67 to 26 percent over Barack Obama in the primary, 20 percent of voters in exit polls said that race was an important factor in their choice—triple the percentage of earlier primaries. Of those, 80 percent voted for Clinton, making clear what they meant by "important." Obama's "black supremacist" minister concerns her, one woman told my colleague Suzanne Smalley. Another found Obama's "background, his heritage" suspicious. Both said they'd vote for John McCain over Obama."

"The 2008 campaign has been subjected to more psychological analysis than Woody Allen. The top Democratic candidates asked psychology researchers for input, as did the national party, several state parties and the House and Senate Democratic caucuses. The 2007 book "The Political Brain," by psychologist Drew Westen of Emory University, became a must-read for strategists, and so far it looks as though they got their money's worth: key predictions of political psychology have held up pretty well on the campaign trail. Voters are driven more by emotions than by a cold-eyed, logical analysis of a candidate's record and positions; witness the legions of anti-immigration Republicans who pulled the lever for McCain. Ten-point plans (Clinton) don't move voters as powerfully as inspirational oratory (Obama). And unconscious motivations are stronger than conscious ones. This last finding might explain the growing role of racism in the campaign as well as the persistent "happiness gap" between liberals and conservatives—both of which will matter in November."

"In March, when I wrote about research showing that people ignore race if another salient trait is emphasized, scientists agreed that Obama had to convey that "he is one of us." That "us" could be Democrats, family men, opponents of the Iraq invasion, enemies of politics as usual. Instead, opponents (and the media) began playing up his "otherness"—not wearing a flag pin, belonging to a black church, having an exotic name. And Obama began slipping, losing support among blue-collar white voters in particular."


"It may seem paradoxical, but to stop the bleeding Obama needs to talk about race more often and more explicitly. "Only 3 or 4 percent of people today consciously endorse racist sentiments," says Westen. "But there are residues of prejudice at the unconscious level, and they aren't difficult to activate if you know how to do it. Our better angels on race tend to be our conscious rather than our unconscious values and emotions." It is those conscious brain circuits that Obama needs to keep activating, says Westen, "by talking about racism openly and attacking those who say white America will never vote for a black for president. Appeal to people's conscious values." That has a good chance of keeping unconscious racism at bay, brain studies show. Even more effective, combine direct talk about racism with an "I am like you" message, which leads the brain to focus on categories other than race. "Make it about 'us'," says Westen. "Talk about how we feel angry if a black fireman gets promoted ahead of us for no reason but affirmative action. Talk about how it's natural to look at someone different from us and ask, does he share my values, can he understand me?""


"Intelligent adults don't like being told that something as important as their vote is strongly shaped by emotions and the unconscious. But if "The Selling of the President" didn't prove the point 40 years ago, an upcoming study showing the tight embrace of ideology and emotion might."


"In a 2006 survey by the Pew Research Center, 47 percent of conservative Republicans described themselves as "very happy," but only 28 percent of liberal Democrats did. That led columnist George F. Will to write that "liberalism is a complicated and exacting, not to say grim and scolding, creed. And not one conducive to happiness." But political psychologist John Jost of New York University suspected that something else might explain the happiness gap. He and Jaime Napier analyzed data on people's self-reported level of contentment and their political views. The right-left happiness gap existed not only in the United States but in nine other countries, too. In part, that's because conservatives are more likely to be older, married and religious, all of which increase happiness."


"But those traits explained only part of the gap. What accounted for the rest was how people viewed social and economic inequality, the scientists will report next month in the journal Psychological Science. People who agreed that "it is not really that big a problem if some people have more of a chance in life than others," for instance, and "this country would be better off if we worried less about how equal people are," were happier than those who disagreed. The latter tend to be liberals, who are less likely than conservatives to see inequality as the result of a fair and legitimate system in which, say, people are losing their homes to foreclosure because they greedily got mortgages they couldn't afford/didn't deserve, not because they were misled by lenders. As foreclosures and gas prices rise between now and November, hitting have-nots harder than haves, the happiness gap will only grow. And if poli-psych teaches us anything, it is that profound unhappiness with the status quo leaves voters open to profound change."