Surrealism, Dreams, and the Occult in Delenglade’s Time
Frederic Delenglade’s Fantastic Creature looks like it’s been suspended in time. The strange, dragon-like beast seems almost to be in motion, its head turned over its shoulder and its feet raised as if it’s just about to leap, or dance. The halo of green surrounding the creature, which is styled in black ink freckled with white spots, magnifies the sense of captured motion. Everything about the lithograph feels mystical— the green aura could easily be either an extension of the creature’s own magic, or a curse paralyzing it. Looking up the image conjures up endless possibilities, and the longer you look the more you realize how little you can know about its subject. It appears to be suspended in time, but it’s hard to know exactly what that time is by looking at the piece.
Delanglade entered the Surrealist movement in the 1930s, after studying psychiatry at the Sainte-Anne Hospital for four years. His studies are present in his work, and his fascination with mental illness and dreams was shared throughout the French Surrealist movement [1]. In fact, in 1939, Delenglade organized an exhibition entitled The Dream in Art and Literature, which involved other surrealists. Many surrealists believed in and used something like oneiric houses [2] (a term not defined until Gaston Bachelard’s book The Poetics of Space), places in the mind where things like memories, thoughts, and dreams could be contained. To them, the mind was not just an abstract, but contained real physical spaces that were used in the creation of their work through various forms of meditation and even occultism.
In addition to drawing inspiration from dreams or meditation, many prominent surrealists were drawn to the occult. By the time Delanglade joined their numbers, the Surrealists were wrapped up in occult practices and beliefs [3], and while I can’t find confirmation that Delanglade was involved in any seances, mysticism seems to be evident in Fantastic Creature. Its magnetic energy, its being fixed mid-movement, its speckled green aura, all seem to be almost ritualistic (and certainly magical or at least mythical) in nature. Delanglade brings a strange, timeless world onto the page.
Notes
[1] Durozoi, Gérard. History of the Surrealist Movement. Taylor & Francis US, 2002.
[2] Bachelard, Gaston. The Poetics of Space. Beacon Press, 1994.
[3] Bauduin, Tessel M. “Magic in Exile.” In Surrealism and the Occult, 133–58. Occultism and Western Esotericism in the Work and Movement of André Breton. Amsterdam University Press, 2014. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt12877sr.7.
Bibliography
Bachelard, Gaston. 1994. The Poetics of Space. Beacon Press.
Bauduin, Tessel M. 2014. “Magic in Exile.” In Surrealism and the Occult, 133–58. Occultism and Western Esotericism in the Work and Movement of André Breton. Amsterdam University Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt12877sr.7.
“Delanglade, Frédéric Marcou Maurice.” n.d. Benezit Dictionary of Artists. Accessed April 23, 2020. https://www.oxfordartonline.com/benezit/view/10.1093/benz/9780199773787.001.0001/acref-9780199773787-e-00048442.
Durozoi, Gérard. 2002. History of the Surrealist Movement. Taylor & Francis US.
“Frédéric Delanglade.” n.d. The Surrealists. Accessed April 23, 2020. http://thesurrealists.org/fr-d-ric-delanglade.html.
Richardson, Michael, and Krzysztof Fijałkowski, eds. 2001. “THE HISTORICAL ORIENTATION OF SURREALISM.” In Surrealism Against the Current, 21–92. Tracts and Declarations. Pluto Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt18mvnmf.6.