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Surrealism and the occult
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ABSTRACT
In the disconcerted political environment between the two World Wars, the surrealists increasingly embraced magic, alchemy and the occult as a potent way of challenging the prevailing values in society. Kurt Seligmann's academic research on the occult, his intellectual contribution to Surrealism as well as the occult and esoteric ramifications of his own visual idiom, infused with carnivalesque, heraldic, magical and alchemical associations, have long been neglected in scholarly studies on the movement, urgently calling for more research and examination. This chapter traces repercussions of the occult in Seligmann's written and visual work, considered within the broader context of the surrealists' artistic and political ambition of re-enchanting a disenchanted, modern world. It analyses specific images and texts, focusing throughout on Seligmann's creative appropriation of esoteric ideas. Through the carnival of Basel and the work of the Swiss Renaissance master Urs Graf, Seligmann was exposed to the local heraldic tradition.
From Kurt Seligmann, Surrealism and the Occult by Grazina Subelyta