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The Doll
A legendary work on eroticism, surrealism, and photography. Includes a suite of poems by Paul Eluard, 15 colour photographs, 10 in black and white, plus numerous line drawings.
Hans Bellmer (1902-1975) is one of the most illustrious names in the field of erotic art and Surrealism. The Doll comprises a series of photographs that have acquired iconic status and which exemplify the Surrealists’ conception of “convulsive beauty”. They are accompanied by a body of theoretical, poetic and speculative texts written between the 1930s and early 1960s which reveal Bellmer as one whose ideas are a “scandal for reason” (Joë Bousquet).
The insight Bellmer’s writing provides into his work is crucial. He weaves together a remarkably disparate set of concepts - covering such diverse fields as the body, psychology, anagrams, chance, the laws of optics and mathematics, the fourth dimension, hermaphroditism, the marvellous, intuition - into a theory of eroticism which forms the underlying rationale of his fearsome art.
This English edition is based exactly upon Bellmer’s original, the texts having been translated for the first time from the final German version.
Hans Bellmer (1902-1975) is one of the most illustrious names in the field of erotic art and Surrealism. The Doll comprises a series of photographs that have acquired iconic status and which exemplify the Surrealists’ conception of “convulsive beauty”. They are accompanied by a body of theoretical, poetic and speculative texts written between the 1930s and early 1960s which reveal Bellmer as one whose ideas are a “scandal for reason” (Joë Bousquet).
The insight Bellmer’s writing provides into his work is crucial. He weaves together a remarkably disparate set of concepts - covering such diverse fields as the body, psychology, anagrams, chance, the laws of optics and mathematics, the fourth dimension, hermaphroditism, the marvellous, intuition - into a theory of eroticism which forms the underlying rationale of his fearsome art.
This English edition is based exactly upon Bellmer’s original, the texts having been translated for the first time from the final German version.
160 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1962
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About the author
Hans Bellmer
49 books28 followersHans Bellmer was an artist best known for the life-sized pubescent female dolls he produced in the mid-1930s. Historians of art and photography also consider him a Surrealist photographer.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
February 18, 2023
Terrifying and beautiful.
May 26, 2023
Hans Bellmer? Quite likely demented, and what an artist for it.
October 24, 2021
Lost count of what re-read this was.
What to make of Bellmer given the times he lived in and given the complex, knotted, uncomfortable portrayals of the female body . . . I don't really know. It's a bit reductionist, I'd argue, to say either this man was a sexist prick and it's also a bit much to say there's not something to the criticisms whilst still being moved in bizarre ways with his art.
What to make of Bellmer given the times he lived in and given the complex, knotted, uncomfortable portrayals of the female body . . . I don't really know. It's a bit reductionist, I'd argue, to say either this man was a sexist prick and it's also a bit much to say there's not something to the criticisms whilst still being moved in bizarre ways with his art.
February 13, 2008
Buy one while you can a great very limited released book atlas anti classic does a wonderful job!
May 12, 2013
A good survey of Bellmer's photographs, but it lacks the insightful writing found in Little Anatomy of the Image
September 13, 2015
Five stars for the doll, photographs, and drawings; four stars for the writing.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews