Erotic, Metaphoric, Empowering: The Representation of Physical Disability in Surrealist Paintings from 1925 to 1960
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2025-07-07
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en
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As opposed to the representation of mental disabilities, the representation of physical disabilities and illnesses in Surrealism has barely been examined in academic literature. Therefore, in this thesis, I have analyzed the representation of physical disabilities in Surrealist paintings from 1925 to 1960, the first 35 years of the Surrealist movement. I focused on three aspects of the representation of physical disabilities: the eroticization of women with physical disabilities, the use of disability as a metaphor, and Surrealist artists who represent their own disability. To analyze these three aspects, I used theories from feminism, disability studies, and feminist disability studies.
In Chapter 1, I propose five reasons why Surrealists depicted women with physical disabilities erotically, even though people with physical disabilities are often considered asexual in daily life. Throughout this chapter, I argue that there was a larger group of Surrealists that depicted physically disabled women as erotic by both objectifying and aestheticizing them. In Chapter 2, I argue that Surrealist artists used physical disability metaphors that mainly rely on negative stereotypes of disability. In Chapter 3, I argue that Surrealism, with its focus on the unconscious, can be eminently useful as a movement to depict the artist’s own disability; by exploring their unconscious feelings and experiences regarding their physical disability, artists with physical disabilities can create artworks that create a deeper understanding of what their disabilities mean to them. Lastly, throughout my thesis, I focused on the difference between female and male Surrealists. Following Whitney Chadwick’s argument that female Surrealists often depicted their personal narratives, while male Surrealists often depicted Sigmund Freud’s erotic theories, I argued that this also influenced how female and male Surrealists depicted physical disabilities.
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