Surrealism - Man Ray - Le Violon d’Ingres 1924

Man Ray - Le Violon d’Ingres 1924

With strange juxtapositions and its softness this image by Man Ray is typically surrealist. The use of the female nude is also often strongly associated with surrealism. This is a technically great photo with a lot of thought put into composition and lighting.

This image has very curved lines that flow through the image. As Mary Warner Marien says, ‘photography could be the visual equivalent of free association’. Basically meaning that surrealists such as Man Ray use photography to show an unconscious flow of ideas (Marien, 2010, 253). This image side steps the normal perception of reality and favours a reality that is of the unconscious, thus ultimately showing the desires Man Ray has of the female form. For surrealists photography and the use of the camera could help this side stepping process because there was always an element of chance to what they did and they felt they could capture the chaos around them. The deliberate flowing nature of the images lines strongly put these ideas forward. Ideas generally flow, wave like, and this image visualises this thought process. The lighting also connotes these ideas through the lighting, there is a definite deliberate light and dark side on the background. This shows people all have contrasting thoughts, sometimes very dark sometimes light. On one level you can take this image as a funny image comparing the female form to a violin. Whereas on a darker level it shows the photographers deep sexual desires, putting forward the idea the female is an object to be used just like an instrument.

This is indeed a thought provoking image, a strong provoking image at that.