Magic realism or
magical realism is an
aesthetic styleAesthetics is a branch of philosophy dealing with the nature of beauty, art, and taste, and with the creation and appreciation of beauty. It is more scientifically defined as the study of sensory or sensori-emotional values, sometimes called judgments of sentiment and taste...
or
genreGenre , Greek: genos, γένος) is the term for any category of literature or other forms of art or culture, e.g. music, and in general, any type of discourse, whether written or spoken, audial or visual, based on some set of stylistic criteria. Genres are formed by conventions that change over time...
of
fictionFiction is the form of any narrative or informative work that deals, in part or in whole, with information or events that are not factual, but rather, imaginary—that is, invented by the author. Although fiction describes a major branch of literary work, it may also refer to theatrical,...
in which magical elements blend with the real world. The story explains these magical elements as real occurrences, presented in a straightforward manner that places the "real" and the "fantastic" in the same stream of thought. It is a film, literary and visual art genre.
One example of magic realism is when a character in the story continues to be alive beyond the normal length of life and this is subtly depicted by the character being present throughout many generations. On the surface the story has no clear magical attributes and everything is conveyed in a real setting, but such a character breaks the rules of our real world. The author may give precise details of the real world such as the date of birth of a reference character and the army recruitment age, but such facts help to define an age for the fantastic character of the story that would turn out to be an abnormal occurrence like someone living for two hundred years.
The term is broadly descriptive rather than critically rigorous: Winona State University Asst. Professor of Japanese Studies, and author, Matthew Strecher defines magic realism as "...what happens when a highly detailed, realistic setting is invaded by something too strange to believe." This critical perspective towards magical realism stems from the Western reader's disassociation with
mythologyThe term mythology can refer either to the study of myths, or to a body or collection of myths. As examples, comparative mythology is the study of connections between myths from different cultures, whereas Greek mythology is the body of myths from ancient Greece...
, a root of magical realism more easily understood by non-Western cultures. Western confusion regarding magical realism is due to the "...conception of the real" created in a magical realist text: rather than explain reality using natural or physical laws, as in typical Western texts, magical realist texts create a reality "...in which the relation between incidents, characters, and setting could not be based upon or justified by their status within the physical world or their normal acceptance by bourgeois mentality." Many writers are categorized as "magical realist," which confuses what the term really means and how wide its definition is.
Etymology
While the term
magical realism in its modern sense first appeared in 1955, the German art critic
Franz RohFranz Roh , was a German historian, photographer, and art critic.Roh was born in Apolda , Germany. He studied at universities in Leipzig, Berlin, and Basel. In 1920, he received his Ph. D...
first used the phrase in 1925, to refer to a painterly style also known as Neue Sachlichkeit (the
New ObjectivityThe New Objectivity is a term used to characterize the attitude of public life in Weimar Germany as well as the art, literature, music, and architecture created to adapt to it...
), an alternative championed by fellow German museum director
Gustav HartlaubKarel Johan Gustav Hartlaub was a German physician and ornithologist.Hartlaub was born in Bremen, and studied at Bonn and Berlin before graduating in medicine at Göttingen. In 1840, he began to study and collect exotic birds, which he donated to the Bremen Natural History Museum. He described some...
. Roh believed magic realism is related to, but distinctive from,
surrealismSurrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....
, due to magic realism's focus on the material object and the actual existence of things in the world, as opposed to the more cerebral, psychological and subconscious reality that the surrealists explored. Magic realism was later used to describe the uncanny
realismRealism in the visual arts is a style that depicts the actuality of what the eyes can see. The term is used in different senses in art history; it may mean the same as illusionism, the representation of subjects with visual mimesis or verisimilitude, or may mean an emphasis on the actuality of...
by American painters such as
Ivan AlbrightIvan Le Lorraine Albright was an American magic realist painter and artist, most renowned for his self-portraits, character studies, and still lifes.-Youth:...
,
Paul CadmusPaul Cadmus was an American artist. He is best known for his paintings and drawings of nude male figures. His works combined elements of eroticism and social critique to produce a style often called magic realism...
,
George TookerGeorge Clair Tooker, Jr. was a figurative painter whose works are associated with the Magic realism and Social realism movements...
and other artists during the 1940s and 1950s. However, in contrast with its use in literature, magical realist art does not often include overtly fantastic or magical content, but rather looks at the mundane, the every day, through a hyper-realistic and often mysterious lens. The extent to which magical elements enter in visual art depends on the subcategory, discussed in detail below.
Roh's magic realism's theoretical implications greatly influenced European and Latin American literature. Italian
Massimo BontempelliMassimo Bontempelli was an Italian poet, playwright, and novelist. He was influential in developing and promoting the literary style known as magical realism.-Life:...
, for instance, considered the first magic realist creative writer, sought to present the "...mysterious and fantastic quality of reality." He claimed that
literatureLiterature is the art of written works, and is not bound to published sources...
could be a means to create a collective consciousness by "...opening new mythical and magical perspectives on reality," and used his writings to inspire an Italian nation governed by
FascismFascism is a radical authoritarian nationalist political ideology. Fascists seek to rejuvenate their nation based on commitment to the national community as an organic entity, in which individuals are bound together in national identity by suprapersonal connections of ancestry, culture, and blood...
. Venezuelan Arturo Uslar-Pietri was closely associated with Roh's form of magic realism and knew Bontempelli in
ParisParis is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
. Rather than follow Cuban writer
Alejo CarpentierAlejo Carpentier y Valmont was a Cuban novelist, essayist, and musicologist who greatly influenced Latin American literature during its famous "boom" period. Born in Lausanne, Switzerland, Carpentier grew up in Havana, Cuba; and despite his European birthplace, Carpentier strongly self-identified...
's developing versions of "the (Latin) American marvelous real," Uslar-Pietri's writings emphasize "...the mystery of human living amongst the reality of life." He believed magic realism was "...a continuation of the '
vanguardia' [or
Avant-gardeAvant-garde means "advance guard" or "vanguard". The adjective form is used in English to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics....
] modernist experimental writings of Latin America."
Literary magic realism originated in
Latin AmericaLatin America is a region of the Americas where Romance languages – particularly Spanish and Portuguese, and variably French – are primarily spoken. Latin America has an area of approximately 21,069,500 km² , almost 3.9% of the Earth's surface or 14.1% of its land surface area...
. Writers often traveled between their home country and European cultural hubs, such as Paris or Berlin, and were influenced by the art movement of the time. Carpentier and Uslar-Pietri, for example, were strongly influenced by European artistic movements, such as
SurrealismSurrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....
, during their stays in Paris in the 1920s and 1930s. One major event that linked painterly and literary magic realisms was the translation and publication of Roh's book into Spanish by Spain's
Revista de Occidente in 1927, headed by major literary figure
José Ortega y GassetJosé Ortega y Gasset was a Spanish liberal philosopher and essayist working during the first half of the 20th century while Spain oscillated between monarchy, republicanism and dictatorship. He was, along with Nietzsche, a proponent of the idea of perspectivism.-Biography:José Ortega y Gasset was...
. "Within a year, Magic Realism was being applied to the prose of European authors in the literary circles of
Buenos AiresBuenos Aires is the capital and largest city of Argentina, and the second-largest metropolitan area in South America, after São Paulo. It is located on the western shore of the estuary of the Río de la Plata, on the southeastern coast of the South American continent...
."
Jorge Luis BorgesJorge Francisco Isidoro Luis Borges Acevedo , known as Jorge Luis Borges , was an Argentine writer, essayist, poet and translator born in Buenos Aires. In 1914 his family moved to Switzerland where he attended school, receiving his baccalauréat from the Collège de Genève in 1918. The family...
inspired and encouraged other Latin American writers in the development of magical realism - particularly with his first magical realist publication,
Historia universal de la infamia in 1935, . Between 1940 and 1950, magical realism in Latin America reached its peak, with prominent writers appearing mainly in
ArgentinaArgentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...
.
Characteristics
The extent to which the characteristics below apply to a given magic realist text varies. Every text is different and employs a smattering of the qualities listed here. However, they accurately portray what one might expect from a magic realist text.
Fantastical elements
As recently as 2008, magical realism in literature has been defined as "...a kind of modern fiction in which fabulous and fantastical events are included in a narrative that otherwise maintains the 'reliable' tone of objective realistic report, designating a tendency of the modern novel to reach beyond the confines of realism and draw upon the energies of fable, folk tale, and myth while maintaining a strong contemporary social relevance. The fantastic attributes given to characters in such novels—levitation, flight, telepathy, telekinesis—are among the means that magic realism adopts in order to encompass the often phantasmagorical political realities of the 20th century."
Plenitude
In an essay entitled "The Baroque and the Marvelous Real" the
CubanCubans or Cuban people are the inhabitants or citizens of Cuba. Cuba is a multi-ethnic nation, home to people of different ethnic and national backgrounds...
writer
Alejo CarpentierAlejo Carpentier y Valmont was a Cuban novelist, essayist, and musicologist who greatly influenced Latin American literature during its famous "boom" period. Born in Lausanne, Switzerland, Carpentier grew up in Havana, Cuba; and despite his European birthplace, Carpentier strongly self-identified...
championed the idea that the baroque is defined by a lack of emptiness, a departure from structure or rules, and an "extraordinary" plenitude of disorienting detail (citing
MondrianMondrian may refer to:* Piet Mondrian , artist* The Mondrian, a tower in the Cityplace neighborhood of Oak Lawn, Dallas, Texas, named for the artist* Mondrian Hotel, a 1959 hotel in Los Angeles...
as its polar opposite). From this angle, Carpentier views the
baroqueThe Baroque is a period and the style that used exaggerated motion and clear, easily interpreted detail to produce drama, tension, exuberance, and grandeur in sculpture, painting, literature, dance, and music...
as a layering of elements, which translates easily into the post-colonial or transcultural Latin American atmosphere that Carpentier emphasizes in
The Kingdom of this WorldThe Kingdom of This World is a novella by Cuban author Alejo Carpentier, published in 1949 in his native Spanish and first translated into English in 1957. A work of historical fiction, it tells the story of Haiti before, during, and after the Haitian Revolution as seen by its central character,...
. "America, a continent of symbiosis, mutations...mestizaje, engenders the baroque," made explicit by elaborate Aztec temples and associative Nahuatl poetry. These mixing ethnicities grow together with the American baroque; the space in between is where the "marvelous real" is seen. Marvelous: not meaning beautiful and pleasant, but extraordinary, strange, excellent. Such a complex system of layering—encompassed in the Latin American "boom" novel, such as
One Hundred Years of SolitudeOne Hundred Years of Solitude , by Gabriel García Márquez, is a novel which tells the multi-generational story of the Buendía family, whose patriarch, José Arcadio Buendía, founds the town of Macondo, the metaphoric Colombia...
—has as its aim "...translating the scope of America."
Hybridity
Magical realism plot lines characteristically employ hybrid multiple planes of reality that takes place in "...inharmonious arenas of such opposites as urban and rural, and Western and indigenous." For example, as seen in Julio Cortázar's "La noche boca arriba," an individual experiences two realistic situations simultaneously in the same place but during two different time periods, centuries apart.
His dreamlike state connects these two realities; this small bit of magic makes these multiple planes of reality possible. Overall, they establish "...a more deep and true reality than conventional realist techniques would illustrate."
Metafiction
This trait centers on the reader's role in literature. With its multiple realities and specific reference to the reader’s world, it explores the impact fiction has on reality, reality on fiction and the reader’s role in between; as such, it is well suited for drawing attention to social or political criticism. Furthermore, it is the tool paramount in the execution of a related and major magic realist phenomenon: textualization. This term defines two conditions—first, where a fictitious reader enters the story within a story while reading it, making us self-conscious of our status as readers—and secondly, where the textual world enters into the reader's (our) world. Good sense would negate this process but ‘magic’ is the flexible topos that allows it.
Authorial reticence
Authorial reticence is the "...deliberate withholding of information and explanations about the disconcerting fictitious world." The narrator does not provide explanations about the accuracy or credibility of events described or views expressed by characters in the text. Further, the narrator is indifferent, a characteristic enhanced by this absence of explanation of fantastic events; the story proceeds with "logical precision" as if nothing extraordinary took place.
In this, explaining the supernatural world would immediately reduce its legitimacy relative to the natural world. The reader would consequently disregard the supernatural as false testimony.
Sense of mystery
Something that most critics agree on is this major theme. Magic realist literature tends to read at an intensified level. Taking the seminal work of the style,
One Hundred Years of SolitudeOne Hundred Years of Solitude , by Gabriel García Márquez, is a novel which tells the multi-generational story of the Buendía family, whose patriarch, José Arcadio Buendía, founds the town of Macondo, the metaphoric Colombia...
by
Gabriel García MárquezGabriel José de la Concordia García Márquez is a Colombian novelist, short-story writer, screenwriter and journalist, known affectionately as Gabo throughout Latin America. He is considered one of the most significant authors of the 20th century. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in...
, the reader must let go of preexisting ties to conventional
expositionExposition may refer to:*Exposition *Exposition *Trade fair*Exposition , the debut album by the band Wax on Radio...
, plot advancement, linear time structure, scientific reason, etc., to strive for a state of heightened awareness of life's connectedness or hidden meanings. Carpentier articulates this feeling as "...to seize the mystery that breathes behind things," and supports the claim by saying a writer must heighten his senses to the point of "estado limite" [translated as "limit state" or "extreme" ] in order to realize all levels of reality, most importantly that of mystery.
Collective consciousness
The Mexican critic Luis Leal has said, "Without thinking of the concept of magical realism, each writer gives expression to a reality he observes in the people. To me, magical realism is an attitude on the part of the characters in the novel toward the world," or toward nature. He adds, "If you can explain it, then it's not magical realism."
Political critique
Magic realism contains an "...implicit criticism of society, particularly the elite." Especially with regard to Latin America, the style breaks from the inarguable discourse of "...privileged centers of literature." This is a mode primarily about and for "ex-centrics": the geographically, socially and economically marginalized. Therefore, magic realism's ‘alternative world’ works to correct the reality of established viewpoints (like realism, naturalism, modernism). Magic realist texts, under this logic, are subversive texts, revolutionary against socially dominant forces. Alternatively, the socially dominant may implement magical realism to disassociate themselves from their "power discourse." Theo D’haen titles this change in perspective, "decentering." Upon consideration, Latin America is the ideal locale and starting place for such literary subversions to a dominant power, from the colonizers to the dictators.
Ambiguities in definition
Determining who coined the term
magical realism (as opposed to
magic realism) is controversial among literary critics. Maggie Ann Bowers argues that it first emerged in the 1955 essay "Magical Realism in Spanish American Fiction" by critic Angel Flores. She notes that while Flores names
Jorge Luis BorgesJorge Francisco Isidoro Luis Borges Acevedo , known as Jorge Luis Borges , was an Argentine writer, essayist, poet and translator born in Buenos Aires. In 1914 his family moved to Switzerland where he attended school, receiving his baccalauréat from the Collège de Genève in 1918. The family...
as the first magical realist (some critics consider him a predecessor, not actually a magical realist), he fails to acknowledge either Alejo Carpentier or Arturo Uslar-Pietri for bringing Roh's magic realism to Latin America. However, both Luis Leal and Irene Guenther, (referencing Pietri and Jean Weisgerber texts, respectively), attest that Pietri was one of the first, if not
the first, to apply the term to Latin American literature. Leal and Guenther both quote Pietri, who described "...man as a mystery surrounded by realistic facts. A poetic prediction or a poetic denial of reality. What for lack of another name could be called a magical realism." It is worth noting that Pietri, in presenting his term for this literary tendency, always kept its definition open by means of a language more lyrical and evocative than strictly critical, as in this 1948 statement. When academic critics attempted to define magical realism with scholarly exactitude, they discovered that it was more powerful than precise. Critics, frustrated by their inability to pin down the term's meaning, have urged its complete abandonment. Yet in Arturo Uslar-Pietri's vague, ample usage, magical realism was wildly successful in summarizing for many readers their perception of much Latin American fiction; this fact suggests that the term has its uses, so long as it is not expected to function with the precision expected of technical, scholarly terminology."
Guatemalan author
William SpindlerWilliam Spindler, born in Guatemala City, Guatemala in 1963. He is a Guatemalan writer and journalist, whose works include fiction, poetry, and journalism in English and Spanish. He is the author of a novel Paises lejanos, and a book of short stories, “Expediciones”, published in Bogota, Colombia...
's article, “Magic realism: a typology,” suggests that there are three kinds of magic realism, which however are by no means incompatible: European ‘metaphysical’ magic realism, with its sense of estrangement and the uncanny, exemplified by Kafka’s fiction; ‘ontological’ magical realism, characterized by ‘matter-of-factness’ in relating ‘inexplicable’ events; and ‘anthropological’ magical realism, where a Native worldview is set side by side with the Western rational worldview. Spindler’s typology of magic realism has been criticized as “...an act of categorization which seeks to define Magic Realism as a culturally specific project, by identifying for his readers those (non-modern) societies where myth and magic persist and where Magic Realism might be expected to occur. There are objections to this analysis. Western rationalism models may not actually describe Western modes of thinking and it is possible to conceive of instances where both orders of knowledge are simultaneously possible.”
Lo real maravilloso
Alejo CarpentierAlejo Carpentier y Valmont was a Cuban novelist, essayist, and musicologist who greatly influenced Latin American literature during its famous "boom" period. Born in Lausanne, Switzerland, Carpentier grew up in Havana, Cuba; and despite his European birthplace, Carpentier strongly self-identified...
originated the term
lo real maravilloso (roughly the "marvelous reality") in the prologue to his novel
The Kingdom of this WorldThe Kingdom of This World is a novella by Cuban author Alejo Carpentier, published in 1949 in his native Spanish and first translated into English in 1957. A work of historical fiction, it tells the story of Haiti before, during, and after the Haitian Revolution as seen by its central character,...
(1949); however, some debate whether he is truly a magical realist writer, or simply a precursor and source of inspiration. Maggie Bowers claims he is widely acknowledged as the originator of Latin American magical realism (as both a novelist and critic); she describes Carpentier's conception as a kind of heightened reality where elements of the miraculous can appear while seeming natural and unforced. She suggests that by disassociating himself and his writings from Roh's painterly magic realism, Carpentier aimed to show how—by virtue of Latin America's varied history, geography, demography, politics, myths, and beliefs—improbable and marvelous things are made possible. Furthermore, Carpentier's meaning is that Latin America is a land filled with marvels, and that "writing about this land automatically produces a literature of marvelous reality."
"The marvelous" may be easily confused with magical realism, as both modes introduce supernatural events without surprising the implied author. In both, these magical events are expected and accepted as everyday occurrences. However, the marvelous world is a unidimensional world. The implied author believes that anything can happen here, as the entire world is filled with supernatural beings and situations to begin with. Fairy tales are a good example of marvelous literature. The important idea in defining the marvelous is that readers understand that this fictional world is different from the world where they live. The "marvelous" one-dimensional world differs from the
bidimensional world of magical realism, as in the latter, the supernatural realm blends with the natural, familiar world (arriving at the combination of
two layers of reality: bidimensional). While some use the terms magical realism and lo real maravilloso interchangeably, the key difference lies in the focus.
Critic
Luis LealLuis Leal was a Mexican-American writer and literary critic.-Biography:...
attests that Carpentier was an originating pillar of the magical realist style by implicitly referring to the latter's critical works, writing that "The existence of the marvelous real is what started magical realist literature, which some critics claim is
the truly American literature." It can consequently be drawn that Carpentier's "lo real maravilloso" is especially distinct from
magical realism by the fact that the former applies specifically to
America. On that note, Lee A. Daniel categorizes critics of Carpentier into three groups: those that don't consider him a magical realist whatsoever (Ángel Flores), those that call him "a mágicorealista writer with no mention of his "lo real maravilloso" (Gómez Gil, Jean Franco, Carlos Fuentes)," and those that use the two terms interchangeably (Fernando Alegria, Luis Leal, Emir Rodriguez Monegal).
Latin American exclusivity
Criticism that Latin America is the birthplace and cornerstone of all things magic realist is quite common. Ángel Flores does not deny that magical realism is an international commodity but articulates that it has a Hispanic birthplace, writing that, "Magical realism is a continuation of the romantic realist tradition of Spanish language literature and its European counterparts." Flores is not alone on this front; there is argument between those who see magical realism as a Latin American invention and those who see it as the global product of a postmodern world. Irene Guenther concludes, "Conjecture aside, it is in Latin America that [magical realism] was primarily seized by literary criticism and was, through translation and literary appropriation, transformed." Magic realism has taken on an internationalization: dozens of non-Hispanic writers are categorized as such, and many believe that it truly
is an international commodity.
Postmodernism
Taking into account that, theoretically, magical realism was born in the 20th century, connecting it to postmodernism is a logical next step. To further connect the two concepts, there are descriptive commonalities between the two that Belgian critic Theo D'haen addresses in his essay, "Magical Realism and Postmodernism." Authors
Günter GrassGünter Wilhelm Grass is a Nobel Prize-winning German author, poet, playwright, sculptor and artist.He was born in the Free City of Danzig...
,
Thomas BernhardThomas Bernhard was an Austrian novelist, playwright and poet. Bernhard, whose body of work has been called "the most significant literary achievement since World War II," is widely considered to be one of the most important German-speaking authors of the postwar era.- Life :Thomas Bernhard was...
,
Peter HandkePeter Handke is an avant-garde Austrian novelist and playwright.-Early life:Handke and his mother lived in the Soviet-occupied Pankow district of Berlin from 1944 to 1948 before resettling in Griffen...
,
Italo CalvinoItalo Calvino was an Italian journalist and writer of short stories and novels. His best known works include the Our Ancestors trilogy , the Cosmicomics collection of short stories , and the novels Invisible Cities and If on a winter's night a traveler .Lionised in Britain and the United States,...
,
John FowlesJohn Robert Fowles was an English novelist and essayist. In 2008, The Times newspaper named Fowles among their list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945".-Birth and family:...
,
Angela CarterAngela Carter was an English novelist and journalist, known for her feminist, magical realism, and picaresque works...
,
John BanvilleJohn Banville is an Irish novelist and screenwriter.Banville's breakthrough novel The Book of Evidence was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, and won the Guinness Peat Aviation award. His eighteenth novel, The Sea, won the Man Booker Prize in 2005. He was awarded the Franz Kafka Prize in 2011...
,
Michel TournierMichel Tournier is a French writer.His works are highly considered and have won important awards such as the Grand Prix du roman de l'Académie française in 1967 for Friday, or, The Other Island and the Prix Goncourt for The Erl-King in 1970...
,
Giannina BraschiGiannina Braschi is a Puerto Rican writer. She is credited with writing the first Spanglish novel YO-YO BOING! and the poetry trilogy Empire of Dreams , which chronicles the Latin American immigrant's experiences in the United States...
,
Willem BrakmanWillem Pieter Jacobus Brakman was a Dutch writer. His made his literary debut with the novel Een winterreis in 1961. Brakman received the P. C...
and
Louis Ferron Louis Ferron was a Dutch novelist and poet.-Biography:Louis Ferron was born in Leiden out of an adulterous relationship between a married German soldier and a waitress from Haarlem named Ferron...
are widely considered postmodernist, but might "just as easily be categorized...magic realist." A list has been compiled of characteristics one might typically attribute to postmodernism, but which also could describe literary magic realism: "...self-reflexiveness, metafiction, eclecticism, redundancy, multiplicity, discontinuity, intertextuality, parody, the dissolution of character and narrative instance, the erasure of boundaries, and the destabilization of the reader." To further connect the two, magical realism and postmodernism share the themes of post-colonial discourse, in which jumps in time and focus cannot really be explained with scientific but rather with magical reasoning; textualization (of the reader); and metafiction [more detail: under Themes and Qualities].
Concerning attitude toward audience, the two have a lot in common. Magical realist works do not seek to primarily satisfy a popular audience, but instead, a sophisticated audience that must be attuned to noticing textual "subtleties." While the postmodern writer condemns escapist literature (like fantasy, crime, ghost fiction), he/she is inextricably related to it concerning readership. There are two modes in
postmodern literatureThe term Postmodern literature is used to describe certain characteristics of post–World War II literature and a reaction against Enlightenment ideas implicit in Modernist literature.Postmodern literature, like postmodernism as a whole, is hard to define and there is little agreement on the exact...
: one, commercially successful pop fiction, and the other, philosophy, better suited to intellectuals. A singular reading of the first mode will render a distorted or reductive understanding of the text. The fictitious reader—such as Aureliano from
100 Years of Solitude—is the hostage used to express the writer’s anxiety on this issue of who is reading the work and to what ends, and of how the writer is forever reliant upon the needs and desires of readers (the market). The magic realist writer with difficulty must reach a balance between saleability and intellectual integrity. Wendy Faris, talking about magic realism as a contemporary phenomenon that leaves modernism for postmodernism, says, "Magic realist fictions do seem more youthful and popular than their modernist predecessors, in that they often (though not always) cater with unidirectional story lines to our basic desire to hear what happens next. Thus they may be more clearly designed for the entertainment of readers."
Comparison with related genres
When attempting to define what something
is, it is often helpful to define what something is
not. It is also important to note that many literary critics attempt to classify novels and literary works in only one genre, such as "romantic" or "naturalist," not always taking into account that many works fall into multiple categories. Much discussion is cited from Maggie Ann Bowers' book
Magic(al) Realism, wherein she attempts to delimit the terms magic and magical realism by examining the relationships with other genres such as realism, surrealism, fantastic literature and science fiction.
Realism
Realism is an attempt to create a depiction of actual life; a novel does not simply rely on what it presents but
how it presents it. In this way, a realist narrative acts as framework by which the reader constructs a world using the raw materials of life. Understanding both realism and magical realism within the realm of a narrative mode is key to understanding both terms. Magical realism "...relies upon the presentation of real, imagined or magical elements as if they were real. It relies upon realism, but only so that it can stretch what is acceptable as real to its limits."
As a simple point of comparison, Roh's differentiation between expressionism and post-expressionism as described in
German Art in the 20th Century, may be applied to magic realism and realism.
RealismRealism in the visual arts and literature refers to the general attempt to depict subjects "in accordance with secular, empirical rules", as they are considered to exist in third person objective reality, without embellishment or interpretation...
pertains to the terms "history," "mimetic," "familiarization," "empiricism/logic," "narration," "closure-ridden/reductive naturalism," and "rationalization/cause and effect." On the other hand, magic realism encompasses the terms "myth/legend," "fantastic/supplementation," "defamiliarization," "mysticism/magic," "meta-narration," "open-ended/expansive romanticism," and "imagination/negative capability."
Surrealism
Surrealism is often confused with magical realism as they both explore illogical or non-realist aspects of humanity and existence. There is a strong historical connection between Franz Roh's concept of magic realism and surrealism, as well as the resulting influence on Carpentier's marvelous reality; however, important differences remain. Surrealism "is most distanced from magical realism [in that] the aspects that it explores are associated not with material reality but with the imagination and the mind, and in particular it attempts to express the 'inner life' and psychology of humans through art." It seeks to express the sub-conscious, unconscious, the repressed and inexpressible. Magical realism, on the other hand, rarely presents the extraordinary in the form of a dream or a
psychological experience. "To do so," Bowers writes, "takes the magic of recognizable material reality and places it into the little understood world of the imagination. The ordinariness of magical realism's magic relies on its accepted and unquestioned position in tangible and
material reality."
Fantasy
Prominent English-language fantasy writers have said that "magic realism" is only another name for fantasy fiction.
Gene WolfeGene Wolfe is an American science fiction and fantasy writer. He is noted for his dense, allusive prose as well as the strong influence of his Catholic faith, to which he converted after marrying into the religion. He is a prolific short story writer and a novelist, and has won many awards in the...
said, "magic realism is fantasy written by people who speak Spanish," and
Terry PratchettSir Terence David John "Terry" Pratchett, OBE is an English novelist, known for his frequently comical work in the fantasy genre. He is best known for his popular and long-running Discworld series of comic fantasy novels...
said magic realism "is like a polite way of saying you write fantasy."
However, Amaryll Beatrice Chanady distinguishes magical realist literature from fantasy literature ("the fantastic") based on differences between three shared dimensions: the use of
antinomyAntinomy literally means the mutual incompatibility, real or apparent, of two laws. It is a term used in logic and epistemology....
(the simultaneous presence of two conflicting codes), the inclusion of events that cannot be integrated into a logical framework, and the use of authorial reticence. In fantasy, the presence of the supernatural code is perceived as problematic, something that draws special attention—where in magical realism, the presence of the supernatural is accepted. In fantasy, authorial reticence creates a disturbing effect on the reader, it works to
integrate the supernatural into the natural framework in magical realism. This integration is made possible in magical realism as the author presents the supernatural as being equally valid to the natural. There is no hierarchy between the two codes. The ghost of Melquíades in Márquez's
One Hundred Years of Solitude or the baby ghost in Toni Morrison's
Beloved who visit or haunt the inhabitants of their previous residence are both presented by the narrator as ordinary occurrences; the reader, therefore, accepts the marvelous as normal and common.
To Dr. Clark Zlotchew, the differentiating factor between the fantastic and magical realism is that in fantastic literature, such as Kafka's story "
The MetamorphosisThe Metamorphosis is a novella by Franz Kafka, first published in 1915. It is often cited as one of the seminal works of short fiction of the 20th century and is widely studied in colleges and universities across the western world...
," there is a hesitation experienced by the protagonist, implied author or reader in deciding whether to attribute natural or supernatural causes to an unsettling event, or between rational or irrational explanations. Fantastic literature has also been defined as a piece of narrative in which there is a constant faltering between belief and non-belief in the supernatural or extraordinary event.
In Leal's view, magical realism has a tropical (or
llano [plains] or desert) context, but he says that the fiction of
Julio CortázarJulio Cortázar, born Jules Florencio Cortázar, was an Argentine writer. Cortázar, known as one of the founders of the Latin American Boom, influenced an entire generation of Spanish speaking readers and writers in the Americas and Europe.-Early life:Cortázar's parents, Julio José Cortázar and...
contains only "the fantastic," not magical realism. In Leal's view, "In fantastic literature—in
BorgesJorge Francisco Isidoro Luis Borges Acevedo , known as Jorge Luis Borges , was an Argentine writer, essayist, poet and translator born in Buenos Aires. In 1914 his family moved to Switzerland where he attended school, receiving his baccalauréat from the Collège de Genève in 1918. The family...
, for example—the writer creates new worlds, perhaps new planets. By contrast, writers like
García MárquezGabriel José de la Concordia García Márquez is a Colombian novelist, short-story writer, screenwriter and journalist, known affectionately as Gabo throughout Latin America. He is considered one of the most significant authors of the 20th century. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in...
, who use magical realism, don't create new worlds, but suggest the magical in our world." Even Cortázar's short story "Casa Tomada," about a brother and sister whose house is taken over by someone or something mysterious, for Leal is an example of the fantastic and not magical realism.
Science fiction
While
science fictionScience fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
and magical realism both bend the notion of what is real, toy with human imagination, and are forms of (often fantastical) fiction, they differ greatly. Bower's cites
Aldous HuxleyAldous Leonard Huxley was an English writer and one of the most prominent members of the famous Huxley family. Best known for his novels including Brave New World and a wide-ranging output of essays, Huxley also edited the magazine Oxford Poetry, and published short stories, poetry, travel...
's
Brave New WorldBrave New World is Aldous Huxley's fifth novel, written in 1931 and published in 1932. Set in London of AD 2540 , the novel anticipates developments in reproductive technology and sleep-learning that combine to change society. The future society is an embodiment of the ideals that form the basis of...
as a novel that exemplifies the science fiction novel's requirement of a "...rational, physical explanation for any unusual occurrences." Huxley portrays a world where the population is highly controlled with mood enhancing drugs, which are controlled by the government. In this world, there is no link between copulation and reproduction. Humans are produced in giant test tubes, where chemical alterations during gestation determine their fates. Bowers argues that, "The science fiction narrative's distinct difference from magical realism is that it is set in a world different from any known reality and its realism resides in the fact that we can recognize it as a possibility for our future. Unlike magical realism, it does not have a realistic setting that is recognizable in relation to any past or present reality."
Major authors and works
Although critics and writers debate which authors or works fall within the magical realism genre, the following authors represent the narrative mode.
Franz KafkaFranz Kafka was a culturally influential German-language author of short stories and novels. Contemporary critics and academics, including Vladimir Nabokov, regard Kafka as one of the best writers of the 20th century...
, writing in the 1920s, is the genre founder. Within the Latin American world, the most iconic of magical realist novelist is Nobel Laureate
Gabriel García MárquezGabriel José de la Concordia García Márquez is a Colombian novelist, short-story writer, screenwriter and journalist, known affectionately as Gabo throughout Latin America. He is considered one of the most significant authors of the 20th century. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in...
, whose novel
One Hundred Years of SolitudeOne Hundred Years of Solitude , by Gabriel García Márquez, is a novel which tells the multi-generational story of the Buendía family, whose patriarch, José Arcadio Buendía, founds the town of Macondo, the metaphoric Colombia...
was an instant worldwide success. García Márquez confessed: "my most important problem was destroying the line of demarcation that separates what seems real from what seems fantastic."
Isabel AllendeIsabel Allende Llona is a Chilean writer with American citizenship. Allende, whose works sometimes contain aspects of the "magic realist" tradition, is famous for novels such as The House of the Spirits and City of the Beasts , which have been commercially successful...
was the first Latin America woman writer recognized outside the continent. Her most well-known novel,
The House of the SpiritsThe House of the Spirits is the debut novel by Isabel Allende. Initially, the novel was rejected by several Spanish-language publishers, but became an instant best seller when published in Barcelona in 1982. The novel was critically acclaimed around the world, and catapulted Allende to literary...
, is arguably similar to García Márquez's style of magical realist writing. Another notable novelist is
Laura EsquivelLaura Esquivel is a Mexican author making a noted contribution to Latin-American literature. She was born the third of four children of Julio César Esquivel, a telegraph operator, and Josefa Valdés.-Literary career:...
, whose
Like Water for ChocolateLike Water for Chocolate is a popular novel published in 1989 by first-time Mexican novelist Laura Esquivel.The novel follows the story of a young girl named Tita who longs her entire life to marry her lover, Pedro, but can never have him because of her mother's upholding of the family tradition...
tells the story of the domestic life of women living on the margins of their families and society. The novel's protagonist, Tita, is kept from happiness and marriage by her mother. "Her unrequited love and ostracism from the family lead her to harness her extraordinary powers of imbuing her emotions to the food she makes. In turn, people who eat her food enact her emotions for her. For example, after eating a wedding cake Tita made while suffering from a forbidden love, the guests all suffer from a wave of longing. Among Latin American writers,
Jorge Luis BorgesJorge Francisco Isidoro Luis Borges Acevedo , known as Jorge Luis Borges , was an Argentine writer, essayist, poet and translator born in Buenos Aires. In 1914 his family moved to Switzerland where he attended school, receiving his baccalauréat from the Collège de Genève in 1918. The family...
is also regarded as a major exponent of magical realism.
In the English speaking world, major authors include British Indian writer
Salman Rushdie, African American novelist
Toni MorrisonToni Morrison is a Nobel Prize and Pulitzer Prize-winning American novelist, editor, and professor. Her novels are known for their epic themes, vivid dialogue, and richly detailed characters. Among her best known novels are The Bluest Eye, Song of Solomon and Beloved...
, English author
Louis de BernièresLouis de Bernières is a British novelist most famous for his fourth novel, Captain Corelli's Mandolin. In 1993 de Bernières was selected as one of the "20 Best of Young British Novelists", part of a promotion in Granta magazine...
and English feminist writer
Angela CarterAngela Carter was an English novelist and journalist, known for her feminist, magical realism, and picaresque works...
. Perhaps the best known is Rushdie, whose "...language form of magical realism straddles both the surrealist tradition of magic realism as it developed in Europe and the mythic tradition of magical realism as it developed in Latin America." Morrison's most notable work,
Beloved, tells the story of a mother who, haunted by the ghost of her child, learns to cope with memories of her traumatic childhood as an abused slave and the burden of nurturing children into a harsh and brutal society.
For a detailed list of authors and works considered magical realist please see :Category:Magic realism novels
Historical development
The painterly style began evolving as early as the first decade of the 20th century, but 1925 was when
magischer realismus and
neue sachlichkeit were officially recognized as major trends. This was the year that Franz Roh published his book on the subject,
Nach Expressionismus: Magischer Realismus: Probleme der neuesten europäischen Malerei (translated as
After Expressionism: Magical Realism: Problems of the Newest European Painting) and
Gustav HartlaubKarel Johan Gustav Hartlaub was a German physician and ornithologist.Hartlaub was born in Bremen, and studied at Bonn and Berlin before graduating in medicine at Göttingen. In 1840, he began to study and collect exotic birds, which he donated to the Bremen Natural History Museum. He described some...
curated the seminal exhibition on the theme, entitled simply
Neue Sachlichkeit (translated as
New ObjectivityThe New Objectivity is a term used to characterize the attitude of public life in Weimar Germany as well as the art, literature, music, and architecture created to adapt to it...
), at the
Kunsthalle MannheimThe Kunsthalle Mannheim is a museum of modern and contemporary art, established in 1909 and located in Mannheim, Germany. The building designed by Hermann Billing was erected as a temporary structure to serve an "International Art Exhibition" of 1907, commemorating the 300th anniversary of the...
in Mannheim, Germany. Irene Guenthe refers most frequently to the
New ObjectivityThe New Objectivity is a term used to characterize the attitude of public life in Weimar Germany as well as the art, literature, music, and architecture created to adapt to it...
, rather than magical realism; which is attributed to that New objectivity is practical based, referential (to real practicing artists), while the magical realism is theoretical or critic's rhetoric. Eventually under
Massimo BontempelliMassimo Bontempelli was an Italian poet, playwright, and novelist. He was influential in developing and promoting the literary style known as magical realism.-Life:...
guidance, the term
magic realism was fully embraced by the German as well as in Italian practicing communities.
New ObjectivityThe New Objectivity is a term used to characterize the attitude of public life in Weimar Germany as well as the art, literature, music, and architecture created to adapt to it...
saw an utter rejection of the preceding impressionist and expressionist movements, and Hartlaub curated his exhibition under the guideline: only those, "...who have remained true or have returned to a positive, palpable reality," in order to reveal the truth of the times," would be included. The style was roughly divided into two subcategories: conservative, (neo-)classicist painting, and generally left-wing, politically motivated Verists. The following quote by Hartlaub distinguishes the two, though mostly with reference to Germany; however, one might apply the logic to all relevant European countries. "In the new art, he saw"
a right, a left wing. One, conservative towards Classicism, taking roots in timelessness, wanting to sanctify again the healthy, physically plastic in pure drawing after nature...after so much eccentricity and chaos [a reference to the repercussions of World War I]... The other, the left, glaringly contemporary, far less artistically faithful, rather born of the negation of art, seeking to expose the chaos, the true face of our time, with an addiction to primitive fact-finding and nervous baring of the self... There is nothing left but to affirm it [the new art], especially since it seems strong enough to raise new artistic willpower.
Both sides were seen all over Europe during the 1920s and 1930s, ranging from the Netherlands to Austria, France to Russia, with Germany and Italy as centers of growth. Indeed, Italian
Giorgio de ChiricoGiorgio de Chirico was a pre-Surrealist and then Surrealist Italian painter born in Volos, Greece, to a Genovese mother and a Sicilian father. He founded the scuola metafisica art movement...
, producing works in the late 1910s under the style
arte metafisica (translated as
Metaphysical artMetaphysical art , style of painting that flourished mainly between 1911 and 1920 in the works of the Italian artists Giorgio de Chirico and Carlo Carrà. The movement began with Chirico, whose dreamlike works with sharp contrasts of light and shadow often had a vaguely threatening, mysterious quality...
), is seen as a precursor and as having an "influence...greater than any other painter on the artists of
New ObjectivityThe New Objectivity is a term used to characterize the attitude of public life in Weimar Germany as well as the art, literature, music, and architecture created to adapt to it...
."
Further afield, American painters were later (in the 1940s and 1950s, mostly) coined magical realists; a link between these artists and the Neue Sachlichkeit of the 1920s was explicitly made in the New York Museum of Modern Art exhibition, tellingly titled "American Realists and Magic Realists." French magical realist
Pierre RoyPierre Roy is a retired professional ice hockey player who played 316 games in the World Hockey Association. He played for the Quebec Nordiques, Cincinnati Stingers, and New England Whalers.He is also a French author who teaches at Sherbrooke elementary.- References :...
, who worked and showed successfully in the US, is cited as having "helped spread Franz Roh's formulations" to the United States.
Magic realism that excludes the overtly fantastic
When art critic
Franz RohFranz Roh , was a German historian, photographer, and art critic.Roh was born in Apolda , Germany. He studied at universities in Leipzig, Berlin, and Basel. In 1920, he received his Ph. D...
applied the term
magic realism to visual art in 1925, he was designating a style of visual art that brings extreme
realismRealism in the visual arts and literature refers to the general attempt to depict subjects "in accordance with secular, empirical rules", as they are considered to exist in third person objective reality, without embellishment or interpretation...
to the depiction of mundane subject matter, revealing an "interior" mystery, rather than imposing external, overtly magical features onto this everyday reality. Roh explains,
We are offered a new style that is thoroughly of this world that celebrates the mundane. This new world of objects is still alien to the current idea of Realism. It employs various techniques that endow all things with a deeper meaning and reveal mysteries that always threaten the secure tranquility of simple and ingenuous things.... it is a question of representing before our eyes, in an intuitive way, the fact, the interior figure, of the exterior world.
In painting, magical realism is a term often interchanged with
post-expressionismPost-expressionism is a term coined by the German art critic Franz Roh to describe a variety of movements in the post-war art world which were influenced by expressionism but defined themselves through rejecting its aesthetic...
, as Ríos also shows, for the very title of Roh's 1925 essay was "Magical Realism:Post-Expressionism." Indeed, as Dr. Lois Parkinson Zamora of the
University of HoustonThe University of Houston is a state research university, and is the flagship institution of the University of Houston System. Founded in 1927, it is Texas's third-largest university with nearly 40,000 students. Its campus spans 667 acres in southeast Houston, and was known as University of...
writes, "Roh, in his 1925 essay, described a group of painters whom we now categorize generally as Post-Expressionists."
http://www.uh.edu/~englmi/ObjectsAndSeeing_intro.html Roh used this term to describe painting that signaled a return to
realismRealism in the visual arts and literature refers to the general attempt to depict subjects "in accordance with secular, empirical rules", as they are considered to exist in third person objective reality, without embellishment or interpretation...
after
expressionismExpressionism was a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Germany at the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it radically for emotional effect in order to evoke moods or ideas...
's extravagances, which sought to redesign objects to reveal the spirits of those objects. Magical realism, according to Roh, instead faithfully portrays the exterior of an object, and in doing so the spirit, or magic, of the object reveals itself. One could relate this exterior magic all the way back to the 15th century. Flemish painter
Van EyckVan Eyck , also Van Eijk is a Dutch surname meaning "of Eyck" or "of Eijk"...
(1395–1441) highlights the complexity of a natural landscape by creating illusions of continuous and unseen areas that recede into the background, leaving it to the viewer's imagination to fill in those gaps in the image: for instance, in a rolling landscape with river and hills. The magic is contained in the viewer's interpretation of those mysterious unseen or hidden parts of the image.
Other important aspects of magical realist painting, according to Roh, include:
- A return to ordinary subjects as opposed to fantastical ones.
- A juxtaposition of forward movement with a sense of distance, as opposed to Expressionism's tendency to foreshorten the subject.
- A use of miniature details even in expansive paintings, such as large landscapes.
The pictorial ideals of Roh's original magic realism attracted new generations of artists through the latter years of the 20th century and beyond. In a 1991
New York Times review, critic Vivien Raynor remarked that "
John Stuart IngleJohn Stuart Ingle was an American contemporary realist artist, known for his meticulously rendered watercolor paintings, typically still lifes. Some criticism has characterized Ingle's work as a kind of magic realism...
proves that Magic Realism lives" in his "virtuoso"
still lifeA still life is a work of art depicting mostly inanimate subject matter, typically commonplace objects which may be either natural or man-made...
watercolors. Ingle's approach, as described in his own words, reflects the early inspiration of the magic realism movement as described by Roh; that is, the aim is not to add magical elements to a realistic painting, but to pursue a radically faithful rendering of reality; the "magic" effect on the viewer comes from the intensity of that effort: "I don't want to make arbitrary changes in what I see to paint the picture, I want to paint what is given. The whole idea is to take something that's given and explore that reality as intensely as I can."
Later development: magic realism that incorporates the fantastic
While Ingle represents a "magic realism" that harks back to Roh's ideas, the term "magic realism" in mid-20th century visual art tends to refer to work that incorporates overtly fantastic elements, somewhat in the manner of its literary counterpart.
Occupying an intermediate place in this line of development, the work of several European and American painters whose most important work dates from the 1930s through to the 1950s, including
Bettina Shaw-LawrenceBettina Shaw-Lawrence also known as Betty Shaw-Lawrence, is an English 20th century figurative artist born in 1921. Though she studied painting and drawing under Fernand Léger, Cedric Morris and Arthur Lett-Haines, was mainly self-taught...
,
Paul CadmusPaul Cadmus was an American artist. He is best known for his paintings and drawings of nude male figures. His works combined elements of eroticism and social critique to produce a style often called magic realism...
,
Ivan AlbrightIvan Le Lorraine Albright was an American magic realist painter and artist, most renowned for his self-portraits, character studies, and still lifes.-Youth:...
,
Philip EvergoodPhilip Howard Francis Dixon Evergood was an American painter, etcher, lithographer, sculptor, illustrator and writer. He was particularly active during the Depression and World War II era.-Life:...
,
George TookerGeorge Clair Tooker, Jr. was a figurative painter whose works are associated with the Magic realism and Social realism movements...
, even
Andrew WyethAndrew Newell Wyeth was a visual artist, primarily a realist painter, working predominantly in a regionalist style. He was one of the best-known U.S. artists of the middle 20th century....
, is designated as "magic realist." This work departs sharply from Roh's definition, in that it (according to artcyclopedia.com) "is anchored in everyday reality, but has overtones of fantasy or wonder." In the work of Cadmus, for example, the surreal atmosphere is sometimes achieved via stylized distortions or exaggerations that are not realistic.
Recent "magic realism" has gone beyond mere "overtones" of the fantastic or surreal to depict a frankly magical reality, with an increasingly tenuous anchoring in "everyday reality." Artists associated with this kind of magic realism include
Marcela DonosoMarcela Donoso is an important painter in the Latin American current of "Magic Realism", where Jose Donoso and Isabel Allende belong in literature, or Fernando Botero in sculpture....
and
Gregory GillespieGregory Joseph Gillespie was an American magic realist painter.-Life and career:He was born in Roselle Park, New Jersey. After graduating from high school, he became a nondegree student at Cooper Union in New York...
.
Artists such as
Peter DoigPeter Doig is a contemporary artist born in Scotland. In 2007, a painting of Doig's, entitled White Canoe, sold at Sotheby's for $11.3 million, then an auction record for a living European artist.-Early life:...
and Will Teather have become associated with the term in the early 21st century.
Painters
- Felice Casorati
Felice Casorati was an Italian painter, sculptor, and printmaker. The paintings for which he is most noted include figure compositions, portraits and still lifes, which are often distinguished by unusual perspective effects.-Life and work:Casorati was born in Novara and showed an early interest in...
- Antonio Donghi
Antonio Donghi was an Italian painter of scenes of popular life, landscapes, and still life.-Biography:Born in Rome, he studied at the Instituto di Belle Arti...
- Marcela Donoso
Marcela Donoso is an important painter in the Latin American current of "Magic Realism", where Jose Donoso and Isabel Allende belong in literature, or Fernando Botero in sculpture....
- Gian Paolo Dulbecco
Gian Paolo Dulbecco is an Italian painter.Born in La Spezia in 1941, he shows an early interest in art.From 1958 he lives in Milan, where begins painting as self-taught painter and graduates at Politecnico....
- Jared French
Jared French was a painter who specialized in the ancient medium of egg tempera. He was one of the masters of magic realism, part of a circle of friends and colleagues who all painted surreal imagery in egg tempera. Others included George Tooker and Paul Cadmus.French received a Bachelor of Arts...
- Edward Hopper
Edward Hopper was a prominent American realist painter and printmaker. While most popularly known for his oil paintings, he was equally proficient as a watercolorist and printmaker in etching...
- Gayane Khachaturian
Gayane Khachaturian was a Georgian-Armenian painter and graphic artist.-Biography:Gayane Khachaturian was born into an Armenian family in Tbilisi, capital of Georgia, and studied art at the Nikoladze Art School. She became seriously involved in the art scene after graduating from the Secondary...
- Ricco Wassmer
Ricco Wassmer was a Swiss painter.-Life:Erich Wassmer was born in upper-class circumstances as the son of cement factory owner and art patron Max Wassmer . Since the age of 3 he grew up at Bremgarten Castle near Berne, which was filled with art and culture...
- Carel Willink
Albert Carel Willink was a well known Dutch painter who called his style of Magic realism "imaginary realism".Willink was born in Amsterdam, the eldest son of the mechanic Jan Willink and Wilhelmina Altes...
Film
Magical realism is not an officially recognized film category; it is a literary film genre. It is presented matter of factly and occurs without explanation. Critics have recognized magical realism features in many films by applying the magical realism characteristics. Many films have magical realist narrative and events that contrast between real and magical elements, or different modes of production. This device explores the reality of what exists. Fredrick Jameson, "On Magic Realism in Film" advances a hypothesis that magical realism in film is a formal mode that is constitutionally depended on a type of historical raw material in which disjunction is structurally present.
Like Water for ChocolateLike Water for Chocolate is a 1992 film based on the popular novel, published in 1989 by first-time Mexican novelist Laura Esquivel. It earned all 11 Ariel awards of the Mexican Academy of Motion Pictures, including the Ariel Award for Best Picture, and became the highest grossing Spanish-language...
begins and ends with the first person narrative to establishing the magical realism storytelling frame. Telling a story from a child point of view, the historical gaps and holes perspective, and with cinematic color heightening the presence, are magical realism tools in films.
See also
With reference to literature
:Category:Magic realism novels
- Fantasy
Fantasy is a genre of fiction that commonly uses magic and other supernatural phenomena as a primary element of plot, theme, or setting. Many works within the genre take place in imaginary worlds where magic is common...
/ Low fantasyLow fantasy is a term used to describe a variety of works within the sub-genres of fantasy fiction. Low fantasy places relatively less emphasis on typical elements associated with fantasy, setting a narrative in real-world environments with only vague elements of the fantastical, sometimes just...
- Latin American Boom
The Latin American Boom was a literary movement of the 1960s and 1970s when the work of a group of relatively young Latin American novelists became widely circulated in Europe and throughout the world...
- Hysterical realism
Hysterical realism, also called recherché postmodernism, is a term coined in 2000 by the English critic James Wood in an essay on Zadie Smith's White Teeth to describe what he sees as a literary genre typified by a strong contrast between elaborately absurd prose, plotting, or characterization and...
- McOndo
McOndo is a Latin American literary movement that breaks from the dominant Magical Realism mode of narration, and counters it with the strong, ideologic associations of the cultural and narrative languages of the mass communications media, and with the modernity of urban living; the experience of...
—a distinct genre of literature that follows magical realism in Latin and South America
- Southern Gothic
Southern Gothic is a subgenre of Gothic fiction unique to American literature that takes place exclusively in the American South. It resembles its parent genre in that it relies on supernatural, ironic, or unusual events to guide the plot...
With reference to visual art
- Fantastic realism
Fantastic Realism can refer to:*Vienna School of Fantastic Realism, a 20th century group of artists in Vienna combining techniques of the Old Masters with religious and esoteric symbolism...
- Romantic conceptualism
Romantic conceptualism is a strand of conceptual art which seeks to place emotion and a sense of 'the hand of the author' over the cold intellectualism of most conceptual art....
- New Objectivity
The New Objectivity is a term used to characterize the attitude of public life in Weimar Germany as well as the art, literature, music, and architecture created to adapt to it...
- Metaphysical art
Metaphysical art , style of painting that flourished mainly between 1911 and 1920 in the works of the Italian artists Giorgio de Chirico and Carlo Carrà. The movement began with Chirico, whose dreamlike works with sharp contrasts of light and shadow often had a vaguely threatening, mysterious quality...
With reference to both
- Surrealism
Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....
- Metarealism
Metarealism is a direction in Russian poetry and art that was born in the 1970s to the 1980s. The term was first used by Mikhail Epshtein, who coined it in 1981 and made it public in the Soviet magazine "Voprosy Literatury" in 1983; see below his "Theses on Metarealism and Conceptualism" from 1983...
- Postmodernism
Postmodernism is a philosophical movement evolved in reaction to modernism, the tendency in contemporary culture to accept only objective truth and to be inherently suspicious towards a global cultural narrative or meta-narrative. Postmodernist thought is an intentional departure from the...
External links