Recently we were listening to a conversation with a contemporary philosopher. During the construction of a larger point (the substance of which we didn’t catch) they utilized a supporting analogy that we think interesting (by way of being contemporarily relevant). They suggested that trying to bring about a simultaneous revolution in both form and content, is likely to ensure both to be unsuccessful (simply too much to handle). They offered the example of surrealism. Surrealism was preceded by, and contemporaneous with, quite a few formal revolutions, those like pointillism and cubism. Both of these movements joined a radical formalism (multi-point perspectives, hyperbolic color physics) with very straightforward subject matter (still lives, portraiture) challenging viewers on a single front only. Surrealism was similar but kind of an inverse of this, the idea was challenging (randomness as the true primum motivum, the pervading presence of dream-life in waking-life) while the conveyance was artistically ordinary (pretty standard academic realism). The point was ended by speculating that surrealism would have likely been ineffective had its form been as challenging as its content.


A Dutch phrase: je hebt te veel hooi op je vork (you have too much hay on your fork)