Artist-sorcerers: Mimicry, magic and hysteria

The article explores certain ramifications of mimicry as a theme in surrealist art and writing, with particular reference to the self-presentation of surrealist artists such as Max Ernst. It is concerned with a set of connections between mimicry, masquerade and hysteria, all of which have in common a tendency to simulation. In his extensive writings on the subject of mimicry, initially in a surrealist milieu, Roger Caillois likened mimicry in insects to a human propensity for simulation, evident in games and play as well as in social institutions such as shamanism. Anthropological accounts of shamanism that stressed the role of pretense, simulation and even hysteria in shamanistic rituals influenced Ernst's adoption of an avian alter-ego called Loplop, as well as the way André Breton and others wrote about him. Mimicry is likewise relevant to various women Surrealist artists in whose work it will be claimed that animal disguises and masquerade comprise an anti-essentialist identity strategy. In the interwar period, the psychoanalytic theorization of female masquerade is one legacy of the hysteria diagnosis, a condition closely allied with simulation. © The Author 2012. Published by Oxford University Press; all rights reserved.