The Unexpected Surrealism of the Umbrella
With today marking National Umbrella Day, we present a look at the object’s place within surrealism, and the ways in which it exemplifies the movement’s aims and philosophy.
By
Adam Wells
February 10, 2022
Surrealism as a movement aims to disassociate, to divorce object from function and concept from context, as shown by the work of the artist perhaps most synonymous with surrealism, Salvador Dali; his melting clocks suggest a passing of time separate from the traditional function of the object, while his lobster phone brings together two seemingly unrelated objects with an absurdist twist. The umbrella, then, with its purpose obvious simply through its design, serves as a playground for surrealist artists to interrogate questions of form and function.
This formal playfulness is perhaps most clearly represented by René Magritte’s 1958 painting Hegel’s Holiday. With its title evoking Hegelian philosophy and its preoccupation with the function of objects, Magritte later elaborated on the contrast created by a glass of water being balanced on top of an umbrella. The opposing functions of the objects - that of the umbrella to repel water and that of the glass to contain it - neatly illustrate one of the approaches taken by surrealism to interrogate the everyday to the point of absurdity.
Similarly, the portrayal of two man-made objects without any human in sight in Magritte’s painting explicitly calls to mind the ‘unnatural’ nature of these objects, also explored in Salvador Dali’s 1941 painting Sewing Machine with Umbrellas. Here, the objects grow out from a gigantic sewing machine, casting long threatening shadows. The presence of the sewing machine even more explicitly calls to mind the machinery used in the production of the umbrella, with the barely-recognisable human figures seemingly in thrall to the large object as it casts its imposing shadows. The reframing of the umbrella as something which blocks out the light through the landscape for the contorted human figures is typical of Dali’s work, imagining the objects separate from any societal context.
To take a more modern example, Rafał Olbiński’s 2018 painting Rain not only integrates the human form with the umbrella but presents the umbrella as the cause of the rain rather than something to repel it, in a similar style to Banksy’s Umbrella Girl stencil from 2008. Olbiński’s painting echoes both Magritte and Dali’s interpretation of the umbrella, reversing its form by conflating the man-made object with the human body, and its function, by painting it as producing rain rather than protecting the holder from it. That the umbrella has, since Dali and Magritte’s interpretations, been used to highlight the fantastical nature of fictional characters from Mary Poppins to Totoro, further underscores the way that such simple, mundane, but recognisably human objects can easily be employed to heighten surrealist imagery.
Surrealism as a movement aims to disassociate, to divorce object from function and concept from context, as shown by the work of the artist perhaps most synonymous with surrealism, Salvador Dali; his melting clocks suggest a passing of time separate from the traditional function of the object, while his lobster phone brings together two seemingly unrelated objects with an absurdist twist. The umbrella, then, with its purpose obvious simply through its design, serves as a playground for surrealist artists to interrogate questions of form and function.
This formal playfulness is perhaps most clearly represented by René Magritte’s 1958 painting Hegel’s Holiday. With its title evoking Hegelian philosophy and its preoccupation with the function of objects, Magritte later elaborated on the contrast created by a glass of water being balanced on top of an umbrella. The opposing functions of the objects - that of the umbrella to repel water and that of the glass to contain it - neatly illustrate one of the approaches taken by surrealism to interrogate the everyday to the point of absurdity.
Similarly, the portrayal of two man-made objects without any human in sight in Magritte’s painting explicitly calls to mind the ‘unnatural’ nature of these objects, also explored in Salvador Dali’s 1941 painting Sewing Machine with Umbrellas. Here, the objects grow out from a gigantic sewing machine, casting long threatening shadows. The presence of the sewing machine even more explicitly calls to mind the machinery used in the production of the umbrella, with the barely-recognisable human figures seemingly in thrall to the large object as it casts its imposing shadows. The reframing of the umbrella as something which blocks out the light through the landscape for the contorted human figures is typical of Dali’s work, imagining the objects separate from any societal context.
To take a more modern example, Rafał Olbiński’s 2018 painting Rain not only integrates the human form with the umbrella but presents the umbrella as the cause of the rain rather than something to repel it, in a similar style to Banksy’s Umbrella Girl stencil from 2008. Olbiński’s painting echoes both Magritte and Dali’s interpretation of the umbrella, reversing its form by conflating the man-made object with the human body, and its function, by painting it as producing rain rather than protecting the holder from it. That the umbrella has, since Dali and Magritte’s interpretations, been used to highlight the fantastical nature of fictional characters from Mary Poppins to Totoro, further underscores the way that such simple, mundane, but recognisably human objects can easily be employed to heighten surrealist imagery.
Surrealism as a movement aims to disassociate, to divorce object from function and concept from context, as shown by the work of the artist perhaps most synonymous with surrealism, Salvador Dali; his melting clocks suggest a passing of time separate from the traditional function of the object, while his lobster phone brings together two seemingly unrelated objects with an absurdist twist. The umbrella, then, with its purpose obvious simply through its design, serves as a playground for surrealist artists to interrogate questions of form and function.
This formal playfulness is perhaps most clearly represented by René Magritte’s 1958 painting Hegel’s Holiday. With its title evoking Hegelian philosophy and its preoccupation with the function of objects, Magritte later elaborated on the contrast created by a glass of water being balanced on top of an umbrella. The opposing functions of the objects - that of the umbrella to repel water and that of the glass to contain it - neatly illustrate one of the approaches taken by surrealism to interrogate the everyday to the point of absurdity.
Similarly, the portrayal of two man-made objects without any human in sight in Magritte’s painting explicitly calls to mind the ‘unnatural’ nature of these objects, also explored in Salvador Dali’s 1941 painting Sewing Machine with Umbrellas. Here, the objects grow out from a gigantic sewing machine, casting long threatening shadows. The presence of the sewing machine even more explicitly calls to mind the machinery used in the production of the umbrella, with the barely-recognisable human figures seemingly in thrall to the large object as it casts its imposing shadows. The reframing of the umbrella as something which blocks out the light through the landscape for the contorted human figures is typical of Dali’s work, imagining the objects separate from any societal context.
To take a more modern example, Rafał Olbiński’s 2018 painting Rain not only integrates the human form with the umbrella but presents the umbrella as the cause of the rain rather than something to repel it, in a similar style to Banksy’s Umbrella Girl stencil from 2008. Olbiński’s painting echoes both Magritte and Dali’s interpretation of the umbrella, reversing its form by conflating the man-made object with the human body, and its function, by painting it as producing rain rather than protecting the holder from it. That the umbrella has, since Dali and Magritte’s interpretations, been used to highlight the fantastical nature of fictional characters from Mary Poppins to Totoro, further underscores the way that such simple, mundane, but recognisably human objects can easily be employed to heighten surrealist imagery.
Surrealism as a movement aims to disassociate, to divorce object from function and concept from context, as shown by the work of the artist perhaps most synonymous with surrealism, Salvador Dali; his melting clocks suggest a passing of time separate from the traditional function of the object, while his lobster phone brings together two seemingly unrelated objects with an absurdist twist. The umbrella, then, with its purpose obvious simply through its design, serves as a playground for surrealist artists to interrogate questions of form and function.
This formal playfulness is perhaps most clearly represented by René Magritte’s 1958 painting Hegel’s Holiday. With its title evoking Hegelian philosophy and its preoccupation with the function of objects, Magritte later elaborated on the contrast created by a glass of water being balanced on top of an umbrella. The opposing functions of the objects - that of the umbrella to repel water and that of the glass to contain it - neatly illustrate one of the approaches taken by surrealism to interrogate the everyday to the point of absurdity.
Similarly, the portrayal of two man-made objects without any human in sight in Magritte’s painting explicitly calls to mind the ‘unnatural’ nature of these objects, also explored in Salvador Dali’s 1941 painting Sewing Machine with Umbrellas. Here, the objects grow out from a gigantic sewing machine, casting long threatening shadows. The presence of the sewing machine even more explicitly calls to mind the machinery used in the production of the umbrella, with the barely-recognisable human figures seemingly in thrall to the large object as it casts its imposing shadows. The reframing of the umbrella as something which blocks out the light through the landscape for the contorted human figures is typical of Dali’s work, imagining the objects separate from any societal context.
To take a more modern example, Rafał Olbiński’s 2018 painting Rain not only integrates the human form with the umbrella but presents the umbrella as the cause of the rain rather than something to repel it, in a similar style to Banksy’s Umbrella Girl stencil from 2008. Olbiński’s painting echoes both Magritte and Dali’s interpretation of the umbrella, reversing its form by conflating the man-made object with the human body, and its function, by painting it as producing rain rather than protecting the holder from it. That the umbrella has, since Dali and Magritte’s interpretations, been used to highlight the fantastical nature of fictional characters from Mary Poppins to Totoro, further underscores the way that such simple, mundane, but recognisably human objects can easily be employed to heighten surrealist imagery.
Surrealism as a movement aims to disassociate, to divorce object from function and concept from context, as shown by the work of the artist perhaps most synonymous with surrealism, Salvador Dali; his melting clocks suggest a passing of time separate from the traditional function of the object, while his lobster phone brings together two seemingly unrelated objects with an absurdist twist. The umbrella, then, with its purpose obvious simply through its design, serves as a playground for surrealist artists to interrogate questions of form and function.
This formal playfulness is perhaps most clearly represented by René Magritte’s 1958 painting Hegel’s Holiday. With its title evoking Hegelian philosophy and its preoccupation with the function of objects, Magritte later elaborated on the contrast created by a glass of water being balanced on top of an umbrella. The opposing functions of the objects - that of the umbrella to repel water and that of the glass to contain it - neatly illustrate one of the approaches taken by surrealism to interrogate the everyday to the point of absurdity.
Similarly, the portrayal of two man-made objects without any human in sight in Magritte’s painting explicitly calls to mind the ‘unnatural’ nature of these objects, also explored in Salvador Dali’s 1941 painting Sewing Machine with Umbrellas. Here, the objects grow out from a gigantic sewing machine, casting long threatening shadows. The presence of the sewing machine even more explicitly calls to mind the machinery used in the production of the umbrella, with the barely-recognisable human figures seemingly in thrall to the large object as it casts its imposing shadows. The reframing of the umbrella as something which blocks out the light through the landscape for the contorted human figures is typical of Dali’s work, imagining the objects separate from any societal context.
To take a more modern example, Rafał Olbiński’s 2018 painting Rain not only integrates the human form with the umbrella but presents the umbrella as the cause of the rain rather than something to repel it, in a similar style to Banksy’s Umbrella Girl stencil from 2008. Olbiński’s painting echoes both Magritte and Dali’s interpretation of the umbrella, reversing its form by conflating the man-made object with the human body, and its function, by painting it as producing rain rather than protecting the holder from it. That the umbrella has, since Dali and Magritte’s interpretations, been used to highlight the fantastical nature of fictional characters from Mary Poppins to Totoro, further underscores the way that such simple, mundane, but recognisably human objects can easily be employed to heighten surrealist imagery.
Surrealism as a movement aims to disassociate, to divorce object from function and concept from context, as shown by the work of the artist perhaps most synonymous with surrealism, Salvador Dali; his melting clocks suggest a passing of time separate from the traditional function of the object, while his lobster phone brings together two seemingly unrelated objects with an absurdist twist. The umbrella, then, with its purpose obvious simply through its design, serves as a playground for surrealist artists to interrogate questions of form and function.
This formal playfulness is perhaps most clearly represented by René Magritte’s 1958 painting Hegel’s Holiday. With its title evoking Hegelian philosophy and its preoccupation with the function of objects, Magritte later elaborated on the contrast created by a glass of water being balanced on top of an umbrella. The opposing functions of the objects - that of the umbrella to repel water and that of the glass to contain it - neatly illustrate one of the approaches taken by surrealism to interrogate the everyday to the point of absurdity.
Similarly, the portrayal of two man-made objects without any human in sight in Magritte’s painting explicitly calls to mind the ‘unnatural’ nature of these objects, also explored in Salvador Dali’s 1941 painting Sewing Machine with Umbrellas. Here, the objects grow out from a gigantic sewing machine, casting long threatening shadows. The presence of the sewing machine even more explicitly calls to mind the machinery used in the production of the umbrella, with the barely-recognisable human figures seemingly in thrall to the large object as it casts its imposing shadows. The reframing of the umbrella as something which blocks out the light through the landscape for the contorted human figures is typical of Dali’s work, imagining the objects separate from any societal context.
To take a more modern example, Rafał Olbiński’s 2018 painting Rain not only integrates the human form with the umbrella but presents the umbrella as the cause of the rain rather than something to repel it, in a similar style to Banksy’s Umbrella Girl stencil from 2008. Olbiński’s painting echoes both Magritte and Dali’s interpretation of the umbrella, reversing its form by conflating the man-made object with the human body, and its function, by painting it as producing rain rather than protecting the holder from it. That the umbrella has, since Dali and Magritte’s interpretations, been used to highlight the fantastical nature of fictional characters from Mary Poppins to Totoro, further underscores the way that such simple, mundane, but recognisably human objects can easily be employed to heighten surrealist imagery.
Surrealism as a movement aims to disassociate, to divorce object from function and concept from context, as shown by the work of the artist perhaps most synonymous with surrealism, Salvador Dali; his melting clocks suggest a passing of time separate from the traditional function of the object, while his lobster phone brings together two seemingly unrelated objects with an absurdist twist. The umbrella, then, with its purpose obvious simply through its design, serves as a playground for surrealist artists to interrogate questions of form and function.
This formal playfulness is perhaps most clearly represented by René Magritte’s 1958 painting Hegel’s Holiday. With its title evoking Hegelian philosophy and its preoccupation with the function of objects, Magritte later elaborated on the contrast created by a glass of water being balanced on top of an umbrella. The opposing functions of the objects - that of the umbrella to repel water and that of the glass to contain it - neatly illustrate one of the approaches taken by surrealism to interrogate the everyday to the point of absurdity.
Similarly, the portrayal of two man-made objects without any human in sight in Magritte’s painting explicitly calls to mind the ‘unnatural’ nature of these objects, also explored in Salvador Dali’s 1941 painting Sewing Machine with Umbrellas. Here, the objects grow out from a gigantic sewing machine, casting long threatening shadows. The presence of the sewing machine even more explicitly calls to mind the machinery used in the production of the umbrella, with the barely-recognisable human figures seemingly in thrall to the large object as it casts its imposing shadows. The reframing of the umbrella as something which blocks out the light through the landscape for the contorted human figures is typical of Dali’s work, imagining the objects separate from any societal context.
To take a more modern example, Rafał Olbiński’s 2018 painting Rain not only integrates the human form with the umbrella but presents the umbrella as the cause of the rain rather than something to repel it, in a similar style to Banksy’s Umbrella Girl stencil from 2008. Olbiński’s painting echoes both Magritte and Dali’s interpretation of the umbrella, reversing its form by conflating the man-made object with the human body, and its function, by painting it as producing rain rather than protecting the holder from it. That the umbrella has, since Dali and Magritte’s interpretations, been used to highlight the fantastical nature of fictional characters from Mary Poppins to Totoro, further underscores the way that such simple, mundane, but recognisably human objects can easily be employed to heighten surrealist imagery.
Surrealism as a movement aims to disassociate, to divorce object from function and concept from context, as shown by the work of the artist perhaps most synonymous with surrealism, Salvador Dali; his melting clocks suggest a passing of time separate from the traditional function of the object, while his lobster phone brings together two seemingly unrelated objects with an absurdist twist. The umbrella, then, with its purpose obvious simply through its design, serves as a playground for surrealist artists to interrogate questions of form and function.
This formal playfulness is perhaps most clearly represented by René Magritte’s 1958 painting Hegel’s Holiday. With its title evoking Hegelian philosophy and its preoccupation with the function of objects, Magritte later elaborated on the contrast created by a glass of water being balanced on top of an umbrella. The opposing functions of the objects - that of the umbrella to repel water and that of the glass to contain it - neatly illustrate one of the approaches taken by surrealism to interrogate the everyday to the point of absurdity.
Similarly, the portrayal of two man-made objects without any human in sight in Magritte’s painting explicitly calls to mind the ‘unnatural’ nature of these objects, also explored in Salvador Dali’s 1941 painting Sewing Machine with Umbrellas. Here, the objects grow out from a gigantic sewing machine, casting long threatening shadows. The presence of the sewing machine even more explicitly calls to mind the machinery used in the production of the umbrella, with the barely-recognisable human figures seemingly in thrall to the large object as it casts its imposing shadows. The reframing of the umbrella as something which blocks out the light through the landscape for the contorted human figures is typical of Dali’s work, imagining the objects separate from any societal context.
To take a more modern example, Rafał Olbiński’s 2018 painting Rain not only integrates the human form with the umbrella but presents the umbrella as the cause of the rain rather than something to repel it, in a similar style to Banksy’s Umbrella Girl stencil from 2008. Olbiński’s painting echoes both Magritte and Dali’s interpretation of the umbrella, reversing its form by conflating the man-made object with the human body, and its function, by painting it as producing rain rather than protecting the holder from it. That the umbrella has, since Dali and Magritte’s interpretations, been used to highlight the fantastical nature of fictional characters from Mary Poppins to Totoro, further underscores the way that such simple, mundane, but recognisably human objects can easily be employed to heighten surrealist imagery.
Surrealism as a movement aims to disassociate, to divorce object from function and concept from context, as shown by the work of the artist perhaps most synonymous with surrealism, Salvador Dali; his melting clocks suggest a passing of time separate from the traditional function of the object, while his lobster phone brings together two seemingly unrelated objects with an absurdist twist. The umbrella, then, with its purpose obvious simply through its design, serves as a playground for surrealist artists to interrogate questions of form and function.
This formal playfulness is perhaps most clearly represented by René Magritte’s 1958 painting Hegel’s Holiday. With its title evoking Hegelian philosophy and its preoccupation with the function of objects, Magritte later elaborated on the contrast created by a glass of water being balanced on top of an umbrella. The opposing functions of the objects - that of the umbrella to repel water and that of the glass to contain it - neatly illustrate one of the approaches taken by surrealism to interrogate the everyday to the point of absurdity.
Similarly, the portrayal of two man-made objects without any human in sight in Magritte’s painting explicitly calls to mind the ‘unnatural’ nature of these objects, also explored in Salvador Dali’s 1941 painting Sewing Machine with Umbrellas. Here, the objects grow out from a gigantic sewing machine, casting long threatening shadows. The presence of the sewing machine even more explicitly calls to mind the machinery used in the production of the umbrella, with the barely-recognisable human figures seemingly in thrall to the large object as it casts its imposing shadows. The reframing of the umbrella as something which blocks out the light through the landscape for the contorted human figures is typical of Dali’s work, imagining the objects separate from any societal context.
To take a more modern example, Rafał Olbiński’s 2018 painting Rain not only integrates the human form with the umbrella but presents the umbrella as the cause of the rain rather than something to repel it, in a similar style to Banksy’s Umbrella Girl stencil from 2008. Olbiński’s painting echoes both Magritte and Dali’s interpretation of the umbrella, reversing its form by conflating the man-made object with the human body, and its function, by painting it as producing rain rather than protecting the holder from it. That the umbrella has, since Dali and Magritte’s interpretations, been used to highlight the fantastical nature of fictional characters from Mary Poppins to Totoro, further underscores the way that such simple, mundane, but recognisably human objects can easily be employed to heighten surrealist imagery.
Surrealism as a movement aims to disassociate, to divorce object from function and concept from context, as shown by the work of the artist perhaps most synonymous with surrealism, Salvador Dali; his melting clocks suggest a passing of time separate from the traditional function of the object, while his lobster phone brings together two seemingly unrelated objects with an absurdist twist. The umbrella, then, with its purpose obvious simply through its design, serves as a playground for surrealist artists to interrogate questions of form and function.
This formal playfulness is perhaps most clearly represented by René Magritte’s 1958 painting Hegel’s Holiday. With its title evoking Hegelian philosophy and its preoccupation with the function of objects, Magritte later elaborated on the contrast created by a glass of water being balanced on top of an umbrella. The opposing functions of the objects - that of the umbrella to repel water and that of the glass to contain it - neatly illustrate one of the approaches taken by surrealism to interrogate the everyday to the point of absurdity.
Similarly, the portrayal of two man-made objects without any human in sight in Magritte’s painting explicitly calls to mind the ‘unnatural’ nature of these objects, also explored in Salvador Dali’s 1941 painting Sewing Machine with Umbrellas. Here, the objects grow out from a gigantic sewing machine, casting long threatening shadows. The presence of the sewing machine even more explicitly calls to mind the machinery used in the production of the umbrella, with the barely-recognisable human figures seemingly in thrall to the large object as it casts its imposing shadows. The reframing of the umbrella as something which blocks out the light through the landscape for the contorted human figures is typical of Dali’s work, imagining the objects separate from any societal context.
To take a more modern example, Rafał Olbiński’s 2018 painting Rain not only integrates the human form with the umbrella but presents the umbrella as the cause of the rain rather than something to repel it, in a similar style to Banksy’s Umbrella Girl stencil from 2008. Olbiński’s painting echoes both Magritte and Dali’s interpretation of the umbrella, reversing its form by conflating the man-made object with the human body, and its function, by painting it as producing rain rather than protecting the holder from it. That the umbrella has, since Dali and Magritte’s interpretations, been used to highlight the fantastical nature of fictional characters from Mary Poppins to Totoro, further underscores the way that such simple, mundane, but recognisably human objects can easily be employed to heighten surrealist imagery.
Surrealism as a movement aims to disassociate, to divorce object from function and concept from context, as shown by the work of the artist perhaps most synonymous with surrealism, Salvador Dali; his melting clocks suggest a passing of time separate from the traditional function of the object, while his lobster phone brings together two seemingly unrelated objects with an absurdist twist. The umbrella, then, with its purpose obvious simply through its design, serves as a playground for surrealist artists to interrogate questions of form and function.
This formal playfulness is perhaps most clearly represented by René Magritte’s 1958 painting Hegel’s Holiday. With its title evoking Hegelian philosophy and its preoccupation with the function of objects, Magritte later elaborated on the contrast created by a glass of water being balanced on top of an umbrella. The opposing functions of the objects - that of the umbrella to repel water and that of the glass to contain it - neatly illustrate one of the approaches taken by surrealism to interrogate the everyday to the point of absurdity.
Similarly, the portrayal of two man-made objects without any human in sight in Magritte’s painting explicitly calls to mind the ‘unnatural’ nature of these objects, also explored in Salvador Dali’s 1941 painting Sewing Machine with Umbrellas. Here, the objects grow out from a gigantic sewing machine, casting long threatening shadows. The presence of the sewing machine even more explicitly calls to mind the machinery used in the production of the umbrella, with the barely-recognisable human figures seemingly in thrall to the large object as it casts its imposing shadows. The reframing of the umbrella as something which blocks out the light through the landscape for the contorted human figures is typical of Dali’s work, imagining the objects separate from any societal context.
To take a more modern example, Rafał Olbiński’s 2018 painting Rain not only integrates the human form with the umbrella but presents the umbrella as the cause of the rain rather than something to repel it, in a similar style to Banksy’s Umbrella Girl stencil from 2008. Olbiński’s painting echoes both Magritte and Dali’s interpretation of the umbrella, reversing its form by conflating the man-made object with the human body, and its function, by painting it as producing rain rather than protecting the holder from it. That the umbrella has, since Dali and Magritte’s interpretations, been used to highlight the fantastical nature of fictional characters from Mary Poppins to Totoro, further underscores the way that such simple, mundane, but recognisably human objects can easily be employed to heighten surrealist imagery.
