Magic Realism - Etymology

Etymology

While the term magical realism in its modern sense first appeared in 1955, the German art critic Franz Roh first used the phrase in 1925, to refer to a painterly style also known as Neue Sachlichkeit (the New Objectivity), an alternative championed by fellow German museum director Gustav Hartlaub. Roh believed magic realism is related to, but distinctive from, surrealism, 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 realism by American painters such as Ivan Albright, Paul Cadmus, George Tooker 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 Bontempelli, for instance, considered the first magic realist creative writer, sought to present the "...mysterious and fantastic quality of reality." He claimed that literature 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 Fascism. Venezuelan Arturo Uslar-Pietri was closely associated with Roh's form of magic realism and knew Bontempelli in Paris. Rather than follow Cuban writer Alejo Carpentier'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 modernist experimental writings of Latin America."

Literary magic realism originated in Latin America. 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 Surrealism, 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 Gasset. "Within a year, Magic Realism was being applied to the prose of European authors in the literary circles of Buenos Aires." Jorge Luis Borges 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 Argentina.