The Beribboned Bomb: The Image of Woman in Male Surrealist Art

Bert Almon is a professor of English at the University of Alberta and
the author of Calling Texas and Earth Prime.

Belton has prepared a learned but very accessible study of the attitudes
of Surrealist painters and writers toward women. He finds misogyny and
sadism everywhere; the occasional ambivalent attitude seems healthy by
comparison. The book is brilliantly illustrated, though many of the
pictures are definitely not for the squeamish. Most of the artists are
French, except for Man Ray and Dali. Belton’s learning is
comprehensive and his theoretical concepts are nourished by current
thought without seeming trendy. He might have given more attention to
the roots of Surrealism in Dada—especially New York Dada—but he
knows the inner history of the Surrealist movement very well.

This is one of the best scholarly books of the year. Anyone with an
interest in Surrealist art will be fascinated and somewhat repelled by
Belton’s searching inspection of the sexual fixations, anxieties, and
occasional ecstasies of the Surrealists.