Dear Stefan Zweig
I really have reason to thank you for the introduction which brought me yesterday’s visitors. For until then I was inclined to look upon surrealists, who have apparently chosen me for their patron saint, as absolute (let us say 95 per cent, like alcohol) cranks. The young Spaniard, however, with his candid fanatical eyes and his undeniable technical mastery, has made me reconsider my opinion. It would in fact be very interesting to investigate analytically how a picture like this came to be painted. From the critical point of view it could still be maintained that the notion of art defies expansion as long as the quantitative proportion of unconscious material and preconscious treatment does not remain within definite limits. In any case these are serious psychological problems.
Carta de Sigmund Freud para Stefan Zweig
Londres, 20 de julho de 1938
Quixotando 