José María Hinojosa (1904-1936) has been credited with being a pioneer of Surrealism in Spain. He moved in the same circles as Buñuel and Dalí and was one of the key figures behind an attempt to form an organised group of Spanish surrealists along the lines of the French model. And yet, the name of Hinojosa remains curiously neglected. He lived a relatively short but prolific literary life during which time he published some groundbreaking surrealist poetry and texts.
His writing reveals a vision of Surrealism which originates from a particularly Spanish perspective as well as displaying many of those universally recognised Surrealist motifs. One of these, the iconic image of the mutilated eye, forms the focal point of this present study on Hinojosa's work. In keeping with the interdisciplinarity of Surrealism, Hinojosa's work is read here within the context of the visual arts - surrealist collage, paranoiac-critical activity and cinema. The impact of Hegelian thought upon Surrealism is reflected through the application of a 'Surrealist Dialectic' in this exploration of Hinojosa's surrealist visuality.