A re-evaluation of the status and use of the photographic image in historical Surrealism, which seeks to locate the Surrealists' use of photography within the cultural discourses of the time. David Bate examines automatism and the photographic image, the Surrealist passion for insanity, the ambivalent use of Orientalism, the use of Sadean philosophy and the effect of fascism on the Surrealists. The chapters ask what a Surrealist photograph is, and follow the automatic image, sadness and sanity, the Oriental signifier, the Sadean eye, black object and white subject, the truth of the colonies, and fascism and exile.