The meaning of anti-visual images in Story of the Eye and Un Chien AndalouThe faithful alliance between the eye and the body has been seriously attacked with the advent of the former world war. The effects of trench warfare on people's perceptions have caused them to question and reevaluate the trust they once placed in their sense of vision. The experience of trench warfare was characterized by confusion due to the inability to see the enemy, indistinguishable shadows, gas-induced haze, and sudden bursts of blinding light (Jay 174). As a result of this lack of visual clarity, a nationalist movement toward visual clarity emerged in interwar France that was evident in the decline of interest in Cubism and the subsequent appreciation of Purism (Silver 79). The directive of this movement was to restore a unified sense of vision that coincided with what was desired for the emerging post-war society. This attempt to reorganize the shattered sense of perspective, however, met with dissonance among many of those involved in the war. Many Surrealists, including Breton, were forced to participate in the war, and their experiences left them disenchanted. Jay 182). The war helped contribute to their general feeling of nihilism and what Breton described as their "campaign of systematic refusal". Breton elaborated on this "systematic refusal" in his essay "What is Surrealism?" discussing "the incredible stupidity of the arguments that have attempted to legitimize our participation in an enterprise like war, the issue of which has left us completely indifferent", and defining their refusal "against the whole series of intellectual, moral obligations and social forces which continually and on all sides oppress man and crush him.” The eye was not, it seems, impervious to the extent of this “systematic refusal.” Breton and his group of surrealists perpetuated their ideas beyond the text and in the eyes through the use of painting and photography, while redefining the roles of these forms of media. “Painting the impossible” is what Magritte liked to call “precedence of poetry over painting (Mathews 34) " In his and other Surrealist paintings there was a strong need to challenge the integrity of optical experience. For example, the Romanian Victor Brauner had decided to paint with his eyes closed, and Magritte directly challenged speech and thought by incorporating his treacherous titles.