In 1925 painting moved to the center of Surrealist theoretical writing. It caused the first serious dispute within the Surrealist circle and initiated a crisis that culminated early in 1929. This dissertation addresses the question of why painting's place in Surrealist intellectual production suddenly gained such importance. It seeks the answer by assessment of the reception of Surrealist art in the press. Automatism had provided a firm theoretical basis for writing before the visual arts were addressed (J. Chenieux-Gendron). C. Green thinks that in the internal discourse of Surrealism "automatism of the mark" and the hypnagogic flux of images remained two separate sources of inspiration in visual art from the start. It is my conviction that during the period 1924-1928, the Surrealists' collective search for a common basis of the two sources of creativity was contingent on the uncertainty about their audience. A. Breton's Surrealisme et la peinture was the crucial theoretical and critical text. It tried to defend painting as an essential means for the Surrealists' research of creative possibilities. The text's importance is historical and extends beyond the limits of visual arts. But the project of Surrealisme et la peinture ultimately failed in both theoretical and practical terms. After it was published as a book in 1928, painting had to relinquish its central place in the Surrealist project. The Surrealist exhibitions Peinture surrealiste in 1925, and Le Surrealisme existe-t-il? in 1928, encapsulate by their titles alone this failure which reflected in reorientation of almost all Surrealist painters. The question of audience's identity was complicated by the political engagement of the group. The Surrealists were committed to subverting bourgeois society. They anticipated a creation of a new audience, possibly among the working class. Clarte magazine fostered the Marxist orientation of the Surrealist group. The magazine appealed to Surrealists because of its oppositional stance in relation to the Party bureaucracy. The Surrealists accused their critics of vulgarizing their theory and political position. Although their protests were justified. Alas, that process of of vulgarization continued into some of the most recent art historical literature. The historical meanings of this vulgarization between 1925 and 1928, will clarify the reasons for the failure of Surrealisme et la peinture. Those meanings were generated by a misleading identification of the Naturalist and Surrealist aesthetics.