In this powerpoint, I have collected together a number of Surrealist artists who use imagination, dreams and

the unconscious. Their works disrupt the viewers’ expectations and create alternative realities.

JOURNEYS – IMAGINATION

The most famous of the Surrealists, Dali created hyper-real, hallucinatory worlds. Much of his imagery concerns reflections and doubled objects, molten, morphing objects and religious icons.

SALVADOR DALI

Magritte uses subtle, almost banal imagery to create memorable works – his use of juxtaposition and contrast is highly controlled. In the central image above, the combination of day and night, along with the very flat, inexpressive paint technique and the dove motif, is very typical of his style.

RENE MAGRITTE

Ernst pioneered the use of ‘frottage’, taking rubbings from textured surfaces in order to look for accidental images and forms. The two landscapes on the LHS use this technique.

MAX ERNST

A Surrealist photographer, Man Ray used a number of different techniques in order to combine images and ideas. These works would have seem much more surprising and avant-garde at the time they were made!

MAN RAY

Although not strictly a Surrealist, imagination is central to Kahlo’s work. She uses dreamlike images, personal mythology and her ancestral culture (Mexican) as source material for her compelling self portraits.

FRIDA KAHLO

More paintings by Frida Kahlo, again showing her use of repeated symbols, in this case the threads and ribbons, to illustrate family ties and links, both emotional and physical. The use of red (blood) and the wounds she suffers in her art echo the repeated operations she underwent during her lifetime, after a tram accident during her teenage years. Kahlo was never able to have children because of this and spent a good deal of her life bedridden, in plaster casts.

Miro approaches imagination in Art in a different way, creating abstract images, shapes and forms which are more closely connected with automatism and doodling. This contrasts with the ‘waking dream’ approach of artists like Dali and Magritte, who use realism and absurd juxtapositions in their work.

JOAN MIRO

Another female Surrealist, Oppenheim creates striking and memorable combinations of objects (juxtapositions) which suggest the idea of hybrids. On this page, a teacup appears to have grown a fur coat, a table stands on birds legs and high heeled shoes are trussed and bound like a roast chicken.

MERET OPPENHEIM

SALVADOR DALI

These paintings by Pierre Roy use something of the visual language of painters like Magritte; the sense of a fantasy world is created by the controlled, theatrical arrangements of unrelated objects which may or may not have some personal meaning for the painter. See also Louise Nevelson or Joseph Cornell.

PIERRE ROY

DOROTHEA TANNING