Surrealism

Characteristics of Surrealism

Elements of surprise

Unexpected juxtapositions

Distortions of reality

Dream like subject matter

Interest in the subconscious

Magical and instinctive

Surrealist Artists

Salvador Dali - Spanish

Rene Magritte - Belgian

Joan Miró - Spanish

Max Ernst - German

Giorgio de Chirico - Greek

Giorgio de Chirico. Mystery and Melancholy of a Street.

1914.

Oil on canvas. 88 x 72 cm.

Private collection.

Surrealism

Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best

known for the visual artworks and

writings of the group members

The surrealist movement of visual art and literature, flourished in Europe

between World Wars I and II.

Surrealism grew principally out of the earlier Dada movement, which

before World War I produced works of

anti-art that deliberately defied reason; but Surrealism emphasis was

not on denial but on positive

expression.

Surrealism Artists like René Magritte and Salvador Dali

ignored painting techniques of contemporary painting but used traditional forms of realistic painting.

The details of the paintings were realistic, but they were combined in such a way that the painting as a whole was very far from realistic.

Just as in dreams the fleeting images of the subconscious are mingled together to form strange and fantastic pictures.

The Surrealist painters applied these to canvas and developed the possibilities of this strange imagery in a conscious manner.

Surrealism

Dream analysis and the hidden unconscious was of

the utmost importance to the Surrealists in developing

methods to liberate imagination.

The group aimed to revolutionise human experience,

including its personal, cultural, social, and political

aspects, by freeing people from what they saw as

false rationality, and restrictive customs and structures.

In 1924 The Surrealist Manifesto was published.

The paper defined the purposes of the group and

includes citations of the influences on Surrealism, and

examples of Surrealist works

Max Ernst Oedipus Rex, 1922

Oil on canvas

93 x 102 cm

Private collection,

Paris

Sigmund Freud

Sigmund Freud was an Austrian

psychiatrist who founded the

psychoanalytic school of psychology.

Freud is best known for his theories of

the unconscious mind.

Freud called dreams the "royal road

to the unconscious".

This meant that dreams illustrate the

"logic" of the unconscious mind.

Influenced by the theories of

Sigmund Freud , the images found in

surrealist works are as confusing and

startling as those of dreams.

André Breton

André Breton became known as the Pope of

Surrealism, and was responsible for writing "The

Manifestos of Surrealism" (1924)

Drawing heavily on theories adapted from

Sigmund Freud, Breton saw the unconscious as

the wellspring of the imagination.

According to Breton, Surrealism was a means of

reuniting conscious and unconscious realms of

experience so completely, that the world of

dream and fantasy would be joined to the

everyday rational world in "an absolute reality, a surreality.”

André Breton

Sigmund Freud

Automatic Writing

Automatic writing is the process or

production of writing material that

does not come from the conscious

thoughts of the writer.

Practitioners say that the writer's hand

forms the message, with the person

being unaware of what will be written.

In automatic drawing, the hand is

allowed to move 'randomly' across the

paper.

Automatic drawing was developed by

the surrealists, as a means of expressing

the subconscious.

André Masson. Automatic Drawing.

(1924). Ink on paper,

Museum of Modern Art,

New York.

Joan Miró. Harlequin's Carnival. 1924-25.

Oil on canvas. 66 x 93 cm. Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY, USA.

René Magritte “The Treachery of Images (This is not a pipe),” 1929

Oil on canvas, 25 3/8 x 37”.

Salvador Dali Persistence of Memory, 1931

Oil on canvas, 24 cm × 33 cm

Museum of Modern Art, New York City

Surrealist Film – Un Chien Andalou, 1929