Surrealism

Surrealism [suh-ree-uh-liz-uhm]
a style of art and literature developed principally in the 20th century, stressing the subconscious or nonrational significance of imagery arrived at by automatism or the exploitation of chance effects, unexpected juxtapositions, etc.

The surrealist movement originated in Europe as a reaction to the Dada movement. Dadaism took place before WWI and deliberately produced anti-art. It purposely defied reason. Surrealism was an expression against "rationalism" which was a politcal policy in the early 20th century around the time of the world wars. André Breton, the supposed founder of surrealism, said that surrealism was a means of reuniting conscious and unconscious realms of experience as completely as possible, that the world of dream and fantasy would be joined to the everyday rational world in "an absolute reality, a surreality." In his "Surrealism Manifesto"(1924), Breton drew on the ideas of Sigmund Freud. [To learn more about this famous psychologist, click here] Breton considered the unconscious mind a doorway into the realm of the brain that was not normally tapped into.

"It is not the fear of madness which will oblige us to leave the flag of imagination furled. "
-André Breton

Salvador Dali, Vladamir Kush and Rene Magritte are all artists from the surrealist movement. They created paintings that were drawn from the inner workings of the brain: the subconscious. These paintings were meant to mess with people's heads and alter their vision of reality. Some of them are quite beautiful while others are somewhat creepy. They all symbolize an illusion, or an alternate reality.

**If you click on each of the paintings below, they will enlarge so you can see the whole image more fully and clearly and the title will also appear.