After World War I, surrealism developed as an artistic and literary movement in Europe. It was influenced by a movement that began in New York around 1915 called Dada. This movement was flourishing in Paris in 1920, but it fizzled out. The Dadaists rejected logic and reason, and they created irrational works. They were sympathetic to far-left political views, and they later looked to activate the mind using Surrealist art.
What Is Surrealism?
The Surrealists were led by theFrench poet Andre Breton. He had worked in a neurological hospital that practiced the psychoanalytic methods of Sigmund Freud. He was also inspired by the dadaists. He published his Surrealist manifesto on October 15, 1924. Paris was the center of the movement, and its goal was to resolve the previous contraction of dream and reality into absolute reality. They called it a super reality.
They also believed that Automatism is the creation of art without conscious thought and that it would bring about the societal changes they wanted. Freud and Marx heavily influenced their viewpoint, and they saw Freud’s work in dream analysis as critical to their work.
What Are the Characteristics of Surrealism?
The goal of Surrealists was to revolutionize the human experience and free people from false rationality. They believed that rationality was restrictive. They viewed their works of art as expressions of a philosophical movement and artifacts of it. They wanted to free the mind to be more imaginative, and they included elements that were unexpected, illogical, and designed to evoke emotions and thought.
The Golden Age of Surrealism occurred in the 1930s, and it included writers and artists. There was a prominent group in London, and Salvador Dali joined to help bring the work into the spotlight. Dali is one of the best-known artists of the time. Photography existed too, and at this time, the goal of Surrealism was to remove the accepted function of ordinary objects. It was a mixture of abstraction with psychological and depictive elements. Famous artists from this movement include Andre Masson, Alberto Giacometti, Max Ernst, Joan Miro, and Salvador Dali.