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Surrealism
1. Surrealism This is Not a Pipe (1968)
Rene Magritte
2. What is Surrealism?
• A 20th-century literary and artistic
movement that attempts to express
the workings of the subconscious
and is characterized by fantastic
imagery and incongruous
juxtaposition of subject matter.
• “To expose psychological truth by
stripping ordinary objects of their
normal significance, in order to create
a compelling image that was beyond
ordinary formal organization, in order
to evoke empathy from the viewer.” 4
The Son of Man (1964)
Rene Magritte
3. Origins of Surrealism
• Surrealsim grew from the Dada
Movement (1916-23), an anti-war,
anti-materialistic and anti-
nationalism movement that
rejected traditional art standards.
• Dadaism was born from the work
of avant-garde painters, poets and
filmmakers who flocked to Zurich,
Switzerland before and during
WWI, and literally meant “hobby-
horse” in French.
• Surrealism was also influenced by
Abstraction and Expressionism,
and somewhat by Futurism and
The Elephant of Celebes (1921)
Cubism.
Max Ernst
4. The Surrealist Movement
• Surrealism began around WWI, and was popular through WWII.
• The movement was a reaction against the nationalism (the country/state is most
important or one’s country/state is better than all others) and rationalism
(appealing to reason) movements that led to WW I and WWII.
• The Surrealist Movement began in Paris, France and spread throughout Europe
and beyond.
• While Impressionists and Cubists were very concerned with painting the way we
see—by blurring lines, or by showing an object from different sides at the same
time—the Surrealists were more concerned with painting how we really think.
They wanted to discover a new reality by mixing dreams with the imagination to
create strange and unusual paintings that allowed individual artists to express
new emotions and that would make us think. 3
5. Andre Breton
• 1896-1966
• French
• Surrealism was officially founded in
1924, when André Breton wrote Le
Manifeste du Surréalisme.
• He defined Surrealism as "Psychic
automatism in its pure state, by
which one proposes to express -
verbally, by means of the written
word, or in any other manner - the
actual functioning of thought."
6. Automatism
• Automatic drawing was developed by
the surrealists, as a means of
expressing the subconscious.
• In automatic drawing, the hand is
allowed to move 'randomly' across
the paper. In applying chance and
accident to mark-making, drawing is
to a large extent freed of rational
control. Hence the drawing produced
may be attributed in part to the
subconscious and may reveal
something of the psyche, which would
otherwise be repressed. 4
Automatic Drawing (1896-1897)
Andre Masson
7. Apparition of Face and Fruit
Famous Surrealists Dish on a Beach (1938)
Salvador Dali
8. Max Ernst
• 1891 – 1976
• German
• “Painting is not for me either
decorative amusement, or the
plastic invention of felt reality; it
must be every time: invention,
discovery, revelation.”
9. This painting is from
Ubu Imperator (1923)
Ernst’s Dada phase. Max Ernst
10. Joan Miro
• 1893 – 1983
• Spanish
• “The painting rises from the
brushstrokes as a poem rises from
the words. The meaning comes later.”
• Did not call himself a Surrealist, but
helped start the movement.
• Practitioner of Automatism.
12. Rene Magritte
• 1898 – 1967
• Belgian
• It is a union that suggests the
essential mystery of the world. Art
for me is not an end in itself, but a
means of evoking that mystery. ” -
René Magritte on the juxtaposition
of unrelated objects.
• Began painting Surrealism after
viewing Giorgio di Chirico’s work.
15. Salvador Dali
• 1904 – 1989
• Spanish
• “Surrealism is destructive, but it
destroys only what it considers to be
shackles limiting our vision.”
16. Dali’s most famous
The Persistence of Memory
surrealist work. (1931) Salvador Dali
17. Women in Surrealism
• Surrealism was the first artistic movement of the 20th century in which
women were able to explore feminism and stake a place in the art world.
• "Putting psychic life in the service of revolutionary politics, Surrealism
publicly challenged vanguard modernism's insistence on 'art for art's sake.'
But Surrealism also battled the social institutions - church, state, and family -
that regulate the place of women within patriarchy. In offering some women
their first locus for artistic and social resistance, it became the first modernist
movement in which a group of women could explore female subjectivity and
give form (however tentatively) to a feminine imaginary."
• Whitney Chadwick, from Women, Surrealism, and Self-Representation
18. Frida Kahlo
• 1907 – 1954
• Mexican
• “I paint my own reality. The only thing I
know is that I paint because I need to,
and I paint whatever passes through
my head without any other
consideration.”
19. An Exploration on Roles
Las Dos Fridas (1939)
of Women in Society. Frieda Khalo
20. Remedios Varo
• 1908 – 1963
• Spanish
• “On second thought, I think I am
more crazy than my goat.”
22. Leonora Carrington
• 1917 – 2011
• English/Irish
• "I didn't have time to be anyone's
muse... I was too busy rebelling
against my family and learning to be
an artist."
• As a young artist, married Max Ernst.
24. Impact of Surrealism
• Influenced writing and art, as well as several literary and artistic movements,
such as:
• postmodernism
• magic realism
• Surrealism: “It defines a range of creative acts of revolt and efforts to liberate
the imagination” 2
25. Was M.C. Escher a surrealist? Print Gallery (1956)
M.C. Escher
