Surrealism
Dream and the unconscious over reason: an impossible reality painted with precision
How to recognise it
- Ordinary objects in absurd combinations
- Melting, soft, morphing forms
- Empty landscape with a distant horizon
- Caption contradicting the image
Why it emerged
After the slaughter of WWI, poets and painters lost faith in 'rational' bourgeois culture. Freud's psychoanalysis pointed to another truth — in dreams, slips of the tongue and automatic writing.
Examples
The Persistence of Memory1931 · Salvador DalíMelting watches on the Catalan shore became the best-known image of Surrealism
The Treachery of Images ('This is not a pipe')1929 · René Magritte'This is not a pipe' under a pipe: the classic lesson on image versus objectManifesto of Surrealism1924 · André BretonDefined Surrealism as 'pure psychic automatism' and gave the movement its programmeNadja1928 · André BretonA documentary novel using photographs instead of description: Paris of chance and madnessThe Two Fridas1939 · Frida KahloA double self-portrait sharing an exposed heart; Breton called Kahlo a Surrealist, she disagreed
The Treachery of Images ('This is not a pipe')1929 · René Magritte'This is not a pipe' under a pipe: the classic lesson on image versus objectManifesto of Surrealism1924 · André BretonDefined Surrealism as 'pure psychic automatism' and gave the movement its programmeNadja1928 · André BretonA documentary novel using photographs instead of description: Paris of chance and madnessThe Two Fridas1939 · Frida KahloA double self-portrait sharing an exposed heart; Breton called Kahlo a Surrealist, she disagreedHow it spread
- 1924 Paris
- 1926 Brussels
- 1934 Prague
- 1936 London
- 1938 Cairo
- 1940 Mexico City
- 1942 New York
Meanwhile elsewhere
- Expressionism Europe
- Russian avant-garde Eastern Europe & Russia
- Harlem Renaissance Americas
- Modern architecture (International Style) Whole world
- Constructivism Eastern Europe & Russia
- Art Deco Europe
- Mexican muralism Americas
- Socialist realism Eastern Europe & Russia
- Abstract expressionism Americas