Surrealism is an "avant-garde" art movement that involves the expression of

art through mediums like paintings, sculpture, literature and film that help to guide
the viewer into conveying their unconscious mind and to stir away from repressive
and conventional social structures and beliefs. "Surrealism’s goal was to liberate
thought, language, and human experience from the oppressive boundaries of
rationalism" (Jon Mann, 2016, September 23). Artists were influenced by the work
of Austrian Neurologist Sigmund Freud in psychoanalysis which is the method of
using psychiatric therapy to treat mental illness. "Freud developed a new kind of
psychological treatment based on the patient talking about whatever came to mind
– memories, dreams, thoughts, emotions – and then analyzing that information in
order to relieve the patient’s symptoms. He would later call this process ‘free
association’" (2015). Surrealism expressed the same ideas of psychoanalysis that
dealt with dream, thought and the interpretation of emotion.
The movement was founded in Paris by French writer André Breton. Before
writing and publishing the surrealism manifesto in 1924, Breton was influenced by
Dadaism which was an art movement previous in Europe. "Dada was the first
conceptual art movement where the focus of the artists was not on crafting
aesthetically pleasing objects but on making works that often upended bourgeois
sensibilities and that generated difficult questions about society, the role of the
artist, and the purpose of art" (The Art Story Contributors, 2018 April 8). Surrealism
was built up on the ideas of rebellion of traditional beliefs that were originally
introduced in Dadaism previously. When Breton wrote the surrealist manifesto in
1924, the movement began around the 20's and ended right into the late 60's.
Surrealism movement influenced and had a great impact on culture by allowing
individuals creative freedom in their work rather than just creating purely for the
"aesthetic" within societal norms. "With its emphasis on content and free form,
Surrealism provided a major alternative to the contemporary, highly formalistic
Cubist movement and was largely responsible for perpetuating in modern painting
the traditional emphasis on content" (Britannica, T. E., 2018 April 9). Surrealism
shaped by Dadaism and the cubist movement previously found it possible for
artists to expand on their media as well as acquire a greater liberation in creating
art without repercussions from society.
The techniques that are associated with the effect of surrealism include,
• "Collage – assembling different elements to create a whole
• Cubomania – form of collage wherein an image is cut into squares and
reassembled randomly. This technique was invented by Romanian Surrealist
artist Gherasim Luca.
• Decalcomania – spreading thick paint on a canvas, and while still wet,
covering it with paper or foil. This is removed again, while still wet, and the
result of the pattern becomes the base of the finished painting.
• Eclaboussure – the process of placing paints down and the water or
turpentine is splattered. The painting is then soaked entirely, revealing
random splats and dots once the media is removed.
• Frottage – method of using the pencil rubbings over to a texture surface
• Fumage – art technique which made use of impressions by smoke of a
candle or lamp onto the blank canvas. Also called sfumato.
• Grattage – the process of scraping paint off the canvas to reveal the imprint
placed beneath" (Modern Surrealism and How It Is Used in Design Today,
2017 April 4).
Each technique is not bound to one medium, but often combines many
elements to one creation, focusing on the artists creative freedom to
experiment and explore with a variety of mediums.
Some influential artists that followed the movement of surrealism in their
work were, Salvador Dali "Once Dalí hit on that method, his painting style
matured with extraordinary rapidity, and from 1929 to 1937 he produced the
paintings which made him the world’s best-known Surrealist artist. He depicted
a dream world in which commonplace objects are juxtaposed, deformed, or
otherwise metamorphosed in a bizarre and irrational fashion. Dalí portrayed
those objects in meticulous, almost painfully realistic detail and usually placed
them within bleak sunlit landscapes that were reminiscent of his Catalonian
homeland."(Britannica, T. E, 2017, December 01). Who is most famously
known for his most popular painting "The Persistence of Memory" (1931) and
the film "Un Chien Andalou" (1929) which shows a scene of a dog's eye being
mutilated by a sharp object. Although Pablo Picasso was not officially part of
the surrealism movement, he was heavily influenced by the people he knew
who took part in the movement. "What the Surrealist movement gave to Picasso
were new subjects—especially erotic ones—as well as a reinforcement of
disturbing elements already found in his work. The many variations on the
subject of bathers with their overtly sexual and contorted forms (Dinard series
[1929]) show clearly the impact of Surrealism, and in other works the effect of
distortion on the emotions of the spectator can also be interpreted as fulfilling
one of the psychological aims of Surrealism (drawings and paintings of the
Crucifixion [1930–35]). In the 1930s Picasso, like many of the Surrealist
writers, often played with the idea of metamorphosis. For example, the image of
the minotaur, the monster of Greek mythology—half bull and half human—that
traditionally has been seen as the embodiment of the struggle between the
human and the bestial, becomes in Picasso’s work not only an evocation of that
idea but also a kind of self-portrait." (Marilyn Mcully, 2018 April 18). A
famous painting by Picasso is "Guernica" (1937) which also incorporates
cubism. Joan Miro painting "Dog Barking at the Moon" (1926), All impacted
by surrealism. Surrealism is still a movement that is expressed in a wide range
of artwork today and has affected society's view of art by broadening it,
especially on subjects that could potentially in earlier times offend others
without the knowledge of understanding the deeper meaning within work.