Rachelle Fawcett

Surrealism

Surrealism is a cultural movement, which began during late 1910s to early 1920s. However, originated during 1924 in Paris after the publication of the Manifesto of Surrealism by the poet Andre Breton. Surrealism uses real life imagery and associates it with visual imagery from our subconscious mind with the intentions of making the audience misinterpret and question the meaning behind the art and its normality. An art piece is considered Surreal if it associates to dreamlike imagery but using daily life scenarios and objects. Therefore, replacing the subconscious with the conscious and they believed this was much more valuable than reason. Surrealism combined elements of Cubism and Dadaism. However, it was rejected when it started up but its unique techniques intrigued people and Surrealism began to become accepted as a new form of art. Dada was an expressive art form, expressing their hatred towards the war and life in general. It was known to compose negative art pieces. Surrealism started after World War I. Therefore, its roots came from Dada. However, it was less brutal. Most surreal artists used hypnotism and drugs to explore a more dreamlike world but basing it on memories and feelings. The techniques used in surrealism have never been used before, which makes this art movement so unique. The most well know Surrealists are Salvador Dali, Andre Breton, Rene Magritte, Max Ernst etc. All these artists have furthermore, developed this art movement to an extent where new techniques were brought in to make this art movement different to others. Surrealism has changed art by having an influence on the literature, politics and psychology behind it.

Surreal paintings tend to emphasize our subconscious mind and to show how our dreams are better than reality. This was done following World War I. Therefore, associating reality to the time during the war. Besides Dadaism, Surrealists practiced techniques of automatism. Despite that, Surrealist works have also expanded automatic drawings by the idea of expressing the subconscious. Overall, Surrealists had many sources of inspiration for the techniques used in their artworks. Techniques such as, Collage, Cubomania, Frottage, Triptography etc. The list is endless because combining the subconscious and the conscious has opened plenty of opportunities for surrealists to explore different techniques since dreamlike imaginary gives artists more freedom as opposed to being narrowed down to one idea. Salvador Dali, the man who brought surrealism to the mainstream is one of the most influential surrealists. The technique, which he discovered and furthermore, developed and explored in his artwork, is the Parandial Critical method. This method describes how we interpret the visual data we are seeing as what it is in front of us. However, if you look at it from different perspectives, you can interpret it in many different ways and these additional ways being classified as a paranoiac delusion. Furthermore, this method has become to a big importance of surrealism and it’s the method, which all surrealists are interested in and use throughout their artworks.

Salvador Dali is one of the earliest surrealists. One of his most famous art pieces would be “The persistence of memory”, which is an oil painting created in 1931. This painting is considered surrealism because of how the clocks are melting, which is ironic because clocks are a solid object. However, in this painting they were made to be fragile. Salvador Dali said the inspiration of the melting clocks is by the

idea of Camembert cheese melting in the sun. To Salvador Dali, this painting was also a self-portrait, the white disfigured object in the center being himself. He related this to the unclear figure, which usually appears in our dreams, which we aren’t able to distinguish what and who is it. Therefore, in the painting he created a fading image of himself lying down, not showing a clear form of a human. This makes this painting surreal because he is combining the subconscious and the conscious together to create this art piece.

Furthermore, another successful surrealist artist would be Belgian artist Rene Margritte. He was known for his unusual and thought-provoking images. One of his art pieces would be The Son of Man, which is an oil painting self portrait created in 1964. The photo consists of a man standing in front of a low wall and an apple covering the man’s face. The meaning behind this painting is that whatever we see is hiding something else. There is always an interest in what we can’t see because it is hidden or if it is hidden because of the visible. This painting is surreal because it follows the idea of how there are many interpretations of something, which is visible to us. When we see something, we interpret it the way we see it. However, we don’t look at why it is really there or in the case of this photo, how there is more there, which isn’t visible to the eye.

Lastly, another successful surrealist artist would be German painter, Sculptor, Graphic artist and Poet, Max Ernst. One of his famous art pieces would be The Elephant Celebes, which is an oil painting created in 1921. This painting combines the dreamlike atmosphere of surrealism and the collage aspects of Dada. What Ernst usually did was either remove or add elements of images in order to create a new reality. This associates to what we do during hallucinations and dreamlike imagery, which are key elements of surrealism.

For example, the mechanical elephant in the center of the painting was a transformation of Sudanese corn-bin. The mechanical elephant and the headless female figure suggest the imagery of a dream, which associates with surrealism because it is combining the subconscious and the conscious mind to create a new reality.

All three of these artists are similar in a sense that they combine reality with our subconscious mind to create a new reality. However, they all had their individual qualities about their on artworks. Salvador Dali focused more on the multiple interpretations of what is right in front of us and how one thing can have multiple meanings. However, Rene Margritte focused on artworks, which more questionable and things that would make the audience think. He followed the Parandial Critical method, which Dali came up with where there are multiple interpretations for what we see. However, Margritte went into a more thought provoking idea behind this and took elements of this method to come up with the idea that what we see in front of us is blocking another view. So we never get to see the full visual like we think we do. Lastly, Max Ernst was similar to both Dali and Margritte in a sense of combining the subconscious and the conscious to create a new reality. However, he was more focused on this method and he interpreted more elements of Dada in his work such as, collaging in his composition.

Surrealism was influenced by a few art movements at the time such as Dada and cubism. However, before surrealism became mainstream it wasn’t accepted by many people. During that time period, most people were used to paintings, which depicted what was seen visually. Therefore, no body understood surrealism until after Salvador Dali made it mainstream.

In conclusion, Surrealism has had a great impact on art, literature, culture and even politics. It is an art movement dedicated to the imagination of our subconscious mind, free of the conscious control of reason and convention and it is still continuing and growing as an art movement today. Surrealism taught art to not see visuals literally but to appreciate it on a subconscious level as well. Surrealism is still a growing trend in artwork nowadays since artists find it easier because it enables them to be free and convey their personal feelings and thoughts through their art. Surrealism has developed because of technology. Nowadays, photo manipulation is a favorite technique, which surrealist artists use. Furthermore, because of improved technology, surrealist web design focuses on three-dimensional images and reconstructs them using elements of various sections of visuals to create a new reality. Improved technology enables dreamy effects, music and animation to make something more surreal and unique and this is a drastic development in comparison to drawn illustration, which is how surrealism first started out.