The Four Forms Of Surrealism

the human eye. Visualize having the ability to completely free your imagination, letting your thoughts and desires wander to form exotic scenes or locations. These unfamiliar worlds lay deep inside of the brain as subconscious thoughts, usually undetected by the person with them in his or her possession. With the help of the intriguing art movement known as Surrealism, however, these subconscious thoughts are finally able to be brought to fruition. Surrealism is a unique style of art that originated in France with the help of brilliant writer André Breton (Chilvers 599). He defined surrealism and its principles as a “purely psychic automatism through which we undertake to express, in words, writing, or any other activity, the actual functioning of thought… Surrealism rests upon belief in the higher reality of specific forms of associations, previously neglected, in the omnipotence of dreams, and in the disinterested play of thinking” (Chilvers 599). He also strongly emphasized that its purpose was “to resolve the previously contradictory conditions of dream and reality into an absolute reality, a super-reality” (Chilvers 599). Surrealism is a 20th century style of painting which rebels against traditional notions of art. In order to understand this genre, it is necessary to examine the movement’s characteristics, representative

To begin, we will look at the ideals and influences that led to the formation of surrealist ideals,

Surrealism was one of the most influential artistic movements of the 20th Century. André Breton consolidated Surrealism as a movement in the early 1920s, trying to achieve the “total liberation of the mind and of all that resembles it[1]” through innovative and varied ideas. Surrealism deeply influenced the world in the era between the two world wars and played a big role in the diffusion and adoption of psychology worldwide. Surrealism faded after World War II, but its revolutionary genius has influenced every artistic movement ever since.

Non-conformist to traditional art forms, Conceptualism challenges the viewer to delve into the mindset of the artist. It is often seen as multidimensional as it forces the audience to decipher the artists intentions. This art movement has been completely rejecting the standard ideas of art since the mid-1960’s. Since then, many artists have made a name for themselves by self-consciously expanding the boundaries of art. Many of these artists have said they’ve linked their work to artist Marcel Duchamp.

“Un Chien Andalou was born of the encounter between my dreams and Dali’s.” , says Luis Bunuel in his autobiography; both Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dali are known to be artists who are considered as the creators and representatives of the Surrealist movement, while challenging it in every work of them.

Joan Miro(1893-1983) was a Catalan painter who combined surrealistic fantasy and abstract art. His original style was evolved from the tension between his fanciful, poetic impulse and his vision the harshness of modern life. He worked widely in lithography and made various murals, tapestries and sculptures for public spaces.

This piece from Khalo is a very unique piece, “she laid down each stoke firmly to build a simple and clear image ” (SOURCE). Khalo’s creativity and artistic skills shine through in this painting, from the the neatly done contouring on her body to each sought out detail she chose to add onto it. This painting is still vastly talked about in today’s time due to it being an iconic example of surrealism. One of the most famously known Modernism’s movements is Surrealism. Surrealism was created based on “Frued’s writings on free association and dream analysis” (BOOK 43).

Since there is no doninant style for Surrealism but I classify its surrealism. The technique itself is cubism but the theme of the work is Surrealism. This work made caused of WWI, it's expressing the chaos and depression. It's the condition of "irritate" of the surrealism style.

Achieving the surreal effect composed from Impressionism is accomplished by a technique some onlookers describe as licking the canvas (About.com, 2014). The broad strokes, light colors, single lighting creates a less refined work that less refined or almost dream like appeal. In all, Impressionism captures the essence of every day life or a landscape for the viewer to retain longer due to its insufficient clarity. Le Figaro by Mary Cassatt is fine example of the surreal effect presented by impressionist

From the beginning, his work contained an element of hallucination and fantasy. After Surrealist poets in Paris introduced him to using chance to create art, the young Spaniard devised a new painting method that allowed him to create works such as Painting. Miró began his painting by making a scattered collage composition with assembled fragments cut from a catalogue for machinery. The motifs he creating is free hand drawing of black silhouettes mostly of solid or outline, with dramatic accents of white and vermilion. A curiosity element will be there in every part of his drawing.

“Group of artist and writers who from 1924 on gathered about André Breton in Paris”(Page 366 -Theories of modern art- Herschel B. Chipp) Surrealism is well known for breaking conventions of the traditional style of art and photography. The dada movement had a lot of influence over the surrealist movement, they believed in constructing a scene rather than simply photographing or painting what was in front of them. Their way of seeing and interpreting the world was that of futurist ideas and finding new ways to portray a subject, allowing the viewer to form their own interpretation. Artists and writers had the idea of surrealism as being a gateway

The surrealist artists believed the dream state and subconscious mind to be an untapped and very fertile creative fount of inspiration. The symbolism of dreams and the expressive images generated by the subconscious were far more thought provoking than the representational, logical images of the conscious mind. The surrealist artists were creating art out of what others thought to be garbled and unintelligible. They were in effect taking a concept created to heal and using it to create art instead. They were on to something with this. No matter what the medium or the style used, a bit of the self becomes visible and evident in the result. Art therapy is one of the modern descendants of this movement.

It includes the Impressionist and Cubist styles of his early period, abstract work from his transition to Surrealism, and covers the religious and scientific themes of his classic period.

The surrealist movement holds emotional authenticity and social activism as the highest ideals. Influenced by the work of Freud and Jung, the arts are viewed as psychic manifestations that go deeper than external reality. Spontaneous techniques, like psychic automatism (i.e. automatic writing and drawing), generate images from the unconscious and result in content similar to dream experiences and contemplating these images provides a new experience of reality (McNiff, 2009).

As mentioned surrealism, like Dadaism, tried to distance itself from contemporary culture and sought to shock the familiarity of reality. Hence, the unconscious has a centrepiece in surrealist art and the underlying theme was to create images of such unconscious situation or universes. This was primarily achieved with the use of symbolism and the placing of objects in unfamiliar settings. This would revitalize and redefine such objects outside the conventional reality that is the adversary in surrealist art and hence create the desired conflict between the conventional and the unconscious (Waldberg 1997; Martin 1987).