Surrealism Gabby LeBlanc Luke Hazen Arjun Chadha
Dec 26, 2014
Surrealism
Gabby LeBlancLuke Hazen
Arjun Chadha
What is Surrealism?
• A 20th-century avant-garde movement in art and literature that sought to release the creative potential of the unconscious mind.
Intro to Surrealism
• 1920’s-1930’s after WWI.• Surrealism developed out of the avant-garde
Dada movement.• Dada was more violent and less artistically
based compared to Surrealism.• It began in Paris in 1924 with Andre Breton’s
Surrealist Manifesto.
Andre Breton• 1896-1966• He was a Dadaist and a
Communist. • Founding father and
leader of the Surrealist movement.
• “Psychic automatism in its pure state, by which one expresses… the actual functioning of thought.”
Sigmund Freud
• Freud has many theories on free association, dream analysis, and the unconscious.
• Psychoanalytic interpretation; used to illuminate unconscious mind.
Intro to Surrealism
• Let go of traditional ways of painting.• Used drugs, alcohol, hypnotism, and
hallucinations to provoke the subconscious. • A combination of dreams and reality. • Investigated the mind and new areas of art.
Automatists• The way in which the
images of the subconscious reached the conscious.
• Focused on feeling.• Did not believe in
meaning.
Andre MassonAutomatic Drawing
1924
Veristic
• Shows the dream world.
• Deep meanings.• Subconscious
surfaces to the conscious mind where it can be deciphered. Sleep
Salvador Dali1937
Max Ernst
• 1891-1976• German-born artist who
often worked with sculpture, painting, and collages.
• Founder of two surrealist techniques decalcomania and frottage.
Elephant Celebus1921
Loplop introduces Loplop1930
Pieta or Revolution by Night1923
Europe After the Rain1940
Salvador Dali
• 1904-1989• Born in Catalonia, Spain.• “Hand-Painted Dream
Photographs.”• Paranoid-Critical
method.• Tried to decipher his
subconscoius world.
The Persistence of Memory 1931
Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee around a Pomegranate One Second Before Awakening1944
Daddy Long-Legs of the Evening… Hope!1929
Soft Construction with Boiled Beans1936
Rene Magritte
• 1898-1967• Core of the Belgian
Surrealist group • Experienced his
mother’s suicide
The Red
Model 1937
The False Mirror 1928
The Lovers 1928
The Treachery of Images 1929
The Rape 1934
Frida Kahlo
• 1907-1954• Mexican painter
born in Coyocan• Used psychological
experiences that came from a life of physical suffering.
The Dream 1940
Joan Miro
• 1893-1983• Born in Barcelona• Automatist• Catalan Nationalist
TheFarm
1921-1922
Maternity 1924
Carnival of the Harlequin1924-1925
The Hunter (Catalan Landscape)1924
Influences
• Surrealism taught the world to see art not merely visually and literally; but to appreciate it in a subconscious level as well.
• Made America the art capital.• Resulted in Abstract Expressionism as well as
other movements.
Summary
• Surrealism started from the Dada movement with Andre Breton’s Surrealist Manifesto.
• It focused on painting images from the subconscious.
• It was influenced by Freudian Theories.• There were two types: Veristic and Automatic.• Lead into Abstract Expressionism and other
movements.