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

La Foret Petrifee1929

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.

Henry Ford Hospital 1932

Self Portrait with Monkeys

1943

The Dream 1940

Wounded Deer 1946

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.