Question

2. What is Surrealism? What inspired its development? Name some of its artists and discuss their work. 3. list three distinguishing characteristics of Surrealism that separated it from Cubism and Dada.

Answer 1

2. Surrealism is an art movement that has had a lasting influence on painting, sculpture, literature, photography, and film. Surrealists influenced by Sigmund Freud's theories of hallucinations and the unconscious claimed insanity was the breaking of the chains of thought, and they expressed that concept in their art by producing imagery that was unthinkable in fact, juxtaposing unlikely forms on unreal landscapes. Although it waned as an organized movement, Surrealism has never vanished as an artistic theory of development. Breton and others, including Ernst, experimented with hypnotism as a means of gaining exposure to unconscious imagination, but the group decided the experimentation became risky. Painters Joan Miró and André Masson met in 1923, and joined Breton. Influenced by Freud, Breton had in writing experimented with automatism to create words that had no thought or planning. By 1924 Miró and Masson started their version with ink and pen. In 1925, Ernst practiced frottage as a reaction to automatism, using cracks in a floorboard as the surface under his drawing paper. He applied the idea to oil painting, spreading and scratching pigments on a canvas. Ernst's Wood and Dove drawing from 1927 used this technique

3. Surrealism has become known as the most influential movement in art of the 20th century. Figures like Salvador Dalí and Man Ray not only inspired avant-garde art but also introduced the style to a huge popular audience through their commercial work-in fashion photography, advertisement and film. After the fall of Minimalism in the 1960s, the influence of the movement has returned to fashion, and has drawn significant interest from art historians since the 1970s. Surrealism was officially established in 1924, when Le Manifeste du Surréalisme was published by André Breton.

A key feature of Surrealism is that the artist relies on their unconsciousness, but reality and consciousness combine with this state of consciousness when the unconscious finds a way to express reality and render it in the canvases that these artists make. Some artists may use Dreams and Fantasy to express reality, and this can create a meaningful Dreamlike drawing, while others depend on just where they are brought by their subconscious, just as they do in automatism. Several different techniques can be used such as frottage, where the texture underneath the paper is imprinted on the paper using devices such as the wax crayon.