Most people have heard of the Surrealism movement. Surrealism began in France, but soon spread throughout the world. It has influenced art, literature, culture, politics, music and films. Yet not everybody has much of an idea about what the Surrealism movement was and where it came from.
The Surrealism movement began in 1924 with the publication of a book written by a French poet named Andre Brenton. The book he published was called 'Manifeste du Surrealisme.' This book described how Surrealism can be applied to art, poetry and literature as well as any other aspect of life. Brenton believed that by contacting the subconscious part of the mind a person could access poetic and artistic truths.
Art
Surrealism was influenced by the work of Sigmund Freud in that it attempted to express the subconscious mind. It was based on the belief that the imagination is expressed in dreams. Surrealism has nothing to do with conscious thoughts, conventional ideas, rationale or logic. Surrealism, then, can be described as an expression of the subconscious mind.
The Surrealism movement was also influenced by Dadaism. The Dadaism cultural and political movement was anarchistic. It was also against war as well as being anti-bourgeois. Dadaism began during the First World War. It asserted that the horrifying conflict was the result of bourgeois attitudes and excessive rational thought.
How can you tell if you are looking at an art painting from the Surrealist movement? Surrealist paintings always have that wonderful element of surprise. Surrealist paintings do not follow the rules of logic. Instead they show amazing images from the unconscious mind. Surrealist painters had no intension of making their work understandable. Hence there is nothing rational about Surrealist paintings. Painters from the Surrealist movement include Georgio De Chirico, Andre Masson, Man Ray, Marcel Duchamp, Kay Sage, and Yves Tanguy. The most famous artist of the Surrealist movement is, undoubtedly, the Spanish painter Salvador Dali.
If you would like to see some excellent examples of surrealist art then it is worth looking at Salvador Dali's paintings. For example, let's talk about the painting 'The Persistence of Memory,' which is probably Dali's most famous work. This painting shows a series of soft melting clocks or time pieces. It is illogical in that what should be hard is actually soft and malleable. Art critics generally agree that this painting is meant to represent the fact that time, a rational concept, is actually completely irrelevant. The clocks can be seen as a representation of the passage of time when one is dreaming. In the center of the painting is a strange unidentifiable figure. It is widely believed that this figure represents the unidentifiable monster that people often dream is chasing them.
Salvador Dali's painting, 'The Persistence of Memory,' is just one of hundreds of paintings from the Surrealist movement. If you peruse the internet you will find many examples of Surrealist art. If you like the paintings from the Surrealist movement and would like to decorate your home with a few of them, you can. Prints, poster or oil paint reproductions of Surrealist painting are available on the web.
A Description of the Surrealism Art Movement
I hope you find this article interesting. Consider a museum quality Surrealist paintings for your next home decoration project. We specialized in oil on canvas painting reproductions of famous masterpieces.