surrealism

Movement in art, literature, and film that developed out of Dada around 1922. Led by André Breton, who produced the Surrealist Manifesto (1924), the surrealists were inspired by the thoughts and visions of the subconscious mind. They explored varied styles and techniques, and the movement became the dominant force in Western art between World Wars I and II.

Surrealism followed Sigmund Freud's theory of the unconscious and his ‘free association’ technique for bypassing the conscious mind. Although there was no specific surrealist style, artworks fall into two main categories: those that use conventional techniques to depict fantastic, enigmatic images, such as Salvador Dalí's melting watches in his Persistence of Memory (1931); and those that use inventive techniques, such as frottage (rubbing of a raised surface) developed by Max Ernst. Pablo Picasso worked along surrealist lines for a time in the early 1920s. André Masson experimented in automatic drawing; Max Ernst, Joan Miró, and Yves Tanguy created emotive, semi-abstract forms; while Dali and René Magritte painted their dreamlike images in a realistic style. The poets Louis Aragon and Paul Eluard and the film-maker Luis Buñuel were also part of the movement.