Page 1 || Encyclopedia Article || Fantasy Arts || Modern Surrealism Art Observation

I Introduction
(modern surrealism movement)
Surrealism, artistic and literary movement that explored and celebrated the realm of dreams and the unconscious mind through the creation of visual art, poetry, and motion pictures. Surrealism was officially launched in Paris, France, in 1924, when French writer Andre Breton wrote the first surrealist manifesto, outlining the ambitions of the new movement. (Breton published two more surrealist manifestoes, in 1930 and 1942.) The movement soon spread to other parts of Europe and to North and South America. Among surrealism's most important contributions was the invention of new artistic techniques that tapped into the artist's unconscious mind.

II Origins of Surrealism
(modern surrealism movement)
Surrealism, in many respects, was an offshoot of an earlier art movement known as dada, which was founded during World War I (1914-1918). Disillusioned by the massive destruction and loss of life brought about by the war, the dadaists' motivations were profoundly political: to ridicule culture, reason, technology, even art. They believed that any faith in humanity's ability to improve itself through art and culture, especially after the unprecedented destruction of the war, was naive and unrealistic. As a result, the dadaists created works using accident, chance, and anything that underscored the irrationality of humanity: for example, making poems out of pieces of newspaper chosen at random, speaking nonsensical syllables out loud, and displaying everyday objects as art. The surrealist program grew out of dada, but it put a more positive spin on dada's essentially negative message.
The surrealists were heavily influenced by Sigmund Freud, the Austrian founder of psychoanalysis. They were especially receptive to his distinction between the ego and the id-that is, between our primal instincts and desires (the id) and our more civilized and rational patterns of behavior (the ego). Since our primal urges and desires frequently run afoul of social expectations, Freud concluded that we repress our real desires into the unconscious part of our minds. For individuals to enjoy psychological health, he felt, they must bring these desires to the awareness of the conscious mind. Freud believed that despite the overwhelming urge to repress desires, the unconscious still reveals itself-particularly when the conscious mind relaxes its hold-in dreams, myths, odd patterns of behavior, slips of the tongue, accidents, and art. In seeking to gain access to the unconscious, the surrealists invented radical new art forms and techniques.