SUR

• Surrealism


  Defies logic, dreams and the workings of the subconscious mind inspire surrealistic art (French for "super-realism") filled with strange images and bizarre juxtapositions
• In the early 20th century Surrealism emerged as a philosophic and cultural movement, fueled by the teachings of Freud and the rebellious work of Dada artists and poets
• Surrealists


  • Promoted free association and dream imagery
  • Visual artists, poets, playwrights, composers, and film-makers looked for ways to liberate the psyche and tap hidden reservoirs of creativity
• Surrealism


  "marked by the intense, irrational reality of a dream"
• Many argue that surrealism, as an identifiable cultural movement, ended with the death of Breton in 1966. Others believe that it remains a vital and relevant force today
• Surreal


  Often used loosely to mean simply 'strange' or 'dreamlike', but not to be confused with 'surrealist' which describes a substantial connection with the philosophy and manifestations of the surrealist movement
• Surrealism


  Originally a literary movement, it explored dreams, the unconscious, the element of chance and multiple levels of reality
• Surrealism


  Aimed to revolutionize human experience, rejecting a rational vision of life in favor of one that asserted the value of the unconscious and dreams
• Surrealistic Art


  • Dream-like scenes and symbolic images
  • Unexpected, illogical juxtapositions
  • Bizarre assemblages of ordinary objects
  • Automatism and a spirit of spontaneity
  • Games and techniques to create random effects
  • Personal iconography
  • Visual puns
  • Distorted figures and biomorphic shapes
  • Uninhibited sexuality and taboo subjects
  • Primitive or child-like designs
• World War I (1914-1918) and the work of Sigmund Freud were profoundly influential for Surrealists
• Surrealism


  Represented a reaction against what its members saw as the destruction wrought by the "rationalism" that had guided European culture and politics previously and that had culminated in the horrors of World War I
• Surrealist Technique: Automatism


  Spontaneous uncensored recording of chaotic images that "erupt" into the consciousness of the artist
• Surrealist Technique: Exquisite Corpse

  An artist draws a part of the human body, folds the paper, and passes it to the next artist, who adds the next part, until a collective composition is complete
• The Surrealist movement represented a reaction against what its members saw as the destruction wrought by the "rationalism" that had guided European culture and politics previously and that had culminated in the horrors of World War I
• Sigmund Freud's work, particularly his book The Interpretation of Dreams, was profoundly influential for Surrealists, as it legitimized the importance of dreams and the unconscious as valid revelations of human emotion and desires
• Characteristics of Surrealism include reaction to chaos of WWI, interest in the subconscious, distortions of reality, reversal of natural laws, double images, and juxtaposition
• Paranoiac-critical method


  Using one image and exploring two different meanings within it and seeing something beyond that first image that you might see
• Around 1925, Dali discovered what realism could do, it could subvert what one's sense of reality
• Instead of a modernist surface, Dali went in for what he called all the most paralyzing tricks of eye fooling, photographic accuracy, masses of detail and smooth paint
• Paranoiac-critical method


  Dali saw paranoia as an essential mechanism in the construction of reality, or what would be classified as a paranoiac delusion
• Most expensive Surrealist works ever sold

  • The Married Priest by René Magritte ($7.1m)
  • Landscape on the Banks of the Love River by Joan Miro ($10m)
  • The Empire of Lights by René Magritte ($11.5m)
  • Return of Ulysses by Giorgio de Chirico ($12.5m)
  • Portrait of Paul Eluard by Salvador Dali (£12m)
  • Painting-Poem by Joan Miro (£16.8m)
  • Painting (Blue Star) by Joan Miro (£23.5m)