Amazing Surrealism Art You Need to Know

An artistic movement and a beloved art style.

You’ve probably heard of Salvador Dali, Rene Magritte, Breton, or… These surrealist artists created many amazing artworks.

But do you know about the philosophy behind the movement?

They seek to explore the unconscious mind as a way of creating art, resulting in dreamlike, sometimes bizarre imagery across many mediums.

What does Freud have to do with Surrealism?

Influenced by Sigmund Freud’s theory of the unconscious, the manifesto defined Surrealism as “psychic automatism”, a process that encouraged a freeing of the mind from rational and utilitarian values and constraints as well as moral and aesthetic judgment.

Surrealism was a cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists depicted unnerving, illogical scenes and developed techniques to allow the unconscious mind to express itself.

Major figures: Breton, Dalí, Ernst, Magritte

Surrealism was a cultural movement in which artists present unnerving, illogical scenes and developed techniques to allow the unconscious mind to express itself.

Its objective was, according to leader André Breton, to “resolve the previously contradictory conditions of dream and reality into an absolute reality, a super-reality”, or surreality.