Surrealism


               Surrealism is a philosophical movement that began in 1920s Paris. It was seen as an escape from reality and the harshness of war; an opportunity to explore the subconscious of the human mind. It revolutionised human experience by removing all reason and control.

               The word surrealism was first used by Guillaume Apollinaire to describe his opera “Les Mamelles de Tiresias”, written in 1903, performed in 1917. Surrealism is the idea of combining together two elements that don’t usually go together to create a strong and startling result for the viewer.

               Salvador Dali is a surrealist artist, with one of his most famous paintings being “The Persistence of Memory” 1931. This painting, as pictured below, is an excellent example of surrealism and how art of the movement was without all reason and control. It shows Dali’s iconic melting clocks on a landscape, the melting clocks represent a lack of logic, Dali has allowed his subconscious mind to go wild and paint what it desires to.

               Andre Bretton was a psychologist who studied the work of Sigmund Freud and was inspired to write the Surrealism Manifesto in 1924. Following on from this a Surrealist Revolution Magazine was released from 1924 until 1929.

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