Surrealism is a movement in avant-garde art in the first half of the twentieth century, characterized by the fusion of reality with something else, but not oppositional. Surrealism is a dream – it is not real, but it is not irreal either. The style is characterized by allusions and paradoxical combination of forms, visual deception. Surrealist paintings often show solid objects, stones flowing, while water, on the contrary, turns stony.
The first half of the twentieth century is famous for the tumultuous course of events not only in political life, but also in cultural life. One after another arise, disappear, merge, flow out of each other art currents and groups. Many of them passed unnoticed by the memory of history. Some have left only a small imprint, and some have become the banner of the era. Such was surrealism, which managed to live for half a century.
As an artistic movement, surrealism has its origins in Dadaism. Or rather, it was replaced by Dadaism when it was drowning in its own world of chaos. Dadaism was aimed at the destruction of everything, including itself. Surrealism changes the direction of creative activity. Here it is no longer just destructive, but creative, though through destruction. That is, the methods remain similar, but the goal is different. The Surrealists are trying to build an aesthetic with the methods that served the Dadaists above all to dismantle all meanings, stylistic and any other systems.
Let’s start with history. Somewhere around 1919, André Breton, Louis Aragon, and Philippe Soupo come together. They are the founders of a new movement that began to take shape after the publication of The Magnetic Fields by André Breton and Philippe Soupo in May 1920. In this book, the main artistic idea of surrealism – automatism – manifested itself.
The automatic drawings were made by André Masson. He would “scribble” with a pen or pencil across the sheet until images began to emerge from the lines and spots.
In 1924 the world sees the First Manifesto of Surrealism. Here its “father,” André Breton, defines the style: “Surrealism. Pure mental automatism, which has the purpose of expressing, either verbally or in writing or otherwise, the real functioning of thought. The dictation of thought beyond any control of the mind, beyond any aesthetic or moral considerations.”
The very popular psychoanalysis of Sigmund Freud, especially his analysis of dreams, had a tremendous influence on the development of the style. According to Freud, the dream is the work of the subconscious, which breaks free when the conscious mind is at rest. Surrealists shared the scientist’s insights on the importance of the subconscious and its inexhaustibility. Surrealists see real art in the rejection of their own conscious thought, because thought is subjective, while art should be the opposite – objective. This is exactly what the subconscious – the dream – is. A dream is an extension of reality, but of an objective reality that is not imposed by certain ideas of consciousness and is not constrained by the Super-Ego or the so-called censorship of consciousness.
For the Surrealists, the dream acts as a kind of revelation. It is worth remembering Salvador Dali, who took up his work immediately after awakening, when his brain had not yet been completely freed from the images of the subconscious. Sometimes he even woke up in the middle of the night for the same purpose. This method corresponds to one of the techniques of psychoanalysis – recording dreams immediately upon awakening. It is believed that over a period of time consciousness dulls, distorts, transforms images from the dream.
Surrealists seek to liberate the self repressed by reality. Such art is meant to enable the individual to master his inner self, of which he knows nothing. The same “father” of surrealism, Breton, said that there is nowhere to escape from oppressive reality except childhood, sleep and fantasy. It is also worth noting that the scope of the Surrealists was not only art, they wanted to change life.
However, under the work of the surrealists it is impossible to sum up one common feature, which could give a clear and unambiguous characteristic of the style as a whole. For example, the automatism inherent in the work of the early surrealist artists Max Ernst and André Masson, we will not find in the clearly expressed images and compositions of Salvador Dali and René Magritte.