Greetings and salutations, deviants! Today, I bring to you the second edition of the monthly Art History Spotlight series!

As you know from our last edition of Impressionism, The Art History Spotlight Series will be exploring various movements in art, the technique used therein, major artists behind it and it's influence on dA!

The second edition focuses on Surrealism, as decided by this poll.

I'm happy this was chosen, not just because it's such a popular and recent movement, but can be misrepresented and confused often.

So with no further ado, I present to you...

Surrealism

[sur-re-al-iz-uhm]
as defined by Merriam-Webster

: the principles, ideals, or practice of producing fantastic or incongruous imagery or effects in art, literature, film, or theater by means of unnatural or irrational juxtapositions and combinations

In layman's terms, surrealism focuses more on subject and less on technique. The subject matter is meant to represent the unconscious mind and the real functioning of thought.


Origins

The Surrealist movement was founded by the French writer André Breton (1896-1966) in the early 1920s. Based heavily on Sigmund Freud's theories, he described Surrealism as "pure psychic automatism" in his Surrealist Manifestos, published in 1924 and 1929, respectively.


^{André Breton}

Spawning from the Dadaism movement of World War I, Breton maintained that the Surrealist movement was intended to be revolutionary first and foremost; an anti-war reaction against the "rationalism" that the Surrealists believe to be the horrific cause of World War I. Surrealism differs from its equally anti-war predecessor Dadaism in the vein that it focused on the positive as opposed to the negative.

Despite the seeming randomness of the movement, they rejected the thought of madness--as Salvador Dalí said, "There is only one difference between a madman and me. I am not mad."

Surrealists met in cafes and played collaborative drawing games such as Exquisite Corpse, and chatted about the politics of the movement. Prominent surrealists included Man Ray, Salvador Dalí, Giorgio de Chirico, Max Ernst, Joan Miro, Andre Masson to name just a few.

The prevalent theme of automatism, or action without active thought, is the core principle of this entire movement-- presenting a dream-like portrayal of the unconscious mind.

Technique

There is an enormous amount of Surrealist techniques and games that it would be ludicrous to list them all here. Wikipedia has a wonderful list for your perusal.

• Exquisite Corpse was a game played by Surrealists when they got together in cafes (a popular activity) that started with written word, where several people would each write a phrase on a sheet of paper, fold the paper to conceal part of it and pass it to the next person who'd do the same. This evolved into imagery, where instead of a phrase, someone would draw or paint something, and pass it along.


• Use of a drawing tool over a textured surface to create a "rubbing", known as frottage.


• Scraping paint, dry or otherwise, off a canvas. This technique is known as grattage.


• Decalcomania, a way to transfer prints or paints to another material, such as pottery or another canvas. Often, a piece of paper, foil, wax paper or another material is placed on a wet canvas and transferred elsewhere.


• Automatic drawings, or free-association drawings, where one allows his/her hand to draw absent-mindedly with no conscious guidance. Like free association writing, surrealist believed this to stir up creative energy, and relay the unconscious mind.


• Involuntary sculpture, like automatic drawings, is the unconscious manipulation of a medium to create a sculpture.

There is no right or wrong way to create a surrealist piece, so long as it is a representation of the unconscious mind.

Surrealism from the Masters

<sub>Joan Miro - Carnival of Harlequinn


Max Ernst - The Eye of Silence


Giorgio de Churico - The Disquieting Muse


Salvador Dali - The Premonition of Civil War


Andre Masson - Automatic Drawing</sub>

Surrealism on dA

The introspective and illustrious works of `zancan


The deliciously bizarre *rodulfo


The rousing and dreamlike works of ~Mihai82000



Other wonderful surrealist works





Stay Tuned! This isn't the last you've heard of surrealism...

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