Katolog > Arts > Periods and Movements > Surrealism

Influenced by Freudianism, dedicated to expressing the imagination as revealed in dreams, free of the conscious control of reason and convention. Founded (1924) in Paris by André Breton with his Manifesto of Surrealism, it can be traced back to French poets such as Arthur Rimbaud, Charles Baudelaire, and Guillaume Apollinaire and to the Italian painter Giorgio de Chirico. In literature, surrealism was confined almost exclusively to France, and was based on the associations and implications of words. Its adherents included Paul Éluard and Jean Cocteau, famous for his surrealist films. In art the movement was dominant in the 1920s and 30s. Salvador Dali and Yves Tanguy used dream-inspired symbols such as melting clocks. Max Ernst and René Magritte used incongruous elements realistically painted. These verists differed from absolute surrealists, such as Joan Miró, who used images from the subconscious. From encyclopedia.com