Surrealism is a style of art that has its roots in Europe. It grew out of the Inter-War period, a period of calm between World War I and World War II, as a form of art that matured from the Dada movement. During the WWI and the interwar period, there was a great anti-war and anti-establishment movement that became known as the Dada movement. It featured a nihilist approach to art and its subject were often seen as “meaningless.” The movement was seen as a reaction against the “rationalism” that had guided European thinking during the Industrial Revolution and into the horrors of the Great War. Surrealism was very much into the idea of expression rather than accurate representation of movements or figures. As shown in the “Surrealist Manifesto” there was a great emphasis on unrestrained expression that is not bounded by society or customs or culture.
“Surrealism, n. Pure psychic automatism, by which one proposes to express, either verbally, in writing, or by any other manner, the real functioning of thought. Dictation of thought in the absence of all control exercised by reason, outside of all aesthetic and moral preoccupation.”-Surrealist Manifesto
In their pursuit of expression that was unbounded, they developed a technique of drawing called automatic drawing, in which the painter would move his/her hand randomly across the canvas drawing. This technique was used by surrealist because it was believed that the painter would be freed from rational thought and simply paint by way of free association.
Surrealism was also an alternative to the contemporary Cubist movement, which along with surrealism was also not heavily focused on accuracy of the subject. However it is different from surrealism since surrealist paintings does not have as a rigid appearance but rather a greater emphasis on free form.
An example of a surrealist artist would be Salvador Dali, who is best known for his work The Persistence of Memory.
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