History Of Surrealism

In this essay I will be talking about surrealism, its meaning, where it started, the main surrealism artists, the interactions with history and the 2 main styles of surrealism.

Surrealism was an art movement which involved writers and artists, for example Salvador Dalí and René Magritte, these artists tried to make art with unconscious imaginations. Surrealism was begun in Paris in 1924 by a French poet called André Breton with the announcement of his Manifesto of Surrealism.

The surrealism movement started during the middle of World War 1 and World War 2, people were unhappy and felt terror due to what war has caused. There was the Paris Peace conference, with this tension, some artist had lost the ability to paint, but some surrealist artists

Automatists

Automatism is a technique for unconscious drawing, this means the artist is drawing without his own will but draws with an unconscious mind. The surrealist artists explore the creativity with an unconscious mind in art. The word automatism comes from automatic and that is where it shows drawing unconsciously is drawing automatic without thinking.

Automatism is also a way for the artist to run away from reality (cultural, intellectual and historical pressure) and set free the creativity of the artist's personality without worrying about the reality. For surrealist artists, automatism was a more noble and higher level behaviour, an approach like how devotees, who see education as a type of creativity. Aside from surrealism, automatism has involved in another movement including dada, which is the gestural style of Action Painting.

Gestural painting, in another word known as gesturalism. It is a method of fine art painting symbolized by energetic, expressive brushstrokes emphasizing the brush of the painter’s arm movement. The gesture when the artist is painting shows the artist’s everyday gesture and emotions.

Veristic

One of the most famous veristic artist was Salvador Dali, who drew such beautiful scenes of fantastical creatures, melting clocks and some other elements. It is called veristic, meaning realistic, but this style is a type of drawing that is creative, the view into the fantasy world that has no connection to the reality.

This type of surrealism can bring the viewer, then artist’s fantasy world, which is quite detailed because the artist tries to not filter parts that are unconscious. With a detailed painting, the viewer can have a cleaner view to the artist’s dream world, which then can interpret his/her wishes.

Both types of surrealism techniques are used with an unconscious mind, as you can see it is quite