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Surrealism

Overview

Surrealism is an art and cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists aimed to allow the unconscious mind to express itself, often resulting in the depiction of illogical or dreamlike scenes and ideas. Its intention was, according to leader André Breton, to "resolve the previously contradictory conditions of dream and reality into an absolute reality, a super-reality", or surreality. It produced works of painting, writing, photography, theatre, filmmaking, music, comedy and other media as well.

Works of Surrealism feature the element of surprise, unexpected juxtapositions and non sequitur. However, many Surrealist artists and writers regard their work as an expression of the philosophical movement first and foremost (for instance, of the "pure psychic automatism" Breton speaks of in the first Surrealist Manifesto), with the works themselves being secondary, i.e., artifacts of surrealist experimentation. Leader Breton was explicit in his assertion that Surrealism was, above all, a revolutionary movement. At the time, the movement was associated with political causes such as communism and anarchism. It was influenced by the Dada movement of the 1910s.

The term "Surrealism" originated with Guillaume Apollinaire in 1917. However, the Surrealist movement was not officially established until after October 1924, when the Surrealist Manifesto published by Breton succeeded in claiming the term for his group over a rival faction led by Yvan Goll, who had published his own surrealist manifesto two weeks prior. The most important center of the movement was Paris, France. From the 1920s onward, the movement spread around the globe, impacting the visual arts, literature, theatre, film, and music of many countries and languages, as well as political thought and practice, philosophy, and social and cultural theories.

Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).

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This self-movement of the form is Activity, carrying into effect the fact or affair as a _real_ ground which is self-suspended to actuality, and carrying into effect the contingent actuality, the conditions; _i.e._ it is their reflection-in-self, and their self-suspension to an other actuality, the actuality of the actual fact. If all the conditions are at hand, the fact (event) _must_ be actual; and the fact itself…
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, The Logic of Hegel
States what Surrealism is; the author is tied to Surrealism in the knowledge graph.
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The truth of this artistic production is rather to be found in this, that art and poetry were the exclusive forms in which these creative artists could bring to life and expression the ideas which fermented in themselves. In other phases of that consciousness, where we find the content less completely represented by the plastic imagery of art, the scope of Art as the handmaid of religion is of less importance. We…
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, The Philosophy of Fine Art, volume 1
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I would refer you at this point to the reproduction of a picture by Schwind in the Schack Gallery at Munich[30] and would ask you to notice how correctly the artist has realized the way in which a dream arises out of a dominating situation. The picture is called _The Prisoner’s Dream_, and the subject of the dream must undoubtedly be his escape. It is a happy thought that the prisoner is to escape by the window, for…
Sigmund Freud, Introductory lectures on psycho-analysis
States what Surrealism is.
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Surrealism

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