Surrealism Presentation

1. Surrealism
Persistence of Memory
Joe Brusca

2. Definitions
• Dreams (* Anyone remember theirs last night?)
• Surrealism Dada
• Fantasy Subconscious
• Automatism Enigmatic
• Nostalgic Juxtapositions
• Frottage Distortion
• Illusion Abstraction
• Line Value
• Portrait Composition
• Illusions Bourgeoisie
*Notes in journal and visual board

3. Dada to Surrealism
• Dada or Dadaism is a art movement that began in Zurich,
Switzerland.
• During the end of World War I and peaked from post war around
1916 to 1922.
• The art movement was based on its anti-war politics and anti-art
cultural works. They rejected was being handed down them from
modern world culture. It was also anti-bourgeois and anarchist in
nature.
• Dada activities included public gatherings, demonstrations, and
publication of art/literary journals; art, politics, and culture were
topics often discussed within the Dadaist.
• The Dada influenced later avant-garde art movements like
surrealism, pop art and contemporary music like rock ’n’ roll, even
punk rock.
• Included the visual arts, literature, including poetry, art manifestoes,
art theory, theatre, cinema and graphic design.

4. Surrealism
• Surrealism is a cultural movement and artistic style that was
founded in 1924 by André Breton.
• Influenced by the psychoanalytical work of Sigmund Freud and Carl
Jung.
• The movement was begun primarily in Europe, centered in Paris,
and was helped founded by many of the members of the Dada
community.
• Surrealism style uses visual imagery from the subconscious mind to
create art without the intention of logical comprehensibility.
• The group aimed to revolutionize human experience, in its personal,
cultural, social, and political aspects. They wanted to free people
from false rationality, and restrictive customs and structures.
• At various times Surrealists aligned with communism and
anarchism.

5. Surrealist Techniques
• Automatism, for ex., like automatic drawing was developed by the
surrealists, as a means of expressing the subconscious. In
automatic drawing, the hand is allowed to move 'randomly' across
the paper. In applying chance and accident to mark-making,
drawing is to a large extent freed of rational control. Hence the
drawing produced may be attributed in part to the subconscious and
may reveal something of the psyche, which would otherwise be
repressed.
• Frottage, the artist takes a pencil or other drawing tool and makes a
"rubbing" over a textured surface. The drawing can be left as is or
used as the basis for further refinement.
• Examples of other influences of automatism would be cut-ups, jazz
and abstract expressionism.
• “The simplest Surrealist act consists of dashing down the street,
pistol in hand, and firing blindly, as fast as you can pull the trigger,
into the crowd.” -- André Breton, Second Manifesto of Surrealism

6. Links to Some Important
Past Events
• Antiwar movements like Vietnam in the
1960’s .
• Feminist Movement
• Civil Rights Movement
• 1960’s Counter Culture Movement
• Can you think of any from the past or
currently?

7. André Breton
"Life’s greatest gift is the freedom it leaves
you to step out of it whenever you choose."

8. André Breton
• He studied medicine and psychiatry. And during World
War I he worked in a neurological ward where he gained
his anti-war views from the trauma it caused many of the
soldiers.
• Surrealist Leader
• Poet / Writer
• His writings include the Surrealist Manifesto of 1924, in
which he defined surrealism as "pure psychic
automatism".
• Influenced by the writers Rimbuad, Voltaire, Guillaume
Apollinaire, along with fellow Dadaist Louis Aragon,
Philippe Soupault and Tristan Tzara.

9. Dada to Surrealism
• Important figures of the Dadaism and
eventually the founders of Surrealism.
Marcel Duchamp
Hans Arp
Francis Picabia
Max Ernst
Man Ray
Andre Breton

10. Marcel Duchamp

11. Marcel Duchamp
Artwork

12. Hans Arp
Crown of Buds

13. Francis Picabia

14. Max Ernst

15. Man Ray
"To create is divine, to reproduce is human."

16. Giorgio de Chirico
“To become truly immortal, a work of art must escape all human limits:
logic and common sense will only interfere. But once these barriers are
broken, it will enter the realms of childhood visions and dreams.”

17. André Masson

18. René Magritte

19. Roberto Matta

20. Yves Tanguy

21. Yves Tanguy Artwork

22. Salvador Dalí
“The only one difference between a madman and me. I not am mad.”