Surrealism

Surrealism is an art movement that started in the 1920’s . Founded by the poet Andre Breton in Paris in 1924 it was a artist and literary movement, that wanted to let go of restraints and liberate thought, language, and human experience from the oppressive boundaries of rationalism. Breton was particularly interested in the unconscious mind which produce dreams and he thought this was the source of artistic creativity. Breton thought it was a revolutionary movement capable of unleashing minds of an ordered society liberating the human mind. 

Artist painted strange creatures from everyday objects and unnerving weird scenes with photograph precision and  dreamlike visions. 

During the 1936 International Surrealist Exposition, held in London, guest speaker Salvador Dalí addressed his audience costumed head-to-toe in an old-fashioned scuba suit, with two dogs on leashes in one hand and a billiard cue in the other. Mid-lecture, constrained by the scuba mask, the Spanish artist began to suffocate and flailed his arms for help. The audience, unfazed, assumed his gesticulations were all part of the performance. As art legend has it, the Surrealist poet David Gascoyne eventually rescued Dalí, who upon recovery remarked, “I just wanted to show that I was plunging deeply into the human mind.” Dalí then finished his speech—and his accompanying slides, to no one’s surprise, were all presented upside down.