Surrealist movement

Surrealist Movement

The Surrealist Movement was founded in Paris by a small group of writers and artists.

Surrealism began in Paris in the early 1920's, this is a cultural movement. This was used as a way in which to unlock the power of imagination.

This powerful movement was powerfully influenced by Psychoanalysis and the way on which they believed the mind repressed the power of imagination.

The images that the artists in this culture produced were seen as unnerving and strange, a lot of these pieces showed strange creatures mixed with everyday objects. This type of work often surprised people with its unexpected content.

Surrealism hit its peak during World War 1 and developed from the Dada Movement; which at this point used Paris as its centre. It wasn't until the late 1920's that the movement spread around the globe, at this point the movement had also spread to the visual arts, literature, film and music. 

key points on surrealism : 

•  André Breton defined Surrealism as "psychic automatism in its pure state, by which one proposes to express - verbally, by means of the written word, or in any other manner - the actual functioning of thought." What Breton is proposing is that artists bypass reason and rationality by accessing their unconscious mind. In practice, these techniques became known as automatism or automatic writing, which allowed artists to forgo conscious thought and embrace chance when creating art.
• The work of Sigmund Freud was profoundly influential for Surrealists, particularly his book,The Interpretation of Dreams (1899). Freud legitimized the importance of dreams and the unconscious as valid revelations of human emotion and desires; his exposure of the complex and repressed inner worlds of sexuality, desire, and violence provided a theoretical basis for much of Surrealism.
• Surrealist imagery is probably the most recognizable element of the movement, yet it is also the most elusive to categorize and define. Each artist relied on their own recurring motifs arisen through their dreams or/and unconscious mind. At its basic, the imagery is outlandish, perplexing, and even uncanny, as it is meant to jolt the viewer out of their comforting assumptions. Nature, however, is the most frequent imagery: Max Ernst was obsessed with birds and had a bird alter ego, Salvador Dalí's works often include ants or eggs, and Joan Miró relied strongly on vague biomorphic imagery. 

web reference : http://www.theartstory.org/movement-surrealism.htm  

surrealist work has always been a big interest of mine  because I love the way the images show made up mythical creation and in a lot of this represent dreamlike worlds. I especially like the way you can see into the warped mind of the artist  this fascinates me to imagine how some ones mind comes up with these ideas. although a lot of the image I have picked above if done in digital editing software would use a lot of heavy image manipulation . which isn't the technique i want to use in my own work these images are still the base of my original idea to make a surrealist piece .
This is because these have inspired me to think of new ways to create warped , unrecognisable image the represent the human form. In my idea I want to create this in a more abstract way by over laying images to create a piece that looks like it is made up of a collection of shapes.
I do find the images above extremely eye catching and exciting though especially the final image the mixes the human body and warps this into a dis figured creature. I find the idea behind the image really amazing it makes me wonder what was the artist doing to come up with this concept.
The old surrealist image for example the fish with the human legs I find is still a good piece of art work and does show the idea behind surrealism but if you look at an older piece like that and the final image that has been done more recently you can see how surrealism has evolved along with new software that can help in producing this. That is why I want to have a mix of using new software but with an old style in my images because I dont want to use an effect in which you can still see the camera skill that is behind the image.