A dominant movement in fine arts, literature, film and photography, during the first half of the century. Surrealism was an outcome of DADAISM, with a psychological bent that resulted in the popularisation of Freudian aspects of sex, dream and sub consciousness.
The two popular styles attributed to Surrealist art, include: the peculiar, hallucinatory dream-like and REALIST imagery, exemplified by Salvador DALI and the expressive, abstract figures and forms, as exemplified by artists like Joan MIRÓ and André MASSON.
In the words of French poet André BRETON, as stated in the Manifesto of Surrealism, dated 1924, “ (Surrealism is) the pure psychic automatism by which it is indicated to express…the true function of thought. Thought dictated in the absence of all control exerted by reason, and outside all aesthetic or moral preoccupations.”
Other principal exponents of this movement included: Jean Hans ARP, Max ERNST, Frida KAHLO, Conroy MADDOX, René MAGRITTE, André MASSON, MATTA, Meret OPPENHEIM, Pablo PICASSO, Man RAY, Yves TANGUI, and Remedios VARO.