Surrealism Work

Surrealism started as a literary movement to find its greatest expression in the visual arts soon. The term itself «surreal» means "above reality", thus, the artists of this movement admired the artwork of the insane for its freedom of expression. The movement originated under the influence of psychological researches of Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung. Surrealists analyzed of the symbols of dreams, saw the unconscious as a wellspring of untapped creative ideas. Apart from Freud and Jung surrealists looked for inspiration from masters of the Renaissance such as Hieronymous Bosch and Pieter Brueghel.

Surrealism works can be divided into two types: the first one is focused on creating realistic representations of dream-like states; while the other type is created in an abstract style. On the territory of the United States the movement included the Chicago Surrealist Group, which was recognized as one of the most active and prolific in the international surrealist movement.

Surrealism gained it's popularity in the 1920s. Andre Breton became the leader of the movement and was the initial proponent of surrealism in literature and the visual arts. The appearance of the movement was a reaction to the philosophy of rationalism, which was considered the event that caused the disaster of World War I. There were veristic surrealists that split from Automatism and they believed that surrealism could best express the unconscious. According to Jung's theory all people possess an innate knowledge and understanding of images. By looking into the image, the artist gain access to and understand unconscious thoughts and behaviors.

Surrealism works feature the element of surprise. The artists of surrealism regard their work as an expression of the philosophical movement. The efforts of Surrealists to liberate imagination impacted the further development of art and various media, on radical and revolutionary politics. Directly or indirectly different literary movements, the period of the Postmodern era, were influenced by Surrealism (e.g. Theatre of the Absurd had much in common with Surrealism). Many writers from and associated with the Beat Generation were influenced greatly by Surrealists. The prominence of Magic Realism in Latin American literature is also related closely to the style of Surrealism.

There are also new Surrealism artists – the authors of contemporary surrealism painting. To view Surrealism works of contemporary painters is quite easy with the help of online galleries. Klinkov.com is one of such places where one can get acquainted with the painting of contemporary artist Valeriy Klinkov.