Surrealism: Am I dreaming?

I thought choosing a single art movement to write an essay about would be tricky, but I found it surprisingly easy as the movement I have chosen is so inspiring and interesting to me that it jumped out at me the second I came across it. That movement is Surrealism. Surrealism  was a cultural movement that began in the early 20th century, as an off-shoot of Dadaism, that brought together artists in hunt for expression of the unconscious . The art often has absurd subject matter, and is the visual representation of the subconscious  Many artists created pieces of art inspired by their dreams.

I like the imaginative and crazy art pieces that have been created for the movement; they were something that hadn't really been seen before. It was a major contrast to the more traditional portraiture and more photo-realistic pieces of art that came before it. I find it much more inspiring than anything that is a simple representation of something. The movement was all about the expression of the mind and the release of imagination in an art form, removing yourself from the reality of the world around you and embracing the creativity bursting from our unconscious. Many artists painted the things in their dreams, because in your dreams there are no rules, no boundaries, everything is possible and anything can happen. 

The artists of the movement wanted above all else a free flow from their unconscious to their art. I love the lack of constraints that this art movement brought with it, being able to freely express any idea or thought into an art form without the need to limit the potential. Creating a piece of art with elephant’s heads being replaced with musical instruments at one point in time would have been ridiculous and completely unheard of but surrealism brought a more creative approach to art in general.

The idea of letting your imagination roam free and not holding anything back intrigues me. I like how it gives artists the freedom to express their ideas in any shape or form, rather than restricting themselves to what is around them in the real world. It gives people the ability to express exactly what is in their mind and share it with the world which is something that hadn’t really been done before.

RESEARCH MATERIALS

As well as looking at key artists such as Salvador Dali I will use a range of reference materials such as books from libraries and online sites such as:

Surrealism (Taschen Basic Art Series) by Cathrin Klinsohr-Leroy

Manifestoes of Surrealism by AndrC Breton

www.surrealism.co.uk

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

http://www.gosurreal.com/surreal.htm

Moodboards

I was tasked with creating a moodboard for two of the artistic movements I looked at on this blog...

My first choice was surrealism as it interests me the most, I love the the imagination and creativity behind the art of this movement. I decided to create a moodboard based on the movement itself, blending many different surrealism art works into a single image to create a sense of wild imagination.

The second movement I chose to create a moodboard for was pop art. Many pieces from this movement included the same image repeated in different colours of coloured square backgrounds, so for this moddboard I replicated this style with a montage of pieces I liked from the art movement.

Surrealism

sur·re·al·ism

   [suh-ree-uh-liz-uhm] 

noun ( sometimes initial capital letter )

a style of art and literature developed principally in the 20th century, stressing the subconscious or non rational significance of imagery arrived at by automatism or the exploitation of chance effects, unexpected juxtapositions, etc.

Surrealism was a cultural movement that began in the early 20th century, as an off-shoot of Dadaism, that brought together artists in hunt for expression of the unconscious . Although the term was coined by Guillaume Apollinaire, the driving force behind the movement was Andre Breton, who started the movement with literature. He and two fellow artist began experimenting with automatic writing, where they wrote down whatever they thought without censorship. As more and more writers joined the movement, they developed their philosophy, discarding the conscious production of art art embracing the unconscious for inspiration. 

Breton wrote the Surrealist Manifesto in 1924 defining the groups purpose. He said that Surrealism was 

"Pure psychic automatism, by which one proposes to express, either verbally, in writing, or by any other manner, the real functioning of thought. Dictation of thought in the absence of all control exercised by reason, outside of all aesthetic and moral preoccupation." 

The art often has absurb subject matter, and is the visual representation of the subconsious. Many artists created pieces of art inspired by their dreams.

The artist that stands out the most to me from this movement is Salvador Dali, he is someone who I have looked at in the past and always admired his work. Two pieces in particular really caught my eye.

Both images are extremely eye catching and have an amazing dream like quality to them. 

Futurism

One of the main things we looked at today was Futurism:

It was an Italian artistic and social movement that started at the beginning of the 20th century. It focused on contemporary concepts of the future including speed, technology and youth.

The movement was started by  Filippo Tommaso Marinetti with the publication of the Futurist Manifesto. "We want no part of it, the past", he wrote , "we the young and strong Futurists!"  Members of the movement wished to destroy old forms of art and focus on the modern life. They celebrated the 'machine age' and loathed the past, only wanting to to look forward. Many artists seeing this manifesto joined in with the movement and it spread throughout many forms or art. At first futurism lacked a distinctive style or subject matter unlike other identifiable art movements, it wasn't until 1911 that a distinctive Futurist style emerged, borrowing from Divisionism and Cubism.

From music to architecture artists tried to depict what the future would look like. The movement managed to reach as wide as cinema, influencing movies such as Blade Runner.

I think my favourite example of futurism art is the 'La Città Nuova' by Antonio Sant'Elia. I think this is a great example of how the industrial revolution impacted the way people looked at the world.

My first assignment is a 2000 word essay detailing and illustrating a historical design issue or movement. We were shown futurism as an example, something that changed the way people looked at design as a whole. I'm not sure yet what movement or issue I will be focusing on but there are many to choose! I will be looking at two other design movements on my blog to get stated.