Surrealist Art Movement In The 1920's

In the 1920’s there was an art movement that changed the way art was defined, this was known as the surrealist art movement. Surrealism originated in the late 1910s and early 20s as a literary movement that experimented with a new form of expression called automatic writing or automatism. In Paris in 1924 the publication of the manifesto of surrealism by poet, Andre Breton made surrealism an international and political movement. Many artists and poets such as Louis Aragon (1897–1982), Paul Éluard (1895–1952), and Philippe Soupault (1897–1990) were heavily influenced by the psychoanalytic theories of Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) and the political ideas of Karl Marx (1818–1883). Using Sigmund Freud’s theory allowed artists and poets to draw upon the private world of the mind that was traditionally restricted by reason and societal imitations. This allowed them to produce surprising, unexpected imagery that had never before been seen. The intellectual and irrational belief of surrealism can be found in their ancestry of the tradition “Dadaism” a decade earlier. The surrealist art movement combined elements of its predecessors, Dada and cubism to create something unknown to the art world. At first the art movement …show more content…
André Masson was another influential figure in the surrealist art movement; however his first works started with a display in cubism. He later became associated with surrealism and was most enthusiastic with automatic drawing, creating a number of automatic drawings in the mediums pen and ink. It has been said that Masson would subject himself to harsh conditions such as time without food or sleep, forcing himself into a reduced state of consciousness. This would help is art be free from rational control and allowed him to get closer to the workings of his subconscious