Surrealism is not a style, but an attitude. It is about a way of seeing that turns inward rather than outward. Surrealism embraces the irrational and the hidden sides of the soul.
Through automatic writing and dream protocols, they tried to get in touch with the subconscious. Dreams and reality would dissolve into an absolute reality, a superreality (surreality). The Surrealists wanted to change life and society, and free the individual.
Giorgio de Chirico was the foremost forerunner of surrealist painting. In what he called metaphysical images, he depicted a fictional, ghostly world in almost photorealistic paintings even before the First World War. Salvador Dalí, René Magritte and Yves Tanguy turned to the secret imagery of dreams in a hyperrealistic figurative style, while Joan Miró created a universe of symbol-laden abstract signs. Max Ernst experimented with various techniques such as frottage and collage and created a painting beyond painting where transformations and metamorphoses are central. He forced himself to react to the unexpected and to abandon himself to chance.
In sculpture, Hans Arp developed a biomorphic idiom, while Giacometti's claustrophobic sculptures are both violent and erotic. Meret Oppenheim's and Wilhelm Freddie's surrealist objects can be seen as three-dimensional collages where everyday objects from different contexts are connected and where the objects evoke sexual and dark fantasies. Bellmer's photographs of dolls address taboos, desire and sadistic themes. Surrealism was also the first movement to use moving images as a new medium.
källa. Moderna Museet
