Surrealism is a cultural movement that started in 1917 and is best known for its visual artworks and writings. Artists painted unnerving, illogical scenes with photographic precision, created strange creatures from everyday objects and developed painting techniques that allowed the unconscious to express itself.
Salvador Dali
Alive between 1904 and 1989, Salvador Dali was a Spanish Surrealist painter born in Figueres, Catalonia, Spain. Dali was a skilled draftsman, best known for the striking and bizarre images in his work. His painterly skills are often attributed to the influence of the Renaissance masters.
Salvador Dali’s paintings often comprise of a series of seemingly random objects and bits of people. Sometimes these anatomical parts and objects are clumped together in a large blob. These strange amalgamations are often positioned in a barren, sandy coloured wasteland with a bright blue sky. His weird shapes can often be linked to rocks around the rocky coastline of where he grew up, like the painting below.
Dali hated the idea that art and artists always had to be very serious, so one of his goals was to make some of his art funny, silly and bizarre. He loved putting things and objects together that don’t normally go together, like a sofa in the shape of women’s lips, and a lobster telephone that actually worked. This is one of his most iconic works.
His most famous artwork by far is The Persistence of Memory, also sometimes referred to as “the one with the melting clocks”.
Dali painted with oil paints.
Some of the many people and movements that inspired Dali were; The renaissance masters, Diego Velázquez, Pablo Picasso, surrealism (obviously), cubism, expressionism, and dada.
Some of the major world events in his lifetime were; The Wright brothers made the first controlled, sustained flight in heavier-than-air aircraft in 1903. The titanic setting sail and inevitably sinking in 1912. World War 1 between 1914 and 1918. In the same year, a worldwide influenza epidemic struck; by 1920, nearly 20 million were dead. World War 2 between 1939 and 1945. The Vietnam War between 1955 and 1975.
I love Salvador Dali’s work, it is extremely creative, unique, it makes fun of art and itself, and he definitely wasn’t afraid to turn art conventions on their head.
René Magritte
Alive between 1898 and 1967, René Magritte was a Belgian Surrealist artist. He became well known for creating a number of witty and thought-provoking images. Often depicting ordinary objects in an unusual context, his work is known for challenging observers’ preconditioned perceptions of reality.
Looking at his paintings, he seemed to have had great fun inventing the compositions of all of his paintings; some play with combining two different anatomical parts and objects, some play with what looks like cut out shapes.
Most of them feature men in old-fashioned bowler hats, and almost all of his paintings look like the dumb experiments someone starting out with Photoshop would attempt.
His most iconic painting is a fruit suspended in front of (I bet you can’t guess) a man in a bowler hat.
He mainly used oil paints.
Some of the many artists and movements that inspired him were; surrealism, expressionism, futurism, cubism, dada, impressionism, Jean Metzinger, and Salvador Dali.
Some of the major world events in his lifetime were; The Wright brothers made the first controlled, sustained flight in heavier-than-air aircraft in 1903. The titanic setting sail and inevitably sinking in 1912. World War 1 between 1914 and 1918. In the same year, a worldwide influenza epidemic struck; by 1920, nearly 20 million were dead. World War 2 between 1939 and 1945. The Vietnam War between 1955 and 1975. So Magritte never lived to see the end of the Vietnam War.
I really like Magritte’s work, it’s bizarre and hilarious. Just looking at it makes me feel like what I imagine trippy drugs would make me see.
Marc Chagall
Alive between 1887 and 1985, Marc Chagall was a Russian-French artist of Belarusian Jewish origin. An early modernist, he was associated with several major artistic styles and created works in virtually every artistic format, including painting, book illustrations, stained glass, stage sets, ceramic, tapestries and fine art prints.
A lot of his paintings are mainly painted with blues and greens and seem to suspend crudely-painted figures and animals in some kind of land that can’t exist in our 3-dimensional world.
He used oils, acrylics and watercolours.
Some of the artists and art movements that inspired him were; avant-garde, cubism, surrealism, expressionism, symbolism, fauvism, Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse.
Some of the major world events in his lifetime were; The Wright brothers made the first controlled, sustained flight in heavier-than-air aircraft in 1903. The titanic setting sail and inevitably sinking in 1912. World War 1 between 1914 and 1918. In the same year, a worldwide influenza epidemic struck; by 1920, nearly 20 million were dead. World War 2 between 1939 and 1945. The Vietnam War between 1955 and 1975.
My opinion of his work is that it is okay, I’m not really a big fan, but his colour palettes are very nice.
Research
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvador_Dal%C3%AD
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surrealism
Ciaran :3 