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Art & Art History vocabulary · Movements & Periods

Surrealism

Meaning in art & art history, with examples

/səˈriːəlɪzəm/nounCore term

In art & art history, Surrealism means: An art and literary movement launched in Paris in 1924 by André Breton, which explored dreams, the unconscious and strange combinations of images.

In Turkish: Sürrealizm, Gerçeküstücülük

How it is used

Well-known Surrealists include Salvador Dalí, René Magritte and Max Ernst. In everyday English, surreal means strange and dreamlike: ‘It was a surreal day.’ In art writing, Surrealist with a capital S refers to the movement.

Example sentences

  1. Surrealism borrowed ideas from Freud's writings on dreams.

  2. Magritte's Surrealist paintings put ordinary objects in impossible situations.

Common collocations

  • Surrealist painting
  • Surrealist manifesto
  • Surrealist imagery
  • the Surrealist movement
  • avant-gardeArtists, works or ideas that are new and experimental and challenge accepted rules; the word is French for the front part of an army.
  • art movementA group of artists who share similar ideas, aims or styles during a particular period, and the art they produce, such as Impressionism or Cubism.
  • modern artArt made roughly from the 1860s to the 1970s, when artists broke with academic traditions and experimented with new styles, subjects and materials.
  • symbolismThe use of objects, colours, animals or figures to stand for ideas or qualities, for example a dog for loyalty or a skull for death.

More terms: Movements & Periods

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