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Surrealism

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SURREALISM

Appreciation of Art/Craft/Design

2011

Introduction

Everybody has concept about Surrealism. But not everybody knows, how and why it has got art movement, when an artist is part of a movement like Surrealism, I ask a question for myself "Did Surrealism enter to our century?", if yes - "How?". In this essay I’ll discuss about social, economic and political influences of the time when movement born, what influenced this movement and what subsequent influence did this movement have on others? Also I discussion about of one artist who made major contribution to Surrealism - Salvador Dali (1904 - 1989) and try discuss about his artwork "Metamorphosis of Narcissus".

Social, economic and political influences of time

"Surrealism, was officially born in 1924 in Paris and had virtually become a global phenomenon by the time of it demise in the later 1940s" (Hopkins, 2004, p.15). It was difficult time for all world. Two wars: World War I (1914–1918) and World War II (1939–1945), Europe, as well as the United States, Canada, Australia, and Japan, would experience the effects of the Great Depression. "The early 20th century was a period of tumultuous change. The First World War and the Russian Revolution profoundly altered people’s understanding of their worlds. The discoveries of Freud and Einstein, and the technological innovations of the Machine Age, radically transformed human awareness" (Hopkins, 2004, p.20).

Art movement - Surrealism

There is an opinion, that term Surrealism came in 1917, when a poet Apollinaire (1880 - 1918) referred his own drama Les Mamelles de Tirésias as Surrealist (Arnason, 2003). Surrealism was influenced by another art of movement - Dada. This movement was focused on everyday objects such as a urinal [Fig 1.], bicycle wheel, or bottle rack could become art by simply displaying them in a gallery – in other words

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