Dada and Surrealism

Surrealism was an artists
movement inspired by the
Dada movement.
Meret Oppenheim

Oppenheim's best known piece is
Object (Le Dejeuner en fourrure)
(1936). The sculpture consists of a
teacup, saucer and spoon that the
artist covered with fur from a
Chinese gazelle. It is displayed at
the Museum of Modern Art in New
York.

This became the symbol of
Surrealism.

Her originality and audacity
established her as a leading figure
in the surrealist movement.
Introduction

The movement known as Dada was born in Zurich,
Switzerland and was primarily created as a backlash to
the traditional views of culture, art, and literature.

The first group of Dadaists sought to eliminate all forms
of reason and logic due to the atrocities caused by World
War I.

Art created during the Dada movement was to be
interpreted freely by the viewer and was not based on
the formal standards shown by earlier traditional artists.

The Dada movement was spread throughout Zurich,
Berlin, New York, Paris, and the Netherlands and varied
by form such as: poetry, art, literature, and music.
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The complex nature of the Dada
movement began as a negative
response to society and, in turn,
radically altered twentieth-century
art. The movement criticized
conventional ideas of the use of
mediums by utilizing prefabricated
supplies, altering them slightly in order
to obtain a different view of the piece.
Marcel Duchamp’s readymade,
Fountain, a porcelain urinal in which the
artist wrote R. Mutt on and submitted it
to the Society of Independent Artists
Exhibit in 1917.
The purpose of the Dada movement
was viewed negatively and was “not
intended to be creative: it is intended to
cast discredit on creative activity”(Frey
12).
He proclaimed, “the creative act could
be reduced to the choice of the mind
rather than the act of the hand.” In other
words, the viewer is involved in the
creative act of interpretation a long with
the artist.
Dada
Marcel Duchamp Fountain,
1916-17
Jean Arp

Collage was another technique used by
artists Hannah Hoch, Kurt Schwitters,
and Jean Arp during the Dada
movement.

Jean Arp’s Collage Arranged According
to the Laws of Chance, completed in
1916, displays a random pattern of
squares depicting the notion of escaping
the rational world.

Arp’s collages differ greatly from the
academic realm of art because of the
way in which he created them. He did
not use a formula he just drop his
collage pieces and let them fall into
place by chance. He declared that these
works, like nature, were ordered
Jean Arp’s Collage Arranged
according to the laws of chance.
According to the Laws of
Chance, completed in 1916
Surrealism

Surrealism, in turn, was a positive movement
which at first was solely focused around
automatic writing, expressing the thought and
subconscious of the artist.

Surrealism was founded by Andre Breton in the
1920’s and stretched the human imagination
revealing through artistic imagery a world of
fantasy and dreams, not reality.

Both Dada and Surrealism share the same
purpose to explore avant-garde methods of
creativity while rejecting the traditional standards
of art.

The art of the Surrealist movement was centered around the
irrational and the subconscious, both depicting dream-like images.

When the Surrealist movement began in 1919 the main aspect of
creativity was applied through automatic writing, which allowed
irrational thoughts to be written through lack of reason and logic.

The way in which art was later depicted changed when artists began
to document dreams through imagery in paintings.

The Surrealist approach to art depicts the artist’s inner thoughts and
subconscious, digressing from the negatively charged Dada
movement.

Art critics have described surrealism as a “search for the bizarre and
marvelous”(Matthews 139) because of the whimsical and dream-like
images found in paintings of this movement.
Overview:
2 Forms of Surrealism
1.) Improvised Art - without conscious control.
Artist Examples:
Joan Miro – The Joy of Painting
Max Ernst – Mother of Madness
2.) Realistic Techniques with dream-like scenes
Artist Examples:
Salvador Dali – Painting Paranoia
Renee’ Magritte – Dream Visions
Giorgio de Chirico – Metaphysical Painter
Frida Kahlo – Wore her heart on her canvas.
Joan Miro
The Joy of Painting

Miro use the automatic style of
painting.

Painted squiggles in a tranclike
state; working spontaneously.
“What really counts is to strip the
soul naked.” Prudence throuwn
to the wind, nothing held back.

Invented unique biomorphic
signs for natural objects (sun,
moon, and animals); simplified
into shorthand pictograms of
geometric shapes and amoebalike blobs – a mixture of fact and
fantasy.
Biography
Gallery
Joan Miro
Dutch Interior II
Cosmic Ladder
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Joan Miro's painting Carnival
of Harlequin, completed in
1924, displays a scene of
brightly colored organic forms
and shapes in a humorous
manner.
The creatures or figures in
Miro's paintings appear
almost as if they are
cartoons, taking up the entire
canvas so that the viewer
doesn't focus on merely one
aspect of the scene.
Some of the shapes appear
to be floating in the top
corners of the canvas while
others, such as the one on
the left side, use ladders to
climb up through the work.
The figures in Miro's Carnival
of Harlequin are "lively,
remarkably vivid, and even
the [his] inanimate objects
have an eager
vitality"(Arnason 295).
Joan Miro
Carnival of Harlequin, completed in
1924
Max Ernst
Mother of Madness

Experienced hallucinations as a
child with a fever from measles.
He found he could induce
similar near-psychotic episodes
(and adapt them in art) by
staring fixedly until his mind
wandered into some psychic
netherworld.

Ernst had been a member of the
Dadaists before joining the
Surrealist Group. Many of his
early works deliberately played
with chance.
Biography
Gallery
Max Ernst
collage, frottage and grattage techniques

One of the methods he used to
stimulate his imagination was
collage. He would bring together
illustrations and photographs from
widely different sources and stick
them together to create strange
new relationships. (see Celebes)

Invented “fonttage”’ a new method
for generating surprising imagery.
This is rubbings from textured
surfaces and embellished to
produce fantastic, sometimes
monstrous imagery.

Grattage – scrapping into thick
paint
Max Ernst
Early works

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Max Ernst’s painting Celebes,
which was completed in 1919,
depicts an ambiguous creature
that somewhat resembles an
elephant. This painting is an
example of the whimsical and
bizarre imagery used during the
Dada and Surrealism Movement.
In the bottom right corner of the
painting, a headless body is
beckoning the creature towards its
direction, making the image
disturbing as well as humorous.
The main focus of Celebes is a
fantastical creature whose body
resembles a boiler.
Max Ernst, Celebes,
1921
Salvador Dali
Spanish, 1904 - 1989

Based his technique on
“critical paranoia” and
explored his own neuroses.
He was terrified of insects, of
crossing streets, of trains,
boats and airplanes, of taking
the Metro – even of buying
shoes because he couldn’t
bear to expose his feet in
public. He laughed
hysterically and uncontrollably
and carried a piece of
driftwood at all times to ward
off evil spirits.
Gallery
Biography
Salvador Dali
Painting Paranoia

With so rich a lode of irrational fears
fueling his art, Dali placed a canvas
at his bed and recorded what he
called “hand-painted dream
photographs” when he awoke.

Instead of inventing new forms to
symbolize the unconscious, he
represented his hallucinations with
meticulous realism.

His recurrent nightmare of a rotting
corps often appeared in his work.
Gallery, Gallery 2
Biography
Salvador Dali
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Dali is fascinated by the idea of multiple
images; the way the same image can take
on quite different meanings. In this painting
the lake, with the strange splash at one end,
can also be read as a fish on a table. In real
life our own experiences constantly invest
objects with double meanings such as a
bunch of flowers meaning I love you, or I’m
sorry.
Dali tells us that his parents visited this lake
after the death of their first child, who was
also named Salvador. Dali was haunted by
this dead brother he never knew. The
telephone might be a symbol of trying to
contact someone on the other side,
someone who is absent.
Dali painted this work in 1938 on the eve of
World War Two. He has suggested the
telephone relates to the negotiations in
September 1938, between Neville
Chamberlain, the British Prime Minster, and
Adolph Hitler.
In both the personal context of his dead
brother and the international political
situation, the telephone speaks of a lack of
connection and of ultimate death. The fish
floundering on the table ready to be cooked
might represent the countries Hitler was
about to march into and conquer.
Mountain Lake, 1938
The Persistence of Memory

The Persistence of Memory,”
shows limp watches and a strange
lump of indefinable flesh. Although
metallic, the watches appear to be
decomposing. A fly and cluster of
jewel-like ants swarm over them.

Breton said, “With the coming of
Dali, it is perhaps the first time that
the mental windows have been
opened really wide so that one
can feel oneself gliding up toward
the wild sky’s trap.”

Can you find the self portrait in
this painting?
The Persistence of Memory
Dali’s self portraits (early works)

Self Portrait with neck of
Raphael, 1921

In both of these self
portraits we see a
sense of narcissism
Self Portrait with Fried Bacon, 1941

Dali painted this self-portrait during his
eight-year-exile in the United States,
where he had fled from the Spanish civil
war. The, sometimes, childlike
enthusiasm and the drive of the
American society appealed to Dali and
he had a most productive period there.
Under this influence he appeared to
reverse his "paranoid-critical" method.
Now he painted more from the inside
out, as his comment on his self-portrait
indicates. Dali himself styles his selfportrait as "an anti-psychological selfportrait, instead of painting the soul, or
the inner of oneself, to paint solely the
appearance, the cover, my soul's glove.
This glove of my soul can be eaten and
is even a little sharp, like highbred
game; therefor ants appear together
with the fried bacon. As the most
generous of all painters I continuously
offer myself as food and thus give our
era the most delicious delicacies
Portrait of Frau Isabel Styler-Tas
(Melencolia). 1945. Oil on canvas.
65.5 x 86 cm. Staatliche Museen
Preussischer Kulturbesitz Neue
Nationalgalerie, Berlin, Germany.
Fifty Abstract Paintings Which as Seen
from Two Yards Change into Three
Lenins Masquerading as Chinese and as
Seen from Six Yards Appear as the Head
of a Royal Bengal Tiger. 1963. Oil on
canvas. 200 x 229
The Christ of St.
John of the Cross.
1951. Oil on canvas.
205 x 116 cm. St
Mungo Museum of
Religious Life and
Art, Glasgow, USA.
The Surrealists wanted to create strange images in order to startle
viewers into new ways of thinking about the world. They saw
beauty in the most bizarre, unexpected combinations of things such
as a lobster and a telephone.
Salvador DALÍ
Lobster
telephone
Rene Magritte
Pronounced – Mah GREET
Gallery
Biography
Renee’ Magreet
Dream Visions

(1898-1967) Dream Visions

Painted disturbing, illogical
images with startling clarity.

Began as a commercial artist –
he used this mastery of realism
to defy logic.

He placed everyday objects in
incongruous settings and
transformed them into electric
shocks. Juxtaposed familiar
sights in unnatural contexts.
The False Mirror
Belgian painter Rene Magritte specialized in
paintings of strange, imaginary scenes, often
involving men in bowler hats. This one has
hundreds of them hovering in the air above
an ordinary—looking street.
Gonconda. 1953. Oil on canvas. 81 x 100 cm. The Menil
Collection, Houston, TX, USA.
Magritte’s self portrait

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The painting of a man in a gray
overcoat and derby hat whose face is
almost entirely hidden by a big green
apple is one of the best-known works
of Belgian surrealist Rene Magritte,
1898-1967. It is also the closest he
was willing to come to answer a
request for a self portrait. That tells us
how little this marvelous artist cared
for publicity and self-promotion, even
though he was delighted to sell his
work widely.
If this painting looks familiar to us, it is
because Magritte’s work has so
strongly influenced not only other
artists but also a great many people
who did want to do publicity and
promotion, advertising, design and
films, during much of the last century.
Despite the strangeness of the scene, Magritte
painted it in a very lifelike way. It is only the
combination of things that makes it look absurd.
Magritte loved painting ordinary things in
ordinary situations. He said he wanted to play
with the viewer’s expectations in order to
“challenge the real world.
René Magritte. The
Red Model. 1934.
Oil on canvas. 183 x
136 cm. Museum
Boymans-van
Beuningen,
Rotterdam,
Netherlands.
La Durée poignardée.
1938. Oil on canvas. 146
x 97 cm. Art Institute of
Chicago, Chicago, IL,
USA.
Giorgio De Chirico
Pronounced - KEY ree coh

Italian, 1888 – 1978
Hailed by the Surrealists as their
precursor, Italian painter, was
painting nightmare fantasies fifteen
years before Surrealism existed.
Giorgio De Chirico
Metaphysical Painter

Drawing on irrational childhood
fears, De Chirico is known for his
eerie cityscapes with empty
arcades, raking light, and
ominous shadows.

The skewed perspective and
nearly deserted squares
inhabited by tiny, depersonalized
figures project menace. In fact,
with these paintings as his best
evidence, De Chirico was
exempted from military service as
mentally unstable. On an early
self-portrait he inscribed, “What
shall I love if not the enigma?”
The Mystery and Melancholy of
a Street
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Immediately prior to World War I, the GrecoItalian painter, Giorgio de Chirico created
enigmatic paintings in which he used a
traditional style to describe not the external
world, but haunting dreamscapes infused with
illogical images, bizarre spatial constructions,
and a pervasive melancholic mood.
He was greatly inspired by the writings of
Friedrich Nietzsche, who believed hidden
realities were seen in such strange
juxtapositions as the long shadows cast by the
setting sun into large open city squares and
onto public monuments.
De Chirico called his art "metaphysical," and
with it hoped to destabilize the meaning of
everyday objects by making them symbols of
fear, alienation, and uncertainty. His paintings
were highly influential for the Surrealists a
decade later in their effort to create art from the
unconscious.
Andromache refers to the beautiful and loyal
wife of Hector, the Trojan warrior slain by
Achilles in the Iliad. Here Andromache stands,
reduced to simple ovoids, alone in a quiet,
almost airless Italian piazza, her mood reflected
in the dark shadows stretching across the
square. The buildings, equally simplified, frame
the image, lending it an almost stage-like
quality.
Andromache, 1916
Oil on panel. 8 x 5 3/4 in. (20.3 x
14.6 cm)
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Sidney Paul
Schectman, Class of 1935. 76.90
The Uncertainty of the Poet.
1913

Ten years before publication of the Manifesto of
Surrealism, the Italian artist DeChirco was
extending the traditions of ‘realism’ in painting to
describe dream worlds that contained aspects of
his own life in scenes of melancholy and
foreboding. He said he wished to combine ‘ in a
single composition, scenes of contemporary life
and visions of antiquity, producing a highly
troubling dream of reality.’

In this painting the antique world is represented by
a broken sculpture and the historic buildings and
city square; whilst the contemporary is shown by
the train steaming across the horizon and the
bunch of bananas in the foreground. Trains for De
Chirco evoked sadness of goodbyes and nostalgia
for what was left behind, seeing them as almost
magical in the way they transported loved ones or
ourselves from one place to another. The liveliness
of the train and the ripe bananas is contrasted with
the cold, lifelessness of the shadowy buildings,
made more sinister by the tilted perspective and
geometric precision of the shadows. The two
arches look like blind eyes. The female bust plays
across these two extremes; the voluptuous body
contrasted with its broken form and being made of
cold, hard marble.

Giorgio de Chirico. Piazza d'Italia.
1913. Oil on canvas. Art Gallery of
Ontario, Toronto, Canada.

Giorgio de Chirico. The Disquieting
Muses. 1918. Oil on canvas. Private
collection.
De Chirico self portrait
Frida Kahlo
Pronounced – FREE-da KAH –lo
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Gallery
Biography

Frida Kahlo (July 6, 1907 –
July 13, 1954) was a
Mexican painter.
In 1925, a trolley car collided
with a bus Kahlo was riding;
an iron handrail impaled her,
broke her spine, and exited
through her lower body. She
survived her injuries and
eventually regained her
ability to walk, but she would
have relapses of extreme
pain which would plague her
for life.
After the accident, Kahlo
turned her attention from a
medical career to painting.
Frida Kahlo
“Wore her heart on her canvas.”
 Drawing on her personal
experiences, her works are
often shocking in their stark
portrayal of pain and the
harsh lives of women. Fiftyfive of her 143 paintings are
self-portraits that incorporate
personal symbolism
complete with graphic
anatomical references.
 She was also influenced by
indigenous Mexican culture,
aspects of which she
portrayed in bright colors,
with a mixture of realism and
symbolism.
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In constant pain due to an earlier
accident while riding a bus it
collided with a trolley – resulting in
32 operations in 26 years on her
back and leg – her leg was later
amputated and she
The bulk of her 200 paintings were
fantasized self-portraits, dealing
with subjects seldom tested in
Western art: childbirth,
miscarriage, abortion.
She delighted in role-playing and
wore colorful Mexican costumes,
basing her painting style on
indigenous folk art and Roman
Catholic devotional images.
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Twice she married Diego Rivers (deeA-go Riv-ERR-a) a famous Mexican
Muralist. She had a constant obsession
with him.
Because of her injuries and her
husband’s many affairs, Kahlo’s
paintings tell the story of her physical
and emotional pain.
The Two Fridas. 1939. Oil on canvas. 170
x 170 cm. Museo de Arte Moderno, Mexico
City, Mexico

At her first one woman show, Kahlo’s doctor said she was too ill to
attend, so she had herself carried in on a stretcher as part of the
exhibit. Kahlo died soon after. When they pushed her body into the
oven to be cremated, the intense heat snapped her corpse up to a
sitting position. Her hair blazed in a ring of fire around her head.
She looked painter David Siqueiros said, as if she were smiling in
the center of a sunflower.
Frida Kahlo. Without Hope. 1945. Oil on canvas
mounted on Masonite. 28 x 36 cm. Dolores Olmedo
Foundation, Mexico City, Mexico.
Frida Kahlo. The Dream. 1940. Oil on
canvas. 74 x 98.5 cm Private collection.

Frida disagreed with being labeled a surrealist
because she said, “I never painted dreams. I
painted my own reality.”
Frida Kahlo. The Dream. 1940. Oil on
canvas. 74 x 98.5 cm Private collection.
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Her work is a rare blend of true emotion, heartbreak,
love, and life, as well as death. Most of her paintings
were self-portraits. She said, "I paint self-portraits
because I am the person I know best. I paint my own
reality. The only thing I know is that I paint because I
need to, and I paint whatever passes through my head
without any other considerations."
Her paintings are very open and honest. They reflect her
emotions, the events in her life, changes in her feelings--whether good or bad. She recorded her life in paint. Her
imagery and style were very original, dramatic, and
courageous.
Her husband, the famous Mexican muralist Diego
Rivera, said: "Frida is the only example in the history of
art of an artist who tore open her chest and heart to
reveal the biological truth of her feelings. The only
woman who has expressed in her work an art of the
feelings, functions, and creative power of woman."
Surrealism Study Guide
Word Bank
Dadaism
Diego Rivera
Sigmund Feud
Dream Analysis
Frida Kahlo
Max Ernst
Joan Miro
Meret Oppenheim
Improvised Art
Jean Arp
De Chirico
Renee Magritte
Marcel Duchamp
Surrealism
Salvador Dali
Fill in the blank for questions 1 – 12 using the words from the list above.
1.
2.
3.
__________________________ painted squiggles in a trancelike state. Invented unique signs for
natural objects that were simplified into shorthand pictograms of geometric and biomorphic
shapes.
_________________________first experienced hallucinations as a child during a fever from
measles. He later learned to use hallucinations to produce art. He invented frottage.
_________________________ based his technique on critical paranoia and painted his own
neuroses inspired from his dreams. Instead of inventing new forms to symbolize the unconscious
mind, he represented his hallucinations with meticulous realism.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
__________________________ began as a commercial artist who used
mastery of realism to defy logic by placing everyday objects in incongruous
settings. Often painted men in bowler hats.
_______________________ was the precursor to Surrealism, he painted
nightmare fantasies with eerie cityscapes with empty arcades, raking light
and ominous shadow. Thought of himself as the “metaphysical painter.”
_______________________ is a female surrealist artists whose art became
a recognized by many as the symbol of Surrealism.
_______________________ said, “I never paint dreams. I painted my own
reality.”
_______________________ is a “negative” art movement that came before
Surrealism and got its name from a nonsense world after WWI. The artists
protested the madness of war, by producing spur-of-the-moment art that
shocked and “awakened imagination” and intended to cast discredit on
creative activity. This movement lasted a few short years.
_______________________ is a “positive” art movement that followed
Dadaism. It flourished in Europe and America during the 1920 - 30’s. The
artists believed in a higher degree of reality painting “beneath the realistic
surface of life.”
_______________________ is a philosopher who inspired Surrealism.
11. _______________________
is one of two represented
forms of Surrealism. Artists practiced spur-of-themoment art, distancing themselves as much as possible
from conscious control.
12. _______________________ represented a style of
Surrealism where artist juxtaposed (placed next to each
other) incongruous (unrelated) objects using realistic
techniques turning inward to paint dreams, memories
and / or feelings.
13. _______________________ He was a Mexican muralist
who was married to Frieda Kahlo.
14. _______________________ created collages out of
random and chance arrangements of paper.
15. _______________________ created a “readymade”,
titled Fountain, which was an urinal with the signature,
“R. Mutt.”

Answer in complete sentences.
13. Describe what Frida Kahlo painted and
why.
14. Compare and Contrast the two styles of
Surrealism.
15. How and shy did Surrealism became an
art movement?