Surrealism (20th cen)

Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the 1920s. It 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 , an idea or concept.

Surrealist works feature the element of surprise and the unexpected. Surrealist artists and writers regard their work as an expression of the philosophical movement first and foremost, with the works being an artifact.

Surrealism developed out of the Dada activities during World War I and the most important center of the movement was Paris. From the 1920s onward, the movement spread around the globe, eventually affecting the visual arts, literature, film, and music of many countries and languages, as well as political thought and practice, philosophy, and social theory.