What is Surrealism?

Surrealism is one of the best-celebrated art periods to date. Emerging in the 1910s as a literary movement, Surrealism filled the gap between WWI and WWII with introspective artwork intended to question society and existing conventions.

Surrealism began in Paris with poet and critic André Breton. A trained psychologist, Breton studied the theories of Sigmund Freud, as well as traditional Marxist ideology. Upon publishing the Manifesto of Surrealism in 1924, Breton was able to bring ideas from Frances poets and authors to artists across Europe.

Surrealist poets were reluctant to align themselves with the visual arts; visual art is labor-intensive and inherently physical, so they felt artists wouldn’t be able to adopt the uninhibited expression and spontaneity that defined Surrealism. By the 1930s, however, visual Surrealism was the spotlight of the art world.

Notable writers of this movement include Louis Aragon, Paul Éluard, Leonora Carrington, Arthur Rimbaud, Charles Baudelaire, Isidore Ducasse, Robert Desnos, Mary Ann Caws, Antonin Arataud, Kobo Abe, Haruki Murakami, Flann O'Brien, Clarice Lispector, Álvaro Enrigue, Phillipe Soupault, and, of course, Breton (among many others).

Eine Kleine Nachtmusik (1943), Dorothea Tanning. Titled after one of Mozart’s serenades, Eine Kleine Nachtmusik features a young girl, a realistic doll, and a large sunflower. These figures are positioned throughout a dark hallway with various doors and a staircase. The doll is leaning back against a doorframe, the girl is positioned away from the viewer, her hair standing on end, and the sunflower nearly spans the width of the hallway in front of them. Tanning expressed that this painting is about confrontation. Each figure has its own sort of drama occurring — all of them competing for the viewer's attention. The small child and doll — standing at almost the same size — are small compared to the sunflower, creating a distorted perspective common in surrealist art.

Psychology, History, and Influences

The Elephant Celebes (1921), Max Ernst. This painting, inspired by Freud and Nietzche, was one of Ernst’s first explorations of the irrational subconscious through visual art.

Breton’s work stemmed from the theories of Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis. In Freud’s book, The Interpretation of Dreams (1899), Freud claimed that dreams and the subconscious reveal hidden emotions and desires within the human mind. Many of Freud’s experiments attempted to expose these complex and repressed feelings of sexuality, desire, and violence. Breton was fascinated with these experiments and theorized a new method of exposing these feelings: creative expression.

Psychology shared the stage with politics as Breton, an avid Marxist, used several Marxist ideals in his Manifesto. Most prominent is common disdain and critique of capitalism and a thirst for social rebellion. As the world moved on from the first world war, Breton fostered a strong belief that rationalism and social conventions were the roots of war and destruction and encouraged surrealists to create a break from that pattern. When the surrealist movement in Europe dissolved at the onset of World War One, these ideas lost traction. The majority of surrealist artists fled to New York, where the movement found renewal in galleries and shows such as The Museum of Modern Arts 1963 show Fantastic Art, Dada, Surrealism.

Small Portrait (1950), Kay Sage. In traditional Surrealist fashion, Sage utilizes contradictory geometric and draped forms. These monotone colors and machine-like forms juxtapose the bright red hair atop the figure’s head.

Surrealism was a French art form with American influence. The movement made no effort to branch out, which led to few international artists adapting the style. The best example of Surrealism leaving its comfort zone was the fourth international surrealist exhibition held in Mexico City in 1940. Mexican artists Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera were featured but never officially joined as artists of the movement.

Surrealism also has a notable lack of female representation. The disregard of female Surrealists was the direct result of inherent misogyny and encouragement of sexist stereotypes. Until the feminist art movement of the 60s and 70s, women were rarely celebrated for their work — regardless of the style, technique, or finished product. Instead, they were sexualized muses.

Gloves (1985), Meret Oppenheim. Additional creative work led Oppenheim to model for many artists, becoming a common muse for surrealists such as Man Ray. In the late 30s, Oppenheim became involved with the fashion industry, working with designer Elsa Schiaparelli to create a line of high-fashion, surrealist gloves.

Techniques

Surrealists used a variety of techniques. A few of them were conceptual, considering the psychological aspect of surrealism, while others were strictly artistic techniques intended to create a visual or textural effect.

“Each artist relied on their own recurring motifs arisen through their dreams or/and unconscious mind. At its basic, the imagery is outlandish, perplexing, and even uncanny, as it is meant to jolt the viewer out of their comforting assumptions. Nature, however, is the most frequent imagery: Max Ernst was obsessed with birds and had a bird alter ego, Salvador Dalí’s works often include ants or eggs, and Joan Miró relied strongly on vague biomorphic imagery.” — theartstory

Biomorphism, or biomorphic imagery, is when a figure suggests a biological or organic subject but does not look like a realistic or natural imitation of anything in our world. This is often used to describe abstract forms found in surrealist work.

Evocation of a Form: Human, Lunar, Spectral (1950) and Human Concretion (1935), Jean Arp. Jean Arp was known for his organically shaped, biomorphic forms. Evocation of a Form: Human, Lunar, Spectral was cast in bronze and employs an abstract figure of a man hugging himself with one arm. Human Concretion was cast in plaster.

Decalcomania is the technique of pressing a sheet of paper onto a painted surface and peeling it off again. Decalcomania is used to transfer a design from one surface to another and leaves a unique texture on the original surface during the process. In surrealism, the transfer process made the final pattern a matter of chance rather than control — the original painting was never the same after the transfer process.

Grattage is the process of scraping pigment across a canvas on top of a textured surface. This process, typically done with oil paint, was created by Max Ernst. Ernst based grattage off of frottage, a nearly identical method he invented that involved rubbing a soft pencil over paper laid upon a textured surface.

The Rope Dancer Accompanies Herself with Her Shadows (1916), Man Ray. Inspired by a tightrope show, Ray used pieces of colored paper to represent the dancer’s movements. When applying the paper pieces, he noticed extras had fallen onto the floor and interpreted their abstract arrangement as the dancer’s shadows. While the final product was an oil painting (instead of a collage) this an excellent example of surrealists mixing mediums in their artwork.

Collage is the assemblage of forms or materials to create a new image, usually pasted onto a background. This art form was coined by early 20th century artists and was a favored form of Ernst. Collage allowed artists to rapidly combine pre-existing images to create something entirely new and random. Surrealist collage was the first form of automatism used in art.

Galatea of the Spheres (1952), Salvador Dalí. A homage to his wife and muse, Galatea of the Spheres takes from nuclear theory and the molecular structure of atoms.

Breton’s work stemmed from Freudian methods of free association — creating with the absence of thought. Breton developed automatism, which first emerged through methods like automatic writing: a form of writing where the writer writes down whatever comes to mind the instant it pops into their head. Automatism is an attempt to release the unbridled imagination of the subconscious, with the belief that doing so reveals significant inner meaning or ideas. Automatism comes from Freud’s theory that the subconscious is blocked by any conscious thought and decision-making used during the creative process. Many consider this block to be the result of societal and realist limitations, which can prevent someone from exploring unexpected, surprising, or fantastical concepts.

In simple terms, automatism is actions not under the control of the conscious mind. These involuntary processes, such as breathing and sleeping, are natural physiological functions. In visual art, these actions come from methods that eliminate control. Methods like dripping paint onto a canvas in a random pattern create an element of chance the artist cannot alter. This produces surprising and unexpected imagery within poetry and prose and surreal and juxtaposed imagery within visual art.

Visual automatism was employed by artists such as Masson and Miro. Later surrealists, such as Dalí, Delvaux, and Tanguy, used illusionistic surrealism — also known as illusionism.

Illusionism challenges the flatness of a canvas. It edges on realism, but the artist’s intent is to make the scene or object seem alive. Surrealists used illusionism to emphasize the idea of an alternative world in the subconscious mind — something real and full-fledged despite it seeming so removed from conventional life.

“At one pole, exemplified at its purest by the works of Arp, the viewer is confronted with images, usually biomorphic, that are suggestive but indefinite. As the viewer’s mind works with the provocative image, unconscious associations are liberated, and the creative imagination asserts itself in a totally open-ended investigative process. At the other pole the viewer is confronted by a world that is completely defined and minutely depicted but that makes no rational sense: fully recognizable, realistically painted images are removed from their normal contexts and reassembled within an ambiguous, paradoxical, or shocking framework. The work aims to provoke a sympathetic response in the viewer, forcing him to acknowledge the inherent “sense” of the irrational and logically inexplicable.” — Britannica (on two ways to analyze surrealism)

Works

Max Ernst (1891–1976)

Pleiades (1920), Max Ernst.

Max Ernst, a philosophy student turned artist, was drafted into the German military during WWI. After his service, he was deeply traumatized by and critical of western culture. His idea of the modern world, spearheaded by western culture, soon festered into a view of it as irrational in general. These ideals led Ernst to become a pioneer of Dada and Surrealism. He began creating collages in 1919, developed the techniques of frottage and grattage around 1925, and embraced Surrealism in 1920. Ernst is regarded as one of the first artists to apply Freud’s theories to the visual arts.

The Triumph of Surrealism (1937) and Europe After the Rain II (1941), Max Ernst. These paintings are both examples of the effects of war and politics in Ernst’s art. In The Triumph of Surrealism, painted shortly after the Spanish Civil War, Ernst comments on the state of fascism, and its influence, as it spread across Europe — inciting chaos. Ernst intentionally poises the figure to resemble an angel — forcing the viewer to view the painting from a biblical standpoint — and causing them to question their own beliefs as they see a figure of chaos in a holy position. In Europe After the Rain II, Ernst presents London in complete ruin, inspired by total warfare and debilitating fear. The painting was completed the year Hitler took power.

While he was studying philosophy, he also studied psychology. His studies led him to visit many asylums, where he saw the artwork of the patients. Ernst, obsessed with the concept of tapping into primal emotion and unrestricted creativity, became particularly interested in this art: his primary theory is that those with mental illnesses could make connections to unfiltered creativity and primitive emotions much easier than someone of “sound mind.” As someone suffering from PTSD, his desire to create from his subconscious led to personal traumas (much of them from the war) becoming common subjects for his work.

Men Shall Know Nothing of This (1923) and Oedipus Rex (1922), Max Ernst. While most of Ernst’s Surrealist pieces are based on the ideas of Freud, some have clear connections over others. These two paintings directly draw from Freud’s work. Men Shall Know Nothing of This is thought to have been inspired by Freud’s study on the delusions of a man suffering from paranoia. The subject had fantasies of becoming a woman, which inspired the loose interpretation of the universe presented. The sun, at the top, connects to the large moon, which holds two pairs of legs — presumably one male and one female — as a representation of the subject’s hermaphroditic desires. The implication of sexual organs and the subject’s delusions continue as the earth, at the center, is covered by a hand, implying something that needs to be hidden. Oedipus Rex is clearly inspired by Freud’s famous Oedipus complex theory. The hand and birds showcase a desire for the man to be free of society, as well as a detachment from the rest of his body and mind. Furthermore, the clear psychosexual symbolism in and surrounding the nut is reminiscent of the Oedipus theory.

André Masson (1896–1987)

In the Tower of Sleep (1938), André Masson. This painting, featuring a figure crushed by his surroundings, is abundant with symbols of eroticism, death, chaos, and destruction. Masson himself stated that the image “came from a memory of war…a figure lying in the trench with his head split open.”

André Masson, a fellow veteran of WWI, started his artistic education at the age of 11. He enrolled in Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts and the École des Arts Décoratifs, which allowed him to study under accomplished artist Constant Montald and learn many advanced techniques. Much of his inspiration came from nature and the landscapes of his childhood. After joining the French infantry in 1915, Masson suffered a major wound and was relieved from service. Much like Breton, he suffered from extreme war trauma and went through a spiritual crisis and brief hospitalization for mental illness. After his physical recovery, Masson returned to his work. He resumed his work at a studio for veterans with disabilities, making pottery, and worked additionally with a Paris journal.

Automatic Drawing (1924), André Masson.

His post-war years became flooded with artistic experimentation and gatherings with other creators. Masson experimented with drugs, alcohol, and music with artists such as Joan Miró and Jean Dubuffet. Their substance of choice was opium — a powerful and highly addictive drug with little known health effects that was easily accessible in French markets. These “opium nights” were a tradition that started with Picasso a couple of decades prior. When opium use led to the death of a close friend of Picasso’s in 1908, he gave up the substance. Other artists, however, were not finished with it, and a decade later the gatherings reemerged in Masson’s studio. These gatherings intended to explore altered states of consciousness and the effects those altered states had on their creativity.

Battle of Fishes (1926), André Masson. This piece utilized the gesso and sand method. Masson described the result of the process — throwing sand onto the gessoed canvas and brushing away the excess — as a collection of suggested forms — “although almost always irrational ones.”

As his drug use continued, Masson developed increasingly violent, erotic, and fantastical themes in his work. Soon, Masson became involved with Cubism and was later invited by Breton to join the Surrealist group (the dominant group of artists that comprised the movement). His first Surrealist work was published in La révolution surrealiste in 1925. These automatic drawings were his first experimentations with automatism, but he found them insufficient. Through experimentation, he came upon a method he favored: flinging sand onto a gesso-covered canvas. The wild and free movement of the sand created the element of chance he was seeking. By the end of the second war, Masson had moved on from Surrealism and to America, where he returned to nature-inspired work.

Joan Miró (1893–1983)

Harlequin’s Carnival (1925), Joan Miró. One of Miró’s early works, Harlequin’s Carnival exemplifies his use of biomorphic forms, as most of the objects in the painting are reminiscent of living organisms. Miró, regarding his work, stated “I’m only interested in anonymous art, the kind that springs from the collective unconscious.” In regards to Harlequin’s Carnival, Miró explained that, while most of the painting was based on automatism techniques — creating a scene far from the conscious world — a few sections had a specific meaning: the black triangle is to resemble the Eiffel Tower while the ladder on the left represents elevation and evasion.

Joan Miró grew up in Barcelona; at 14, he started to attend two schools — the School of industrial and Fine Arts and the School of Commerce — the latter causing him to take a job as a clerk. Commerce was encouraged by his parents, despite his demonstrations of artistic skill at a young age. Following a severe case of typhoid fever and a nervous breakdown caused by his work, Miró moved to a countryside farm in Barcelona. It was there that he began to explore a career in art, studying under Francisco Galí. Galí had Miró explore art through touch, having him draw — often blindfolded — with the only guidance being what he could feel. The intention was to have Miró develop a spatial understanding of objects while encouraging him to trust his intuition.

The Tilled Field (1924), Joan Miró. This painting was created in 1924 and is considered the turning point of his style. Organic forms combine with abstract shapes, creating an image that seems to defy nature, despite the subject of the piece being Miro’s Catalan homeland. His Catalonian roots served as a major inspiration to his work.

In 1920, Miró traveled to Paris, hoping to gain recognition for his work. Miró became associated with several established Surrealists but refused to sign their manifestoes. Despite his desire for distance between himself and the group, his work continued to show child-like and dreamy biomorphic forms that were incredibly reminiscent of the Surrealist style. Miró did not want to be confined to a movement but used automatism to experiment with new techniques and mediums. Through this, Miró developed a method of juxtaposing carefully constructed forms with basic shapes, which later became a significant influence to Abstract Expressionists. The hectic politics, global depression, and wars of the 30s brought Miró back to Barcelona, where he continued to have a successful and celebrated career.

Man Ray (1890–1976)

Le Violin d’Ingres (1924), Many Ray. This photograph of Rays 1924 lover uses her figure to imply the shape of an instrument. The image was inspired by the work of Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, who showed a passion for the violin. By painting elegant f-holes on her back, Ray makes his lover’s figure resemble that of a violin, creating a unique juxtaposition of a female body and an object.

Man Ray is one of history’s best-known photographers. Born in Philadelphia and raised in Brooklyn, Ray studied and practiced draftsmanship, painting, drawing, sculpture, prints, and film. His early art years were filled with experimental painting methods; he worked hard at enhancing his brush skills while taking commercial art jobs, even as he began art classes at Ferrer School in 1912. Ray took inspiration from Shakespeare, metaphysical themes, and artists such as Robert Henri, Samuel Halpert, Max Weber, Adolf Wolff, de Chirico, Kandinsky, Cézanne, and Picasso. Around 1913, Ray became acquainted with photographer and gallery owner Alfred Stieglitz, who encouraged him to explore photography as an art form. A couple of years later, he met Marcel Duchamp, and together they attempted to establish a Dada movement in New York. However, in 1921 he moved from New York to Paris, seeking to join their Dada group — Dada, he felt, would never be properly recognized in New York: “All New York is dada and will not tolerate a rival — will not notice dada.”

Rayographs — better known as photograms — are photographic prints created without a camera. By placing objects on photosensitive paper and exposing them to light, an imprint of the object would be left on said paper once removed. The method is as old as photography itself, but was popularized by Ray in the 20’s.

When Dada transitioned into Surrealism, so did Ray. Through Surrealism, Ray developed his famous rayographs: a photography technique that gave the forms of existing objects a clearly-surreal strangeness. He considered photography unappreciated and disliked that most considered painting a superior art form; this caused him to give up painting professionally within the next few years. Quickly, photography became the most significant part of his career, and he became a celebrated fashion and art photographer. He was committed to filmmaking for several years but eventually moved back to Los Angeles at the onset of WWII.

Observatory Time — The Lovers (1936), Man Ray. This is often considered the quintessential Surrealist painting.

René Magritte (1898–1967)

René Magritte, a Belgian-born artist, began to paint at age 17; a year later he enrolled in Académie des Beaux-Arts in Brussels. Magritte found the coursework boring, and when not attending his classes became close friends with Victor Servranckx — a classmate who introduced Magritte to Futurism and Cubism. Servranckx drew Magritte’s interest towards these styles — particularly Cubism — which he then began to experiment with. Magritte spent many years working in commercial art, specifically as a producer of advertisements and book designs. Around 1925, Magritte found inspiration in Giorgio de Chirico and resumed experimentation in his art. Magritte soon moved to Paris in 1927 and became a leading figure of the Surrealist style. The connections he made to several Surrealist artists living in the city helped complete his transition from Cubism to Surrealism.

The Treachery of Images (1929), René Magritte. Magritte was interested in the ways visuals interacted with words and created many pieces where he explored the combination of them. In The Treachery of Images, Magritte juxtaposes a smoking pipe with a French sentence that translates to “this is not a pipe.” Magritte means this literally because while the painting looks like a pipe, it’s still just a painting. Magritte intended for the viewer to question the importance of the sentence, challenging the notion that objects directly correspond to words and images. Doing this highlighted the gap between language and meaning.

Magritte was fond of slotting commonplace things into uncanny settings — transforming what’s familiar into its disturbing and dream-like counterpart — to bring attention to said objects; famously, Magritte explained his goal was to “make the most everyday objects shriek aloud.”

The Son of Man (1964) and Man in a Bowler Hat (1964), René Magritte.

Gloconda (1953), René Magritte. A common motif in Magritte’s work is bowler hats, which are always seen on male figures. Magritte once said, “It is a headdress that is not original. The man with the bowler is just a middle-class man in his anonymity. And I wear it.” Bowler hats were one of the most popular hats of the early 20th century worn by middle-class men. Through the bowler hat, Magritte created self-portraits with a sense of mystery regarding the true identity of the person pictured — showcasing how easy it is for one to blend in or hide within society. In regards to The Son of Man, Magritte stated, “Everything we see hides another thing, we always want to see what is hidden by what we see. There is an interest in that which is hidden and which the visible does not show us. This interest can take the form of a quite intense feeling, a sort of conflict, one might say, between the visible that is hidden and the visible that is present.”

While many Surrealists liked to experiment with techniques and mediums, Magritte did not. Magritte used deadpan illustrations that would clearly articulate the subjects of his work. Additionally, Magritte valued repetition, often making several copies of his works upon completion. This deadpan illustration created images so simple and lucid that they took on a beautiful, unsettling feeling. Magritte’s method of showing surrealist imagery in a deliberately clear form was entirely new and created remarkably strange images that leave viewers enraptured. His work is often considered to be the split, or transition, between visual automatism (which had defined the first half of the movement) and illusionism (which would complete it).

Salvador Dalí (1904–1989)

Lobster Telephone (1936), Salvador Dalí. One of the most well-known Surrealist objects, Dalí’s Lobster Telephone was created as a symbol for erotic pleasure and pain. Dalí, utilizing the juxtaposition of two objects rarely associated together, draws on connections between food and sex in an attempt to create “The surrealist object — one that is absolutely useless from the practical and rational point of view, created wholly for the purpose of materializing in a fetishistic way, with the maximum of tangible reality, ideas, and fantasies having a delirious character.” This fully functioning phone was one of several and was used as a reoccurring theme in Dalí’s work.

Salvador Dalí, born in Spain, demonstrated sophisticated and technical drawing skills from a young age. His parents built him a studio in their summer home where Dalí spent much of his time before attending Colegio de Hermanos Maristas and the Instituto in Figueres in 1916. In 1922, Dalí enrolled at the Academia de San Fernando in Madrid. Several disturbances caused Dalí to be suspended. When he returned, he was then permanently suspended for the same issue: his claims that the academy did not employ competent professors and student riots against said professors (though it’s not confirmed if Dalí was the cause of the riots). Dalí moved to Paris in the late 20s, where he met several surrealists (namely Magritte, Picasso, and Miró). Dalí’s style — a combination of Impressionism, Futurism, and Cubism — became focused on three themes: man’s universe and sensations, sexual symbolism, and ideographic imagery.

The Persistence of Memory (1931) and The Disintegration of The Persistence of Memory (1952–1954), Salvador Dalí. One of the most famous art pieces ever created, and the most famous of the Surrealist movement, is The Persistence of Memory. Dalí takes firm, solid objects and makes them limp and fluid. Through this, he dissects existing ideas of time. Dalí creates a striking image by having these melting, fantastical objects painted in painstakingly precise detail. Dalí stated many times that he had no intended meaning for the work. Instead, he associated the clocks in the painting with cheese, calling them the “camembert of time.” This statement directly contrasts The Disintegration of The Persistence of Memory, a commentary on the nuclear age. Inspired by its namesake, this piece features the same background and much of the same imagery. The most notable change is the levels of bricks on the ground of the second painting. Dalí stated they were sources of atomic power, shown in the same layout as the breakdown of matter into atoms in quantum physics diagrams. The missile-like objects farther back represent atomic bombs, and the fish represents life.

His discovery of Freud’s writings on erotic significance occurred during his time in Paris, leading Dalí to explore Freud’s theories in his work. Dalí crafted the “paranoiac-critical method.” This mental exercise attempted to access the subconscious through Dalí putting himself in a hallucinatory state — something very attuned to Surrealist ideology. As the Surrealist movement continued, Dalí focused on painting and filmmaking. Eventually, he returned to a more academic style of painting; Dalí’s Surrealist work remains the height of his career, and he’s regularly considered the most prized artist of the movement.

Paul Delvaux 91987–1994)

The Sleeping Venus (1944) and Mirror (1939), Paul Delvaux. Delvaux’s work often featured nude women against serious or structured backgrounds. Set against scenes of classical architecture, these women seem to be in some sort of trance. Sleeping Venus was directly inspired by the German wartime occupation of Brussels, at the time when the city was bombed. The oppressive nighttime setting and dramatic figures contrast with the calm figure of Venus, emphasizing the drama and anguish in the rest of the scene. In Mirror, a woman meets her nude reflection and sees a background of rigid trees. The room is peeling around the woman, who sits in an elegant dress. These contradictory visuals are characteristic of the Surrealist style.

Belgian painter Paul Delvaux studied architecture and decorative painting at the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts in the late 1910s. In the ’30s Delvaux witnessed a Surrealist exhibition and was inspired by Magritte and de Chirico to create works based on his childhood fears and desires. His portrayal of adult nostalgia contrasted other aspects of his work — notably, his female nude paintings; Delvaux drew connections between these themes, once stating, “A nude is erotic even when indifferent, when glacial. What else would it be? The eroticism of my work resides in its evocation of youth and desire.”

The skeleton has the shell (1944) and Skeletons in an office (1944), Paul Delvaux. Delvaux drew from many childhood obsessions including trains, trams, and skeletons. His use of skeletons is perhaps the most notable of these motifs. Delvaux explained that he had been scared of a skeleton in a school classroom as a child.

Jean Arp (1886–1966)

Untitled (Automatic Drawing) (1917–18), Jean Arp. As Arp entered the Surrealist movement, he began to move from geometric forms to fluid, organic forms. These forms would come to be some of the most notable aspects of his work. In Untitled (Automatic Drawing) Arp was said to be inspired by the natural elements he saw, emulating the shares of branches, stones, roots, and grasses in his free forms.

Jean (Hans) Arp is a sculptor best known for pioneering abstraction. A poet and creator at heart, Arp co-founded the first modern art alliance in Switzerland, through which he became invested in the Dada movement. He began to create collages and paintings in the Dada — and soon Surrealist — style. He implemented his abstract techniques in architecture — most notably through his redesign of the Aubette dance hall’s interior in the mid-’20s. By the mid-’30s, Arp was a widely respected relief and free-standing sculptor, having had two major exhibitions at New York’s Museum of Modern Art. Arp is known for his use of biomorphic, curved, and organic forms.

Shirt Front and Fork (1922), Jean Arp. Shirt Front and Fork, a carved and painted wooden relief sculpture, was rendered to create recognizable forms. The neutral colors accentuate the shape of the two figures, a tooth, and a fork. The simplicity of the relief and the way both the tooth and fork seem out of place in relation to each other and the setting leaves the viewer unsettled, evoking a number of questions. Through creating these images, Arp took one of his first steps from Dada to Surrealism: that of having a stream of unconsciousness that drives the piece.

Pierre Roy (1880–1950)

French surrealist Pierre Roy studied architecture at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts for a short period before leaving his class to work on a design for the 1900 Paris Exposition. Having found the courses boring, he explored art forms until 1905, when he decided to dedicate himself to painting. He featured in four Paris exhibitions before the first surrealist exhibition in 1925, where he was featured among his surrealist peers. Roy was also known for creating stage sets, magazine covers, and advertising posters.

A Naturalist’s Study (1928) and Boris Anrep in his Studio, 65 Boulevard Arago (1949), Pierre Roy. In A Naturalist’s Study, Roy created incredibly detailed and realistic images of an unfamiliar space. The objects — a string of speckled eggs, a paper snake, a wagon wheel, a reed mobile, writing tacked to the wall, and a distant train — seem to have no connection whatsoever. As the viewer continues to look over the painting, they grow more confused as to the purpose of juxtaposing so many objects in one space. Roy was known for his realistic depictions of everyday objects while they were in conflicted settings. In Boris Anrep in his Studio, 65 Boulevard Arago, Roy painted a massive bust of his friend’s head. This bust seems much larger than the rest of the room, towering over space. In the background are a series of doors and what looks like paintings, or perhaps small rooms. One of these rooms is a miniature version of A Naturalist’s Study. The contradiction of such a large object in a small space, with an arrangement of objects with odd visual perspectives, creates a surrealist flair that is hard to miss. Many compare the largeness of the bust to that of a cinematic zoom, with the bust being thrust into dramatic focus.

Yves Tanguy (1900–1955)

Yves Tanguy grew up in the coastal areas of Brittany with a maritime family. He entered military service in 1918 and was dismissed in the early ’20s. Inspired by a gallery window featuring de Chirico’s work, Tanguy took up painting on a whim, quickly developing a unique personal style and impressive technical skill. Tanguy was introduced to Breton a year later.

Perhaps one of the most passionate believers of surrealist ideology, Tanguy contributed regularly to surrealist manifestos, magazines, and exhibitions. His work, which featured confrontation, adopted a unique method in the late ’20s. Many of his works from this time were inspired by Carl Jung’s theories. The psychoanalyst encouraged others to begin an art piece with a dream, and work outwards. Tanguy adapted this concept by painting backgrounds and shadows first and then adding unique, unexpected forms in the foreground.

Indefinite Divisibility (1942) and The Satin Tuning Fork (1940), Yves Tanguy. Tanguy’s work is known for having a common background: an expansive, deserted, imaginary landscape. He filled these landscapes with various rock-like or amoebic forms. These forms were painted with intense realism and technical detail. In both Indefinite Divisibility and The Satin Tuning Fork, there are collections of large objects in the foreground and additional objects dotted around the distant landscape. Tanguy was well admired, even considered by Breton to be the quintessential surrealist.

Kay Sage (1898–1963)

Born in New York, Kay Sage studied art at the Corcoran Art School in Washington D.C. and in Italy before moving to Paris in 1937. It was at this time that she became involved with the European surrealists. Sage formed The Society for Preservation of European Culture, a group that organized art exhibitions in the U.S. to secure European artists’ safe travel to New York during the war. Sages surrealist style — combining architectural and biomorphic forms with complex scaffolding, geometric figures, drapes imagery, and dystopian structures — reached its height in the ’40s. At this time, she had moved back to America, newly-married to Yves Tanguy. Their time together in Connecticut inspired great work from both artists. Sage had relations with the main surrealists, but her sex and upper-class background kept her from being accepted into the main surrealist group.

I Saw Three Cities (1944) and Tomorrow is Never (1955), Kay Sage. In many of Sage’s paintings, there is a similarity to Tanguy’s work: a desolate, expansive landscape in the background. In I Saw Three Cities, there’s a massive, organic, almost human-like figure in the foreground. The detailed drapery juxtaposes the simple, geometric shapes in the background. Painted during WWII, the figure calls upon the classic Greek sculpture Nike of Samothrace. Nike, a mythological figure of victory, ties closely with the slowly ending war. Historians debate whether this imagery was meant to symbolize victory or defeat, given that Europe was in a time of deep suffering when it was created. Tomorrow is Never uses a vast, desolate background. Perhaps her best-known painting, Tomorrow is Never utilizes massive scaffolding — buildings half-built, abandoned, and vulnerable — to portray Sage’s feelings of isolation and loneliness after her husband’s sudden death.

Meret Oppenheim (1913–1985)

Meret Oppenheim was born in Switzerland to a family of analysts. From a young age, she was immersed in psychoanalytic theory, beginning to record her dreams as a teen. This practice would continue throughout her life and would serve as a great inspiration for her work. Oppenheim attended the Paris Académie de la Grande Chaumière, quickly becoming engaged in the Surrealist community during her education. Oppenheim was the first woman the main Surrealist group engaged with as an artist, seen as she exhibited her first sculpture, Giacometti’s Ear, at a 1933 salon among the male surrealist’s work. Oppenheim is known for her paintings, sculptures, material art, collages, costumes, and theatrical work. A leading champion of the surrealist object, Oppenheim regularly challenged the typical functions of objects, turning them into something with an entirely different purpose and symbolism.

Le Déjeuner en fourrure (Object) (1936) and Ma Gouvernante (My Nurse) (1936), Meret Oppenheim. Object, created in 1936, is widely regarded as the definitive surrealist object. The fur-covered teacup and saucer set takes two refined objects — tea and fur — and combines them in a way that is uncivilized and scandalous. Ma Gouvernante has a more sinister and sexual meaning. The pair of high heels, placed on a serving platter and trussed like a chicken, references several sexual ideas as well as cannibalism.

Leonora Carrington (1917–2011)

Self-Portrait (Inn of the Dawn Horse) (1937–38), Leonora Carrington. Carrington’s Self-Portrait evokes the mythology, animals, fairy tales, and legends she grew up with. Carrington’s figure sits in a room of her childhood home — a grand curtain separating her from the wide world available outside. Inside, her companions are slightly mystical animals. The rocking horse is without a tail and floating, while the hyena has somewhat exaggerated proportions. Carrington’s wild hair, blown back from her face, is reminiscent of a lion’s mane. The way the hyena is standing — reaching up — is mirrored by Carrington, who stretches an arm out. The horse outside and the horse inside are in the same position, creating a clear parallel between one’s freedom and the other’s stationary form. While a nod to the fairy tales of Carrington’s childhood, this parallel could also allude to the trapped feelings she held when she created the painting (it was at this time she was dating Ernst and had a dramatic break from her family). Smaller elements — the addition of the female hyena’s visible reproductive body parts, as well as Carrington’s high heels, the elaborate drapery, and her long hair — all portray Carrington’s continuous themes of femininity.

Leonora Carrington, a British-born Mexican creator, was a surrealist known for her paintings and novels. Carrington was a founding member of the women’s liberation movement in 1970s Mexico. Carrington was introduced to Surrealism reading Herbert Reed’s Surrealism in 1937, a book on the subject that included notable Surrealist artworks. She was especially drawn to a Max Ernst painting and would soon be introduced to him by a mutual friend. The two had a brief, intense romantic relationship and lived together in Paris. Ernst, having been born in Germany, was imprisoned at the beginning of the second world war. Carrington, wrought with grief, fell into a depression from their separation. She fled to Spain with two friends but suffered from a mental breakdown that caused her to spend several years in a mental asylum. During this time Carrington returned to painting — something she had largely discarded after Ernst’s imprisonment. After her stint in the asylum, she moved to New York, where she wrote her memoir Down Below. A short while later, Carrington moved to Mexico City, quickly becoming an esteemed artist; the Mexican government commissioned her to create a mural for the National Museum of Anthropology (Mexico City) in 1963. The mural was titled El Mundo Mágico de los Mayas (The Magical World of the Maya). Carrington would become known for her archetypal feminine imagery, her use of tempera paint, mythological themes, and enigmatic creatures in her art.

Portrait of Max Ernst (1939) and The Giantess (The Guardian of the Egg) (1942), Leonora Carrington. Painted during their short romantic relationship, this portrait of Ernst is one of Carrington’s most well-known works. In the painting, Ernst holds a tiny horse within a lantern. Carrington often used horses and other animals, like hyenas, as surrogates for herself. The horse in the lantern is as ambiguous as their relationship was: the horse could be a guide, or it could be trapped. The additional horse, frozen in the background, observes Ernst from a distance. Carrington’s theme of femininity is the central theme in The Giantess. The figure is protecting an egg — a universal symbol for life — and is large and surrounded by other living beings. The geese leaving her coat and the small beings on the ground are indicative of prevailing life. In both paintings, the unorthodox figures and distorted proportions demonstrate Surrealist ideology.

Dorothea Tanning (1910–2012)

Born and raised in Illinois, Dorothea Tanning attended art school in Chicago before moving to New York in the early 40s. In New York, she met Julian Levy, famed art dealer, who introduced her to several surrealists who had come overseas to escape German occupation in France. She became close with Max Ernst a year later and the two were married. Tanning would spend 20 years in France with Ernst but would return home in the late 70s. In her later years, she pursued a long-time interest in writing. Tanning is known for her abstract surrealist style, figurative dreamscapes, and soft fabric sculptures.

Birthday (1942), Dorothea Tanning. Little Hermit Sphinx (1948), Leonor Fini. Tanning’s self-portrait, Birthday, was the launchpad of her artistic career. Birthday was celebrated by many surrealists, including Max Ernst and Peggy Guggenheim. Framed by an infinite hallway of doors, Tanning stands in the foreground, adorned with foliage and an upper-class, lace blouse. Similar to Leonora Carrington’s Self Portrait, Tanning is accompanied by an animal. The creature, thought to be a winged lemur, is a long-standing symbol for the night and the spirit world. The winged lemur represents the unconscious released through dreams. Like many other female surrealists, Tanning addresses ideas of femininity and sexual objectification (noted in this painting through her traditionally-feminine clothes and exposed chest). In a different take on feminity, Leonor Fini’s Little Hermit Sphinx defies traditional sphinx symbolism. Instead of riddles, thresholds, and transitions, Fini shows the traditionally empowered sphinx as withdrawn, fragile, and defeated. Charged by post-war fear and grief, the painting showcases a tattered and dilapidated environment, scattered with overgrown foliage and odd objects. Fini the imagery came from themes of mortality and morbidity. Despite this, many speculate that the painting was also inspired by Fini’s voluntary hysterectomy. The broken egg could symbolize the finality of her never having a child, and the organ hanging from the doorframe could be her removed womb. The organ, however, was identified by the artist as a lung. The true focus of the painting remains on the sphinx and not on the tragedy around her.

Leonor Fini (1907–1996)

Leonor Fini was a self-taught artist born in Argentina and raised in Italy. While recognized widely for her surrealist paintings, Fini also excelled in portraiture and theatre. Fini painted many creators in great detail, including Carrington and Oppenheim. Behind the curtain, she created extravagant and award-winning masks, costumes, posters, and set designs.

Despite being the only woman fully inducted into the surrealist group, Leonor Fini was extremely independent. Fini was disgusted by Breton’s misogynistic views and the tendency of male surrealists to dehumanize and objectify women. Fini’s work has been showcased at nearly every major Surrealist exhibition since 1936. Fini freely explored ideas of adult eroticism, death, and infertility. She was particularly known for her imagery that commented on the interplay and complex relationship between the sexes.

Self Portrait with Scorpion (1938), Leonor Fini. Featuring a scorpion hidden beneath Fini’s glove — a common surrealist motif — Self Portrait with Scorpion creates a unique challenge between femininity and violence. Fini, posed in a way that exposes her chest, wears a seemingly traditional blouse, pair of gloves, and hairstyle. These feminine themes are challenged by rips in her blouse and the scorpion hiding underneath her glove. Fini creates a sexually-charged image that invites the viewer in but suggests a hidden element of danger and poison. Scorpions are strong symbols of feminine power.

Claude Cahun (1894–1954)

Claude Cahun was a French photographer, sculptor, anti-fascist resistance worker, artist, and writer, best known for their self-portraits and androgynous style. Many portraits feature Cahun themself, assuming many personas, environments, and themes to create widely different images. In their autobiography, Cahun stated, “Masculine? Feminine? It depends on the situation. Neuter is the only gender that always suits me.” Their self-portraits, collages, and sculptures regularly challenged static ideas of gender and sexuality; they also challenged surrealists’ tendency to objectify and fetishize women in their art. Their usage of mirrored and doubled elements, as well as their androgynous perspective, create a unique take on Surrealism that remains unmatched today.

Untitled (I am in training don’t kiss me) (1929) and Untitled (Self-Portrait with Mirror) (1928), Claude Cahun. Highlighting one of Cahun’s better-known personas, I am in training don’t kiss me juxtaposes male and female stereotypes. The mixture of hearts, painted weights, exaggerated and pursed lips, and even the curls of a handlebar mustache bring to mind male stereotypes of exercise and muscle-building, alongside feminine ideas of the body and decoration. Cahun invites the viewer to kiss them but ridicules the viewer for being attracted in the first place. This photograph is one of many in Cahun’s Strongman series. Self-Portrait with Mirror focuses on the mirroring of Cahun’s form. Looking away from the mirror, Cahun rejects ideas of vanity, leaning towards thoughtfulness and exploration. They appear to be defensive, hiding their figure, while their reflection is more open and confident. The use of the mirror brings to mind surrealist ideas of the real versus the imagined or artificial.

Remedios Varo (1908–1963)

Born in Spain, Remedios Varo learned to draw at a young age and grew up with strict Catholic schooling. She attended the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in San Fernando, Madrid, where she became familiar with other Spanish artists, such as Dalí. At the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, Varo fled to Paris, later moving to Mexico at the start of WWII. Varo became involved with several Mexican artists — Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, and Leonora Carrington in particular. Varo is known for her repeated use of mystical machines, towers, and cages in her work.

Plant Architecture (1962), Remedios Varo. This piece features large trees that connect into smooth pathways. The seemingly disproportionate figures create an otherworldly atmosphere unique to surrealism.