How did Surrealism start?

Surrealism first started in Europe 1920’s after the First World War, with its nucleus in Paris. Its roots were found in dada, but it was less violent and more artistically based.

 Surrealist art movement combined elements of its predecessors, Dada and cubism, to create something unknown to the art world. The movement was first rejected, but its eccentric ideas and unique techniques paved the way for a new form of art.

Firstly surrealism was the work of writers and poets, the French poet, André Brenton whom is known as ‘ The Pope of Surrealism’, he wrote the Surrealist manifesto to describe how he wanted to combine to consciousness and sub-consciousness  into  a new ‘absolute reality’, de la Croix 708.

Brenton first used the word surrealism to describe work found to be a ‘fusion of elements of fantasy with elements of the modern world to form a superior reality’.  The first ever exhibition of surreal paintings was held in the year 1952, though its ideas were rejected. Brenton set up an International Exhibition of Surrealism in New York, which then took the place of Paris as the centre of the Surrealist movement (Pierre I).

Soon surrealist ideas were given new life and became an influence over young artists in the United States and Mexico. The ideas of Surrealism were bold and new to the art world and so forth it expanded and more artists’ came along to carry on the art of surrealism.