What Is Surrealism?

Defining surrealism is something that is both simple and very difficult, as there are many things that may not necessarily be realistic, yet not fall into the artistic field of surrealism, and pinning art down and labeling it as one thing or another can often be a case of pigeonholing to make it easier to deal with, rather than accepting the art on its own merits. Surrealism is something that because of its very nature strives to be different and strange, and can often lead to something that doesn't work, but when done by a master it can be one of the most striking and memorable things to observe.

As with many other areas within art, surrealism had much of its development and growth in Paris, where people were pushing the boundaries in terms of taking normal things, and incorporating them into artworks that were very much out of the ordinary, and it is the change of context, which is really a big part of surrealism. It is also a large part of the developments in other types of art, and although it may have started as a medium on canvas, there are many different types of artistic media that now utilize and surrealist approach to have the biggest possible effect.

When it comes to the biggest name that has come from surrealism, there is no doubt that Salvador Dali is probably the most famous of the surrealists, and as well as his distinctive and individual appearance, his art was also very much something that was very unique, and stemmed from an interesting imagination and view of the world. In much the same way as the art form itself went from the traditional and spread into other forms, Dali also created wonderful and stunning sculptures, and also ventured into other types of media too.

As well as the work of Salvador Dali, surrealism brought other experimental artists into the culture, who often gained acknowledgment and popularity as more people became interested in art that was outside the traditional rules, and one of the most popular of these was Armenian painter Arshile Gorky, who created some exceptional surreal portraits. Still working on canvas, but in a very different way and getting some very different results from the use of paint on canvas, Jackson Pollock's work is very distinctive and certainly qualifies into the surrealism movement.

On a very basic level, surrealism is simply any art that can be qualified as being surreal, and with so many different artists working to their own ideas and methods, what falls within surrealism will look very different moving from the work of one artist to another. The advent and development of surrealism within art moved the style away from the simple and realist portrayal of what is seen onto the canvas, and actually takes this and puts the emphasis on what the artist can imagine from the subject. This is what makes surrealism such an individual thing, and the minds of different artists bring out very different things from subjects that can actually be quite similar, yet look completely at odds with each other.