Why did surrealism start after ww1?

The Surrealists first came together in 1924 in response to the carnage of World War I. Many of the artists had served in that conflict and became extremely antinationalistic and antimilitary.

The very existence of the movement can be understood as contingent upon the First World War, in which a significant number of its founding members either fought or served as medics. Their experiences directly motivated surrealist interest in mental illness and belief in its subversive potential.

Surrealism grew principally out of the earlier Dada movement, which before World War I produced works of anti-art that deliberately defied reason; Surrealism developed in reaction against the “rationalism” that had led to World War I.

Infamously called the “anti-art” art movement, Dadaism developed out of disgust and resentment from the bloodshed and horror of World War I, which began in 1914 and ended in 1918. Dadaism's main purpose was to challenge the social norms of society, and purposefully make art that would shock, confuse, or outrage people.

The Surrealist movement started in Europe in the 1920's, after World War I with its nucleus in Paris. Its roots were found in Dada, but it was less violent and more artistically based.

Alongside Dada, the Surrealist movement emerged, beginning in Paris at the end of the war. This type of art conveyed ideas, thoughts, and feelings, leaving “reality” behind.

Surrealist artists have also drawn inspiration from mysticism, ancient cultures and Indigenous art and knowledges as a way of imagining alternative realities. The movement's aspiration towards the liberation of the mind as well as the liberation of artistic expressions has also meant seeking political freedom.

Surrealism is a cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists depicted unnerving, illogical scenes and developed techniques to allow the unconscious mind to express itself.

Founded by the poet André Breton in Paris in 1924, Surrealism was an artistic and literary movement. It proposed that the Enlightenment—the influential 17th- and 18th-century intellectual movement that championed reason and individualism—had suppressed the superior qualities of the irrational, unconscious mind.

Abstract Expressionism would emerge in the 1950s, followed by the rise of Neo-Dada, Pop, Minimalism, and Conceptual Art, among many other movements over the next decade.

In response to the unprecedented turmoil and trauma resulting from the war, many artists' reactions changed dramatically over a short period of time as fierce nationalism, enthusiasm for regalia and combat, and even optimism for a more democratic future frequently morphed into mournful reflection, feelings of loss and ...

World War I and Dada

For the disillusioned artists of the Dada movement, the war merely confirmed the degradation of social structures that led to such violence: corrupt and nationalist politics, repressive social values, and unquestioning conformity of culture and thought.

Dada artists felt the war called into question every aspect of a society capable of starting and then prolonging it – including its art. Their aim was to destroy traditional values in art and to create a new art to replace the old.

As war devastated Europe, René Magritte wrote in a letter to André Breton, “the confusion and panic that Surrealism wanted to create in order to bring everything into question were achieved much better by the Nazi idiots than by us.” To respond to the changes of the 1940s, Magritte believed Surrealism had to change too ...

People returning from the war had a completely different outlook on life and they reflected that in their artistic expressions. Many of these individuals thought that there was no purpose in life and that nothing made sense in life anymore. These surrealists and dadaists turned to art to get through their struggles.

Max Ernst (2 April 1891 – 1 April 1976) was a German (naturalised American in 1948 and French in 1958) painter, sculptor, printmaker, graphic artist, and poet. A prolific artist, Ernst was a primary pioneer of the Dada movement and Surrealism in Europe.

Immediately after World War I, artists began to reject avant-garde styles, such as Cubism and Futurism, that had been at the epicenter of artistic activity in Europe prior to the onset of the war. In place of these movements, artists explored new forms of Classicism, abstraction, and satire in their work.

The disillusionment that grew out of the war contributed to the emergence of modernism, a genre that broke with traditional ways of writing, discarded romantic views of nature and focused on the interior world of characters.

Officially consecrated in Paris in 1924 with the publication of the Manifesto of Surrealism by the poet and critic André Breton (1896–1966), Surrealism became an international intellectual and political movement.

The Surrealists first came together in 1924 in response to the carnage of World War I. Many of the artists had served in that conflict and became extremely antinationalistic and antimilitary.

The Origins of Surrealism

The members of the Surrealist movement stood as a reaction against the “rationalism” which they believed had contributed to the horrifying events of World War I.

Surrealism was born out of the Dada art movement which developed after World War I in Zurich, New York and Paris. Dadaism was a divergence from any precedent art forms or ideologies. It challenged traditional aesthetics, 'high art,' and beauty. Dadaists utilized a variety of mediums and techniques in their art.

The Surrealist movement began as a literary group strongly allied to Dada, emerging in the wake of the collapse of Dada in Paris, when André Breton's eagerness to bring purpose to Dada clashed with Tristan Tzara's anti-authoritarianism.

After the War, a general sense of purposelessness and defeat led to a movement both in modernism and in anti-authoritarianism and nihilism in literature and in art. A sense of separation between the artist and writer and the general public was created during this time.

Surrealism grew principally out of the earlier Dada movement, which, before World War I, produced works of anti-art that deliberately defied reason.

This movement aimed to change perceptions of the world by exploring dreams, the unconscious mind and the irrational. The Surrealists often used 'automatic' techniques – spontaneously creating art without conscious thought – to surface images from the unconscious.

Born out of the earlier Dada movement, the Surrealist movement was officially founded in 1924 in Paris. It was pioneered by Andre Breton, although the term 'Surrealist' was first used in 1903 by Guillaume Apollinaire in the preface to his play Les Mamelles de Tirésias (The Breasts of Tiresias).