SURREALISM

And the artists:

RENE MAGRITTE and
Salvador Dali
• Surrealism is a 20th-century literary and
artistic movement
that attempted to express
the workings of the
subconscious by using
fantastic imagery and
the juxtaposition of
subject matter.
• Surrealism is a term that refers to a heightened
sense of reality; translated from French, the
term means: “over-realism”--a vision of
reality that supersedes the mundane!
• Dream-like
• Out of the
ordinary…
 Rene Magritte was a Belgian
surrealist painter.
He painted in a realistic
style. While the objects
appear to the viewer to
be recognizable, the
composition of those
recognizable objects
appears fantastic.
Magritte was deeply
interested in the
process of thought,
and his paintings
tend to raise the
awareness of the
viewer to their own
thought processes.
• More often than not, Magritte
chose ordinary things from which
to construct his works -trees,
chairs, tables, doors, windows,
shoes, shelves, landscapes, people.
He wanted to be understood via
these ordinary things, but he also
wanted to shock and surprise his
viewers.
Salvador Dali 1904-1989
Dali was a leader of the
Surrealist Movement, but
begin to clash with the rest
of the Surrealist and was
expelled from the group in
1934. His most well known
painting is of the image of
melting clocks called,
“Persistence of Memory”
Persistence of Memory
Surrealistic Techniques -
“How to make the
ordinary look extraordinary”
• Scale
• Levitation
• Juxtaposition
• Dislocation
• Transparency
• Transformation
 SCALE
Changing an object’s
scale, or relative size.
SCALE
 Personal Values
SCALE
SCALE
LEVITATION
Floating objects that
don’t normally float
LEVITATION
LEVITATION
JUXTAPOSITION
Joining two images
together in impossible
combinations
JUXTAPOSITION
JUXTAPOSITION
 DISLOCATION
Taking an object from its usual
environment and placing it in
an unfamiliar one
DISLOCATION
DISLOCATION
TRANSPARENCY
Making objects transparent that
are not usually transparent
TRANSPARENCY
TRANSPARENCY
TRANSFORMATION
Changing objects in
unusual way
TRANSFORMATION
TRANSFORMATION
Use the ideas of Surrealism to create a
unique perspective drawing.
Linear Perspective
 Linear Perspective is based on the idea that
receding lines will meet at a common point on
the horizon
The concept of perspective was developed
during the Italian Renaissance
The Renaissance lasted from c1400
to c1600
 Before the
Renaissance, in the
Middle Ages, most
paintings depicted
heavenly figures
worshipping Christ.
The backgrounds in
these paintings was
usually gold
The Renaissance marked a huge leap forward in
artists ability to show naturalism and depth in
paintings and sculpture.
M. C. Escher was a Dutch artist who loved to
play with the theory of linear perspective in
order to create visual puzzles.
Perspective can be drawn from
various points of view.
Normal Perspective Scene
Surreal Perspectives
Sale’s Surreal Perspective
Drawings
 Today’s Activity:
Draw boxes in 1 point perspective
 2 point perspective boxes
(practice sheets will be a grade)