“Surrealism is destructive, but it destroys only what it considers to be shackles limiting our vision.” ― Salvador Dali

There is no exact way to find out the exact beginning of anything that has taken place in the history. Art requires creativity and great development of right brain. It requires a high sense of spirituality and imagination. Art has the power to touch hearts and connect with people at a great level. Surrealism started during the late 1910’s and in the beginning of ‘20s as a movement that gave birth to automatism which focused on releasing unrestrained imagination of the subconscious. After the publication of Manifesto of Surrealism by Andre Breton-a poet and critic, surrealism went international.  Highly influenced by psychology and known to be triggered by Dadaism, surreal art seeped its way into art beautifully. German Max Ernst was one of the visual artists to imply surrealist techniques in his paintings. Salvador Dali is a known name in the world of Surrealism and must be given the credit for taking surrealism out of the art gallery and expanding its horizons.

View my surreal art here.

Examples of Surreal Artists:

Dali designed lip sofa in 1936 taking inspiration from lips of Mae West.

Elsa Schiaparelli was a known fashion designer. She was highly amused by Surrealism and in collaboration with Dali, she designed a lobster phone shown below:

Famous Surreal Artists:

Robert Dowling

Robert Dowling is a self-taught artist who is world famous for his surreal paintings. He was born in 1972 in Bangor. He currently lives in Maine and is a dedicated artist. He is passionate about painting and works primarily with acrylics and oil.

Roy Nachum:

Roy Nachum is an Israel originated visual artist and painter graduated from Cooper Union in New York. His oil paintings are a perfect example of extraordinary surrealism. He makes use of Braille and a double vision technique

Mihai Criste:

Mihai Criste is a highly creative artist influenced by abstraction, surrealism and mystery. He uses an element of religion in her paintings and makes use of tree, apple, blood, snake and candle in her paintings. He conveys the profanity and spirituality in his paintings beautifully.

Digital Surrealism:

Digital era has transformed surrealism into digital surrealism and takes help from digital technology to create highly advanced digital surrealism paintings. Suzi F. Nassif is the famous name in the field of Digital surrealism. Marcel Caram and George Grie are famous digital surrealism artists whose work must be explored for a better understanding of digital surrealism.

Surreal art is best known for its visual art work rather than writings and is the best way to trigger imagination in people. In Surrealist art, artists paint beautiful scenes that seem illogical to naked eye. Surrealist paintings do not describe a scene, instead they exhibit an idea or a concept. It takes into account discipline of psychology to create a painting that digs deeper into the memory and takes a viewer to a whole new journey.