Surrealism, By Walter Friedlander s Duality Of Rational...

Surrealism. Surrealism is defined as a 20th century art movement, which attempted to tap into the subconscious mind of the artist. This style of painting involved creating imagery and ideas that were seen to contradict each other. In a surrealistic work of art, the world of dream and the world of imagination are joined to the everyday reality. Therefore, it combines both a very rational, and irrational style. Surrealist Theory was based on a simplistic understanding of the writings of Sigmund Freud recreated for the use of poets and visual artists, the mind and human psychology became a source of inspiration. Like the underdeveloped photograph, the contents of the mind are latent, speaking in a secretly language that is wholly private and individual. Surrealism sought this secret language through the fixing of the dream images into works of art. The broad meaning of Surrealism represents a significant constituent of human feeling, a love for the world of dreams and of fantasy. In Walter Friedlander’s duality of rational-irrational, this is the real for the irrational; it depends upon inspiration rather than upon rules, and it values the free play of the individual imagination rather than the codification of the deals of society or of history. Artists such as Hieronymous Bosh, Salvador Rose and Goya all explored the free element of fantasy as only a part of a total conception that is basically traditional. The class of subject matter chosen by the artist and their