Surrealism
Movement "started" in 1924 (after the split of Dada), with a manifesto written by André Breton, which was described as a "pure automation". Although this definition was more suited to the surreal literature and less to the surreal art, surrealism's reputation rests primarily on the work of painters and sculptors such as S. Dali, Ernst, M., C. Miro, Arp H., etc. Principal operator of expression and promotion of ideas and surrealistic works were the surreal various magazines. The Surrealist Revolution (La Revolution Surrealiste) was published in Paris in December 1924 by Breton, Éluard, Aragon, etc. and in 12 of its total issues (as in 1929, when it stopped running) hosted collaborations of Desnos, De Chirico, Man Reh, Ernst, Picasso and Masson. Surrealism in the Revolution’s service, which was considered by Breton the best surrealist magazine, also published in Paris from 1930 to 1933 (total of six issues) -when he gave its position to the strong tendencies in the inspection, so-called “Minotaur” closed in 1939 (publisher of the Greek historian and art critic Christian Zervos). Other remarkable surrealist periodicals published outside France were the International Surreal Press in Belgium, the Bulletin of London, from 1940 to 1938, and “The view” (View, 1940-7) and VVV (1942-4) in New York. The surrealist’s paintings can be classified in two main categories. The first, which corresponds approximately to what Dali called "dream objects painted by hand", uses basically conventional techniques to deliver fantastic pictures as the enigmatic squares of De Chirico or "soft watches" by Dali. The second category is characterized instead by devising new techniques, such as the frotaz of Ernst, the transfer printing (a kind monotype) of Domingo or amorphous abstract painting of Masson. In both cases, however, the goal of the Surrealists was to mix the logical with the horse, and, using dreams, a random element and one beyond any aesthetic or moral concern automation, create a new reality, a super-reality. Similar objectives had also the works of surrealist’s poets like Eluard and Crevel or the films of Buñuel and Dali, entitled “An Andalusian Dog” and “The Age of Gold”. The boom of the surrealist movement, more or less coincides with the decade of 1930. Apart from France, surreal groups existed at that time, were active in United States, Britain, Japan, Scandinavia, the Balkans, South America, Eastern Europe, Belgium, etc. in the period of the Second World War many surrealists were forced to flee United States, exercising their work and ideas in a liberating and life-giving influence on American art. Although there were some late surreal activities in Paris and since 1945, each artist followed a more or less independent evolution. The term "surreal", who invented by Apollinaire in 1917 to describe the theatrical parody of “The breasts of Tiresias”, sometimes is used (by extension) in association with the fantastic, grotesque or frightening images which exist in any art time.