Surrealism is an art and cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists aimed to allow the unconscious mind to express itself, often resulting in the depiction of illogical or dreamlike scenes and ideas. Its intention was, according to leader André Breton, to "resolve the previously contradictory conditions of dream and reality into an absolute reality, a super-reality", or surreality. It produced works of painting, writing, theatre, filmmaking, photography, and other media as well.
Max Ernst was a German painter, sculptor, printmaker, graphic artist, and poet. A prolific artist, Ernst was a primary pioneer of the Dada movement and surrealism in Europe. He had no formal artistic training, but his experimental attitude toward the making of art resulted in his invention of frottage—a technique that uses pencil rubbings of textured objects and relief surfaces to create images—and grattage, an analogous technique in which paint is scraped across canvas to reveal the imprints of the objects placed beneath. Ernst is noted for his unconventional drawing methods as well as for creating novels and pamphlets using the method of collages. He served as a soldier for four years during World War I, and this experience left him shocked, traumatised and critical of the modern world. During World War II he was designated an "undesirable foreigner" while living in France.
Modern art includes artistic work produced during the period extending roughly from the 1860s to the 1970s, and denotes the styles and philosophies of the art produced during that era. The term is usually associated with art in which the traditions of the past have been thrown aside in a spirit of experimentation. Modern artists experimented with new ways of seeing and with fresh ideas about the nature of materials and functions of art. A tendency away from the narrative, which was characteristic of the traditional arts, toward abstraction is characteristic of much modern art. More recent artistic production is often called contemporary art or Postmodern art.
Giuseppe Maria Alberto Giorgio de Chirico was an Italian artist and writer born in Greece. In the years before World War I, he founded the scuola metafisica art movement, which profoundly influenced the surrealists. His best-known works often feature Roman arcades, long shadows, mannequins, trains, and illogical perspective. His imagery reflects his affinity for the philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer and of Friedrich Nietzsche, and for the mythology of his birthplace.
Raymond Georges Yves Tanguy, known as just Yves Tanguy, was a French surrealist painter.
Max Klinger was a German artist who produced significant work in painting, sculpture, prints and graphics, as well as writing a treatise articulating his ideas on art and the role of graphic arts and printmaking in relation to painting. He is associated with symbolism, the Vienna Secession, and Jugendstil the German manifestation of Art Nouveau. He is best known today for his many prints, particularly a series entitled Paraphrase on the Finding of a Glove and his monumental sculptural installation in homage to Beethoven at the Vienna Secession in 1902.
Carlo Carrà was an Italian painter and a leading figure of the Futurist movement that flourished in Italy during the beginning of the 20th century. In addition to his many paintings, he wrote a number of books concerning art. He taught for many years in the city of Milan.
The Estorick Collection of Modern Italian Art is a museum in Canonbury Square in the district of Islington on the northern fringes of central London. It is the United Kingdom's only gallery devoted to modern Italian art and is a registered charity under English law.
Metaphysical painting or metaphysical art was a style of painting developed by the Italian artists Giorgio de Chirico and Carlo Carrà. The movement began in 1910 with de Chirico, whose dreamlike works with sharp contrasts of light and shadow often had a vaguely threatening, mysterious quality, "painting that which cannot be seen". De Chirico, his younger brother Alberto Savinio, and Carrà formally established the school and its principles in 1917.
Alberto Savinio, born as Andrea Francesco Alberto de Chirico was a Greek-Italian writer, painter, musician, journalist, essayist, playwright, set designer and composer. He was the younger brother of 'metaphysical' painter Giorgio de Chirico. His work often dealt with philosophical and psychological themes, and he was also heavily concerned with the philosophy of art.
Mario Sironi was an Italian Modernist artist who was active as a painter, sculptor, illustrator, and designer. His typically somber paintings are characterized by massive, immobile forms.
The Melancholy of Departure is an oil on canvas painting by the Italian metaphysical painter Giorgio de Chirico, from 1916. This painting was created after Chirico returned to Italy from Paris to join the Italian Army in World War I. It is held at the Tate Modern, in London.
The Elephant Celebes is a 1921 painting by the German Dadaist and surrealist Max Ernst. It is among the most famous of Ernst's early surrealist works and "undoubtedly the first masterpiece of Surrealist painting in the de Chirico tradition." It combines the vivid dreamlike atmosphere of Surrealism with the collage aspects of Dada.
Jedd Garet is an American sculptor, painter and printmaker, who was born in 1955. He was raised in California, studied at the Rhode Island School of Design, and received a BFA from the School of Visual Arts in New York City.
The Difficult Crossing(La traversée difficile) is the name given to two oil-on-canvas paintings by the Belgian surrealist René Magritte. The original version was completed in 1926 during Magritte's early prolific years of surrealism and is currently held in a private collection. A later version was completed in 1963 and is also held in a private collection.
20th-century Western painting begins with the heritage of late-19th-century painters Vincent van Gogh, Paul Cézanne, Paul Gauguin, Georges Seurat, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, and others who were essential for the development of modern art. At the beginning of the 20th century, Henri Matisse and several other young artists including the pre-cubist Georges Braque, André Derain, Raoul Dufy and Maurice de Vlaminck, revolutionized the Paris art world with "wild", multi-colored, expressive landscapes and figure paintings that the critics called Fauvism. Matisse's second version of The Dance signified a key point in his career and in the development of modern painting. It reflected Matisse's incipient fascination with primitive art: the intense warm color of the figures against the cool blue-green background and the rhythmical succession of the dancing nudes convey the feelings of emotional liberation and hedonism.
Italian Contemporary art refers to painting and sculpture in Italy from the early 20th century onwards.
Jesus Fuertes was a Cubist painter, who was initiated into the world of art by Salvador Dalí, and was described as a "true genius" by Pablo Picasso. Fuertes often chose women and cats as his subject matter. Several of his well-known works involve the use of shades of blue, which earned him the nickname "Painter of Blue".
Hebdomeros is a 1929 book by Italian painter Giorgio de Chirico. Chirico did not produce any other long-form writing. The book is narrated in the third person and loosely concerns the movement of a man, Hebdomeros, westward. Writing in The Kenyon Review, Alan Burns referred to the text as a "surrealist dream novel".
