What is Surrealism?
Surrealism, as a cultural movement, grew out of the Dadaist rejection of excessive rationality and bourgeois values of the Great War-era discourse. Unlike Dada, however, the Surrealists believed that the imagination and freeing of the unconscious mind would be the key to changing the world's perspective, rather than bluntly attacking prevailing attitudes like the Dadaists.
The Surrealists were heavily influenced by Marx's dialectic and by Freud's exploration of dreams and the unconscious mind. Surrealist art tends to focus on the unexpected juxtapostion of normal objects in ways that challenge the viewer's preconceptions to create unease and a sense of mystery. Magritte, Dali, Miro, and Ernst are among the more well-known artists of the Surrealism movement.