surrealism
[suh-ree-uh-liz-uh m]
- a style of art and literature developed principally in the 20th century, stressing the subconscious or nonrational significance of imagery arrived at by automatism or the exploitation of chance effects, unexpected juxtapositions, etc.
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Origin of surrealism
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Examples from the Web for surrealism
Contemporary Examples
I loved his blend of Native American realism with just a touch of surrealism.
Sherman Alexie on His New Film, the Redskins, and Why It's OK to Laugh at His WorkWilliam O’Connor
August 22, 2014
How did you develop this knack for inventing, and surrealism?
Michel Gondry on ‘Mood Indigo,’ Kanye West, and the 10th Anniversary of ‘Eternal Sunshine’Marlow Stern
July 20, 2014
But to sit through an entire Jodorowsky film requires an extremely high tolerance for surrealism (or maybe LSD).
It was his mix of expressionism and surrealism, however, that allowed Freud a legacy of admiration rather than notoriety.
Director Alex Nazari blurs the lines between reality and surrealism in this track, “Numb.”
surrealism
- (sometimes capital) a movement in art and literature in the 1920s, which developed esp from dada, characterized by the evocative juxtaposition of incongruous images in order to include unconscious and dream elements
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Word Origin
C20: from French surréalisme, from sur- 1 + réalisme realism
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
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Word Origin and History for surrealism
n.
1927, from French surréalisme (from sur- "beyond" + réalisme "realism"), coined c.1917 by Guillaume Apollinaire, taken over by Andre Breton as the name of the movement he launched in 1924 with "Manifeste de Surréalisme." Taken up in English at first in the French form; the anglicized version is from 1931.
De cette alliance nouvelle, car jusqu'ici les décors et les costumes d'une part, la chorégraphie d'autre part, n'avaient entre eux qu'un lien factice, il este résulté, dans 'Parade,' une sorte de surréalisme. [Apollinaire, "Notes to 'Parade' "]
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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper
surrealism
A movement in art and literature that flourished in the early twentieth century. Surrealism aimed at expressing imaginative dreams and visions free from conscious rational control. Salvador Dali was an influential surrealist painter; Jean Cocteau was a master of surrealist film.
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The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition
Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.