surrealism
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.
Origin of surrealism
1Other words from surrealism
- sur·re·al·ist, noun, adjective
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
How to use surrealism in a sentence
Di Bello described the color-splashed works as “abstract expressionism” with “surrealist” methods.
Last year he purchased three paintings by the Mexican surrealist Meme Artist at the Galeria Libertad in Querétaro.
By the time that you see them, they're bloated into surrealist Arcimboldo paintings, into soft constructions of rotten fruit.
Whatever You Do Someone Will Die. A Short Story About Impossible Choices in Iraq | Nathan Bradley Bethea | August 31, 2014 | THE DAILY BEASTThe best way to pay tribute to the surrealist artist: get a tattoo of his work.
Many of your stories are very visual, and readers come away with a surrealist image.
There was a surrealist flash of the jaygee's face before he clipped him into the back of the square little truck.
The Syndic | C.M. KornbluthThe screen was a surrealist painting, come alive, solid and real.
Shock Treatment | Stanley MullenSomebody had turned on the electric fans, and long streams of flimsy fabric were blowing about like a surrealist maypole dance.
Null-ABC | Henry Beam Piper and John Joseph McGuire
British Dictionary definitions for surrealism
/ (səˈrɪəˌlɪzəm) /
(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
Origin of surrealism
1Derived forms of surrealism
- surrealist, noun, adjective
- surrealistic, adjective
- surrealistically, adverb
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Cultural definitions for 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.
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.
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