With Salvador Dalí as its figurehead, the great ship of Surrealism traversed the turbulent seas of the early twentieth century with sails billowing with dreams and desires. Inspired by the psychoanalytical practise of Sigmund Freud, the Surrealists championed the unconscious as the domain of truth, uninhibited by the standards or expectations of society.
With techniques ranging from hypnotism to nocturnal walks to automatic writing, the likes of André Breton, Max Ernst, Brassaï, and Meret Oppenheim produced paintings, drawings, texts, and films in which they sought to excavate their most intimate and primal instincts. The results abound with sexual fantasies, with mysterious, menacing creatures, and with the juxtaposition of seemingly contradictory objects or ideas.
This book introduces the origins and the sensational legacy of the Surrealist movement, one of the most profound and enduring influences on film, theater, literature, art, and thought.
Featured artists: Hans Arp, André Breton, Giorgio de Chirico, Salvador Dalí, Max Ernst, Alberto Giacometti, Paul Klee, René Magritte, André Masson, Matta, Joan Miró, Pablo Picasso, Meret Oppenheim, Yves Tanguy
The author
Cathrin Klingsöhr-Leroy (b. 1958) studied art history, archaeology and German literature in Regensburg, Bonn and Paris. She wrote her doctoral thesis on “The Artist Portrait in the French Grand Siècle”. Previously curator of the Fritz Winter Foundation at the Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen in Munich, she is currently director of the Franz Marc Museum in Kochel am See. She has published works on Lyonel Feininger, Lovis Corinth, Franz Marc and the Blue Rider and in particular on Paul Klee.
About the series
Each book in TASCHEN's Basic Genre series features:
- approximately 100 colour illustrations with explanatory captions
- a detailed illustrated introduction plus a timeline of the most important political, cultural, and social events that took place during that period
- a selection of the most important works of the epoch, each presented on a 2-page spread with a full-page image and accompanying interpretation, as well as a portrait and brief biography of the artist
