Salvador Dali did not originate the Surrealist movement, but he was its most familiar face.
Andre Breton developed the concept of Surrealist art in the 1920s. The artist attempted to depict images from within his subconscious mind -- dreams, visions and flights of fancy -- instead of concrete, logical scenes. Surrealist painters often incorporated classic realist techniques to give their dream-like paintings a semblance of solidity. In the classroom, Surrealist art can help students explore their own subconscious minds or stretch the boundaries of their creativity.
Depicting Dreams
Although not everyone remembers them each night, everybody dreams. Surrealists frequently consulted their dreams as a source of inspiration for their art. Salvador Dali and Giorgio de Chirico painted images that they first saw with their eyes closed. Art students and psychology students alike might enjoy an assignment to draw, paint or sculpt an image directly from a dream or nightmare. Even those who do not recall their dreams every night likely remember particularly vivid imagery from past dreams.
Speculative Imagery
The question, "What if?" inheres in virtually all Surrealist painting. An instructor can come up with a list of "what if" questions for students to paint or draw; more advanced students can devise their own "what if" concepts. Rene Magritte's stylized paintings of suited businessmen with apples for faces, cities atop floating rocks and eyes filled with blue skies exemplify this kind of "what if" thinking. Like Magritte, students can play with proportion, perspective and gravity in their work.
Modernizing Myths
Mythology draws on archetypes, universal concepts that resonate with all people, to populate its most enduring tales. Archetypes transcend the hero's literal story and turn it into everyone's symbolic story. Surrealist artists also used their own symbolic imagery. Challenge students to devise their own symbolic language of images to depict a scene from a myth, legend or fairy tale. This assignment will appeal to older or more advanced students more than younger ones as it requires a good grasp of symbolism.
Surrealist Self-Portraits
The human face has attracted artists' attention for millennia, and no face is more accessible to artists than their own. Surrealist artists also painted portraits of each other and of themselves. They sometimes used their own language of symbols within the paintings to add another layer of meaning to them; other times, they obscured meanings with optical illusion and abstraction to capture a particular mood. Students can work on their own Surrealist version of self-portraiture in the same fashion, adding in imagery of things that their subconscious minds suggest to them as they paint.
"Exquisite Corpse"
The artistic game of "Exquisite Corpse" involves letting groups of students work together on an artwork that none of them will see in its entirety until they complete it. Surrealist artists played this game often; it lends itself equally well to classes of older or younger artists. Start with a piece of paper folded into fourths. The first artist draws on the first quarter of the page; after the image is complete, the next artist draws in the second quarter, but incorporates the bottom edge of the first artist's drawing. The unfolded image can look striking and strange.
