l art sought to provide a perfect imitation of external reality, surrealist art represented the human effort to seek out the truth of human existence. More than just an appeal to the human senses, surrealist art compelled the audience to explore their higher levels of consciousness and their perspectives on life.
Furthermore, by breaking out of the traditional artistic techniques and the use of unconventional media, surrealist artists made art accessible to ordinary people. Instead of creating a barrier between the artist and the audience, surrealist artists attempted to demonstrate that art was an integral part of one's daily existence. The surrealist artists' experimentation with the different media thus encouraged people to re-examine their perception of the ordinary objects in their lives and discover novel relationships and connections.
Therefore, more than just a subversive and anti-establishment ideology that was created in reaction to the materialism of bourgeois society, the surrealist movement inspired the writers and artists to express their human imagination and discover the meaning of life. In this paper, the works and the motivation of selected surrealist artists will be discussed in order to identity the distinctive characteristics of the surrealist movement and its significance in the history of art. Furthermore, my personal reaction to the subject in relationship to my study of computer graphics will also be integrated into this discussion.
The quest of surrealist artists to evoke and capture the realm of the unconscious and the functions of their thoughts is best encapsulated in Max Ernst's painting titled Surrealism and Painting. In this painting, a pachyderm with its greenish mass flowing all over a wooden pedestal containing the tools of a painter, is painting lines on a canvas. Within its entangled and intertwined form, a few heads of birds with half-closed eyes, the shape of a breast, knees an...