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I am going to tell you a secret: I found my love of the surrealist art movement because of Pixar.
To me, Pixar’s Inside Out encapsulated the essence of the mind with bright colors and simple characters, simultaneously breaking down the complexity of the mind into an understandable story for children while inspiring curiosity in me, a malleable 16-year-old at the time, to learn more about that mysterious psyche of ours.
Surrealism can be found in literature, philosophy, and art. Much like our modern-day sci-fi, fantasy, and horror genre, it aims to revolutionize the human experience, asserting the value of our unconscious and dreams. Psychologist Sigmund Freud influenced surrealism, as he furthered the revolution against the constraints of the rational mind. The rules of society felt particularly repressive during the 1920s-1950s, which allowed surrealism to flourish first in Europe before spreading across the world. Honestly, I have mostly studied surrealism and wondered at it through its arts lense, hence my perspective.
The most famous painting that is often people’s introduction to surrealism is Salvador Dali’s The Persistence of Memory.
Through his art, Dali sought to “systematize confusion and thus discredit completely the world of reality.” Many suggested the image of soft watches was a…
