THE AVANT-GARDE MOVEMENT, SURREALISM

THE AVANT-GARD MOVEMENT

SURREALISM

The Avant-garde movement is a movement that includes people or works that are experimental and innovative especially in art and culture, they push the boundaries of what is considered to be normal and rebels against society and culture. It is the factor of modernism and is one of the most important movements since it has many elements in its name varying from cubism to symbolism.

One of my favorite movements Is Surrealism, The aim was to resolve the previously contradictory conditions of dream and reality, and that’s why I find it very interesting. Sometimes dreams can give u the best version of reality or on the contrary the worst version of reality but being able to put these dreams into reality to begin with, whether its in art or culture, shows a great amount of imagination and wisdom. The description of surrealistic art can be quite strange but then again, dreams and repressions in a humans mind are at a frequency rarely anyone can explain.

A good example of surrealism would be Salvador Dali (1904-1989), he is a very well known artist that has left a great impact on the world. One of his most appreciated works would be ‘The Persistence of memory’ which is an oil on canvas painting ranging between 24cm × 33cm. In our trend these days people may see this famous ‘melting clock’ everywhere from shops selling a souvenir to people having it inked on their body but not everyone really knows what it represents because Dali wasn’t so specific with his analysis since his creatively odd personality doesn’t allow him to and so there are various theories and sayings by many different people as to what it actually represents. To me this painting shows a man in his dream, this man being Dali, the human like figure on the floor of the landscape with closed eyes that represents a sleeping state. The melting clocks represent time, ticking at a very distorted pace like how it feels like when we are dreaming. The ants on the mirror like object represents decay; Dali has used the ants several times in other paintings.

Therefore the painting in my words, can be summarized by a man stuck in his dream decaying while time ticks away in a distorted manner, maybe never ending.