Surrealism  

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Ubu Roi (King Ubu) is a play developed by Alfred Jarry premiered on December 10 1896, and is widely acknowledged as a theatrical precursor to the Absurdist, Dada and Surrealist art movements.
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Ubu Roi (King Ubu) is a play developed by Alfred Jarry premiered on December 10 1896, and is widely acknowledged as a theatrical precursor to the Absurdist, Dada and Surrealist art movements.

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Surrealism was a 20th century art and cultural movement that began in the mid-1920s in Europe, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members. The works feature the element of surprise, unexpected juxtapositions and non sequitur, however many Surrealist artists and writers regard their work as an expression of the philosophical movement first and foremost with the works being an artefact, and leader André Breton was explicit in his assertion that Surrealism was above all a revolutionary movement. From the Dada activities of World War I Surrealism was formed with the most important center of the movement in Paris and from the 1920s spreading around the globe.

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Origin of the term

In May 1917, Guillaume Apollinaire coined the term "Surrealism" in the program notes describing the ballet Parade which was a collaborative work by Jean Cocteau, Erik Satie, Pablo Picasso and Léonide Massine:

"From this new alliance, for until now stage sets and costumes on one side and choreography on the other had only a sham bond between them, there has come about, in Parade, a kind of super-realism ('sur-réalisme'), in which I see the starting point of a series of manifestations of this new spirit ('esprit nouveau')."

Bataillean vs Bretonian Surrealism

Breton was obviously the driving force behind surrealism, and he ran the movement in a dicatorial style, even expelling several of its members. Several of these ex-members started adhering to Georges Bataille's subversive "Bataillean" surrealism and the latter's journal Documents.

Surrealism and comedy

Some branches of comedy (chiefly British, and also Japanese) are known for being very surreal. Perhaps the most famous example of Surrealist comedy can be seen in the late 1960s-early 1970s British sketch show Monty Python. Also influential as an earlier example of British satire was Beyond the Fringe a British comedy stage revue written and performed in London from 1960 through 1966, and in New York from 1962 through 1964, by Peter Cook, Dudley Moore, Alan Bennett and Jonathan Miller. The original cast was replaced in London after 1964.

During the mid-1990s the American television program Mr. Show on HBO and Comedy Central has been described as surreal and its main performers have acknowledged being highly influenced by Monty Python on Mr. Show's DVD commentaries.


See also




Unless indicated otherwise, the text in this article is either based on Wikipedia article "Surrealism" or another language Wikipedia page thereof used under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License; or on research by Jahsonic and friends. See Art and Popular Culture's copyright notice.

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