Surrealism In Art Quotes & Sayings

In our modern world, this elemental quality of storytelling is denied. We live today in a world in which everything has its place and function and nothing is left out of place. Storytelling is thus at a discount and like everything else in a world ruled by the laws of exchange value, literature is required to submit itself to the requirements of the market and must learn, like any other commodity, to adapt and serve needs that lie outside of itself and its concrete value. It is forced to stand not for itself but for an ideological cause of one sort or another, whether it be political, social or literary. It cannot exist for itself: like everything else it has to be justified. And for this very reason the power of storytelling is automatically devalued. Literature is reduced to the status of complimentary utilitarian functions: as a pastime to provide distraction and entertainment, or as a heightened activity that would claim to explore 'great truths' about the human condition. — Michael Richardson

Surrealism is not a movement. It is a latent state of mind perceivable through the powers of dream and nightmare. — Salvador Dali

The type of work I do, which is often called 'Pop Surrealism,' is very separate from Gagosian and Mary Boone type of gallery art. — Molly Crabapple

[David] Salle's earlier work had been marked by a kind of spaciousness, sometimes an emptiness, such as surrealist works are prone to. But here everything was condensed, impacted, mired. The paintings were like an ugly mood. — Janet Malcolm

Surrealism! What is Surrealism? In my opinion, it is above all a reawakening of the poetic idea in art, the reintroduction of the subject but in a very particular sense, that of the strange and illogical. — Paul Delvaux

I loved surrealism and abstract painting, and anything related to those. I always thought painting was the highest form of art. What led me to drawing was seeing so much self-important, pretentious, conceptual-type art in university. I wanted to reject that by making quick, fun art. — Neil Farber

Painting, by its nature, cannot provide an object of simultaneous collective reception ... as film is able to do today ... And while efforts have been made to present paintings to the masses in galleries and salons, this mode of reception gives the masses no means of organizing and regulating their response. Thus, the same public which reacts progressively to a slapstick comedy inevitably displays a backward attitude toward Surrealism. — Walter Benjamin

American art in general ... takes to surreal exaggerations and metaphors; but its Puritan work ethic has little use for the playful self-indulgence behind Parisian Surrealism. — John Updike

Relationship Principle 10
You can tell how much someone respects you by how much he respects your opinion. If he doesn't respect your opinion, he won't respect you. — Sherry Argov

I spoke fire, laughed smoke, and madness spilled forth from my inspiration. — Arthur Holitscher

yes, i have dated Salvador Dali guy when i was a high school girl. he was a great lover. but i had to dump him because he stole my inspiration of bent clock*~* .... who cares... — Hiroko Sakai

I am the soul in limbo. — Andre Breton

Fame and fortune are calling. Are we taking the call or blocking the number? — Nicole Richie

Every page should explode, either because of its staggering absurdity, the enthusiasm of its principles, or its typography. — Tristan Tzara

From the classically executed lifelike bouquets, tempting you to reach for the petals that fell on a three-dimensional tablecloth, to a new and disturbing style in which the colors seemed to blaze with such intensity they destroyed the old lines, the old solidity, to make a vision like those states which I'm nearest my delirium and flowers grow before my eyes and crackle like the flames of lamps. — Anne Rice

Long live transfinite mountains, the hollow earth, time machines, fractal writing, aliens, dada, telepathy, flying saucers, warped space, teleportation, artificial reality, robots, pod people, hylozoism, endless shrinking, intelligent goo, antigravity, surrealism, software highs, two-dimensional time, gnarly computation, the art of photo composition, pleasure zappers, nanomachines, mind viruses, hyperspace, monsters from the deep and, of course, always and forever, the attack of the giant ants! — Rudy Rucker

Do I have no soul as punishment for not believing in the soul? — Stanislaw Jerzy Lec

Everyday objects shriek aloud. — Rene Magritte

The one thing the world will never have enough of is the outrageous. — Salvador Dali

I've always enjoyed feeling a connection to the avant-garde, such as Dada and surrealism and pop art. The only thing the artist can do is be honest with themselves and make the art they want to make. That's what I've always done. — Jeff Koons

That's what dreams are really like, you know? They're not full of melting clocks or floating roses or people made out of rocks. Most of the time, dreams look just like the normal world. It's your feelings that tell you something's off. Not your mind, not your intellect, not something as obvious as that. The only part of you that really knows what's going on is the part of you that's most a mystery. If that's not Surrealism, I don't know what is. — Amy Reed

We have a great elaborate machine which I feel has to be completely dismantled - in order to do that we need people who understand how the machine works - the mass media - unparalleled opportunity. — William S. Burroughs

One can show one's contempt for the cruelty and stupidity of the world by making of one's life a poem of incoherence and absurdity. — Alfred Jarry

Surrealism is the magical surprise of finding a lion in a wardrobe, where you were 'sure' of finding shirts. — Frida Kahlo

I really can't blame anyone but myself, because I didn't have to deliver the album. But when you get caught up in the gas, and you're young, and there's so much helium going on around you, you can't decipher the real end. — Pras Michel

I try to apply colors like words that shape poems, like notes that shape music. — Joan Miro

Surrealism: An archaic term. Formerly an art movement. No longer distinguishable from everyday life. — Brad Holland

Dive again and again into the river of uncertainty. Create in the dark, only then can you recognize the light. — Jyrki Vainonen

Possible reality [is obtained] by slightly bending physical and chemical laws. — Marcel Duchamp

People love mystery, and that is why they love my paintings. — Salvador Dali