Surrealism toyed with ideas from psychoanalysis

Defining Dalí's surreal aesthetic

Salvador Dalí is known for his modernist paintings, but his surreal aesthetic has lived on long after his passing, with elements of his art making their way into fashion, film, and interior decorating. This incisive Artnet explainer unpacks the elements that make up Dalí's larger artistic vision and highlights the ways they still appear throughout popular culture.

Salvador Dalí idolized Freud but was disappointed after they met

Sigmund Freud's writings on dreams and the unconscious profoundly influenced Dalí and his work, and the artist came to idolize the Austrian psychoanalyst. When they met, Freud viewed Dalí as an odd curiosity, and the artist came away disappointed, significantly lowering his opinion of the psychoanalyst.

The Surrealists shunned Dalí for his fascination with fascism

Dalí had a fascination with Adolf Hitler and was also a fan of Spanish dictator Francisco Franco. It's unclear how serious Dalí was about it; regardless, his admiration for authoritarians got him expelled by the antiwar and progressive surrealists.

The widespread violence of World War I birthed surrealism

Following World War I, artists used unconventional forms of expression to make sense of the death and destruction they'd witnessed for years. Life as they knew it had ended, and movements like Surrealism, founded by André Breton, rebelled against tradition.

The ideas of Einstein and Freud combined in 'The Persistence of Memory'

The Persistence of Memory was painted on a canvas roughly the size of a sheet of paper, depicting a desolate landscape with melting clocks, ants, and a distorted figure. The piece incorporates Freud and Einstein's ideas, resulting in a haunting composition symbolizing time's fluidity and Dalí's personal anxieties.

Famed psychologist Sigmund Freud believed dreams were symbolic expressions of desire

Austrian psychologist Sigmund Freud believed dreams should be interpreted using personal symbolism and free association, meaning relaxing the mind and waiting to see what concepts spontaneously erupt. Interpreting and unraveling these "involuntary ideas" is a precursor to understanding the psychology of neuroses, according to Freud.

Watch Salvador Dalí and Luis Buñuel's landmark surrealist short film

Made in 1929, the silent short film "Un Chien Andalou" ("An Andalusian Dog") marked Dalí's entrance into the surrealist movement. Dreamy and disturbing, the film projects images like a hand covered in ants and a razor slicing an eye, and follows no obvious structure. Watch it here.

In 1945, Surrealist artist Salvador Dalí and legendary animator Walt Disney began collaborating on a short film that was not completed until 2003, years after both men had died.

Salvador Dalí believed he was his own dead brother, who had died nine months before he was born

Picasso is known as one of the creators of cubism

In the early 1900s, cubism redefined modern art by breaking objects into geometric shapes and showing multiple perspectives at once. Developed by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, it challenged the idea that art should mirror reality, and laid the foundation for many movements that followed.

Existentialism has been used as a therapeutic tool

Psychologists became interested in existentialism in the 1940s, with two Swiss psychiatrists—Ludwig Binswanger and Medard Boss—particularly taken with Martin Heidegger’s “Being and Time.” The existential approach to therapy emphasized a patient’s personhood and experiences, using them to help that patient face their problems head-on.

The dreaming brain, as understood by scientists

Technology has advanced to where the seemingly separate fields of psychology and neuroscience are asking the same questions about dreams, such as whether they're more closely related to perception or visualization. Some field-intersecting findings include research that shows people with impaired face perception don't dream of faces, those with brain legion-related cognition difficulties deal with similar issues in dreams, and children's dreams change in parallel to their cognitive development.

The scientists trying to prove Jackson Pollock's symbolism

Jackson Pollock is one of the most famous American artists in history. He is well-known for his Abstract Expressionist "drip paintings," which seemed to defy interpretation. But following the artist's posthumous bipolar diagnosis, a team of scientists attempted to prove that his symptoms, including mania and psychosis, caused Pollock to embed images under his thrown paint.

Widespread use of LSD sparked a counter-cultural artistic movement in the 1960s

The trippy visuals often associated with LSD flourished in the 1960s as the drug became more widespread. Psychedelic design, defined by its undulating text and graphics, ultimately grew beyond just visuals, spawning psychedelia, a term that includes art, music, and cultural experiences based on psychedelic experiences.

Carl Jung proposed the controversial idea of the 'collective unconscious'

The famed psychologist proposed the idea in 1916, referring to a hypothetical universal part of the unconscious mind shared by all humans. It contains innate elements called archetypes—such as the Hero, the Mother, or the Shadow—that shape human behavior, dreams, and myths across cultures.

What is psychoanalysis?

This nine-minute video, the first of a four-part series, seeks to answer the questions: what is psychoanalysis, and is it weird? The answer to the latter question is overwhelmingly yes. The answer to the first question is a bit...

Jean-Jacques Lequeu was an amateur architect who dabbled with the surreal

Although he never found a career in architecture, Lequeu sketched hundreds of images in his free time. His innovative style wasn't discovered until after his death, but the dreamlike drawings have since been appreciated for their visionary quality.

Lewis Carroll's 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' turned the fantasy genre upside down

A lot of 19th-century British fantasy was often stiff; its children’s literature was often overly didactic. Carroll’s novel—about a young girl who falls into an unusual world full—was neither, offering vivid, psychedelic imagery and seemingly nonsensical word games.

A mescaline-induced hallucination stayed with Jean-Paul Sartre throughout his life

In 1935, Sartre was injected with mescaline, a psychedelic drug that was then used to treat alcoholism and depression, by his friend at the Hôpital Sainte-Anne in Paris. It was not a good trip: Sartre saw nightmarish crabs for days and suffered a mental breakdown. For the rest of his life, crustaceans like the ones he saw during the hallucination appeared in his works.

What it means to call something 'Lynchian'

David Lynch was one of American cinema's most influential directors. He brought a singular, unsettling vision to the silver screen. Critics, however, have trouble pinning down what it means when other artists try to recreate that vision. This essay untangles his influence, tracing the word "Lynchian" back to its earliest utterances and attempting to define a notoriously slippery term.

An LSD scientist's role in a US mind control project

Within a decade of LSD's discovery, the US government had launched a secret initiative involving hypnosis and hallucinogens. LSD researcher Louis Jolyon West conducted experiments for the CIA's MKUltra project, which focused on the potential of mind control. He later took part in a criminal trial that hinged on testimony whose sourcing was seemingly inspired by MKUltra experiments. This article explores light shed by West's personal archive.

How seizures (potentially) alter consciousness

Seizures occur when intense electrical activity floods the brain, prompting significant loss of self-control and a variety of sensory disruptions and hallucinations. Cultures interpret the episodes differently, with many contemporary norms viewing them as negative while others characterize them as intense spiritual occasions. Author Fyodor Dostoyevsky viewed his seizures this way, as well as cultures in Mongolia, some Shamanic indigenous religions, and others.

Meet the psychologist who reads people through the art they live with

Dimitrios Tsivrikos, an academic psychologist at University College London, says the art someone hangs in their home reveals as much about them as a bookshelf would. He advises going on a first date at a museum and asking each other about the work on the walls.

Georgia O'Keeffe's flower paintings are often assumed to be sexual, though the artist claimed she was simply interested in highlighting the beauty of flowers that most people neglect

Romantics sought to experience 'the sublime'

“Sublime” may be a word that’s still used in popular culture, but when Irish philosopher Edmund Burke used it in a 1757 essay, he was attempting to define an astonishment at something that was beyond full human understanding.

What made Mary Cassatt's art radical

Although the American Impressionist's work is sometimes dismissed as overly sentimental, these Cassatt specialists argue that her portrayals of women are often subtly subversive, emphasizing how they defy the gender norms of the time.

Some theorize that horror's artifice turns fear into enjoyment

The “excitation transfer theory” suggests that the unpleasant feelings a jump scare might elicit (like shortness of breath) are quickly relieved when the audience member remembers what they’re witnessing is fake.

Ray Dalio credits much of his success to his transcendental meditation practice

Dalio took up transcendental meditation after learning that The Beatles practiced it on a trip to India in 1968. He says the practice allows him to clear his mind, be more creative, and unlock his subconscious.

See these 16 pieces of art evoking phobias of snakes, flying, spiders, and more. 

Researchers believe the brain consolidates memories, processes emotions, and plans for the future during dream states

The first horror movie is believed to be George Méliès' 1986 short 'The Haunted Castle,' which pioneered the use of special effects

Mid-century modern graphic designers, known for their bright colors and bold lines in advertising, also found success with children's books.

In recent years a child anxiety expert has created and tested a novel phobia and anxiety treatment approach for children, focused on changing how parents respond to the fears.

The Brothers Grimm were lawyers before they were storytellers, but became interested in fairy tales as they began investigating how rules and customs had been passed down through cultures.

Browse a detailed visual analysis of over 200,000 similes—comparisons that often use 'like' or 'as'—from popular fiction to see how frequently writers the same idiomatic expressions.

Existentialist writer Jean-Paul Sartre coined the famous phrase 'Hell is—other people' in his play 'No Exit'

Art theft is the third-largest source of criminal revenues worldwide, thanks in part to the subjective nature of valuing a work of art.

Some Pokémon have been named after real and fictional organisms, while some real-world species have been named after Pokémon, such as Chilicola charizard and Binburrum zapdos.

The Ramones' 'Pet Sematary,' the theme song for the Stephen King novel of the same name, was written while the band was admiring the writer's collection of horror memorabilia.

Clever Hans was a 1900s horse that was believed to be able to solve math equations, tell time, and read and comprehend German, until a psychology student discovered how he got his answers.

This site reaches millions of visitors who are tired of AI chatbots and seeking human connection. Pretend to be an AI chatbot and ask questions, provide answers, and draw for people in real time.

Explore chaos in this simulation of two double pendulums, where small differences in the release angles produce wildly different outcomes.

The word 'jazz' evolved from 'jasm,' 19th-century American slang for 'energy'

'Shogun,' a 1980s TV series, helped popularize sushi in the US by stimulating an American interest in Japanese culture.

US intelligence allegedly pursued more than 600 schemes to assassinate Cuban revolutionary Fidel Castro.

The name 'Silicon Valley' arose from the founding of Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory in Fairchild Semiconductor in 1956-57, founded near Stanford University in Palo Alto

Objects can be 3D printed with light by projecting 2D computerized tomography (CT) scans onto rotating cylinders of resin, which solidify upon exposure.

During the French Revolution, a botanist's letter asking about "dear Rhus" (poison ivy) was intercepted, leading authorities to suspect he was conspiring with the Russians.

Most of the observable universe's volume consists of voids and supervoids—enormous regions of space with little to no galaxies, stars, or light.