In the aftermath of World War I, a group of artists reacted against the cold rationality that had caused such horrific violence, embracing instead the illogic of dreams and the unconscious. Lead by André Breton, Surrealism encompassed writing, painting, sculpture, photography, and performance. The Surrealists’ interest in dreams and the unconscious was inspired by the writings of Sigmund Freud and the developing field of psychoanalysis. The Surrealists practiced automatic writing and automatic drawing as a way of uncovering these unconscious impulses. Artists played the parlor game Exquisite Corpse, in which one person would begin a drawing, then fold over their portion of the paper and pass it to the next person to continue.

Surrealist artists built on the absurdism of Dada, established in the previous decade. Artists like Max Ernst, Joan Miró, and Francis Picabia painted unreal and at times unsettling scenes populated by fantastical figures. Giorgio di Chirico created neoclassical cityscapes characterized by strange juxtapositions and deliberately distorted perspective. Man Ray made contributions to the movement in the form of paintings and sculptures, but was noted for his photograms, which he called rayographs. Surrealist sculptors created assemblages from found objects, hoping to tap into the unconscious mind through unexpected juxtapositions. Other iconic artists associated with Surrealism include André Masson, René Magritte, Wifredo Lam, Yves Tanguy, and Salvador Dalí.