Surrealist Definition & Meaning

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In 1924 a group of European poets, painters, and filmmakers founded a movement that they called Surrealism. Their central idea was that the unconscious mind (a concept Sigmund Freud had recently made famous) was the source of all imagination, and that art should try to express its contents. The unconscious, they believed, revealed itself most clearly in dreams. The Surrealist painters included René Magritte, Joan Miró, and Salvador Dalí, whose "limp watches" painting became the best-known Surrealist image of all. Since those years, we've used surreal to describe all kinds of situations that strike us as dreamlike. And even though the Surrealist movement ended long ago, surrealism now seems to be everywhere—not just in painting, literature, and movies but also in blogs, video games, and graphic novels.

Examples of surreal in a Sentence

Despite all the hassle, though, I would not want an ordinary name. I know of one other person in the world who shares my name, first and last. I know nothing about her except that she lived in New York at the same time I did, and that she and I subscribed to a few of the same publications. I found myself in the surreal position of having to explain to circulation departments that I was, in fact, me, and not that other version of me on the West Side. — Johnna Kaplan, Newsweek, 3 Mar. 2008 Films aren't just a part of life for people in India; they are a way of life. The over-the-top, surreal dance numbers in nearly every Bollywood film often make no sense in relation to the story, but no one seems to be complaining. — Shashank Samant, The Out Traveler, May/June 2005 The movie achieves a truly rare mix of the absurd, the surreal, and the heartfelt. Improbably, its wacked-out premise and structural hilarity concoct a melancholy meditation on love, loss, and memory, while delivering a message—subversive to our culture's therapeutic optimism—about the tragedy of healing. — Rand Richards Cooper, Commonweal, 23 Apr. 2004 The whole thing was completely surreal.

Recent Examples on the Web Avavav’s creative director Beate Karlsson has a knack for the surreal, having previously worked with conceptual artists Ida Jonsson and Simon Saarinen and on Pyer Moss’ debut couture collection. — Frances Solá-santiago, refinery29.com, 4 Jan. 2022 Bob Mortimer is a hoot and a half in this episode, bringing his particular brand of surreal filth. — Bethy Squires, Vulture, 1 Jan. 2022 But thanks to eccentric humor and surreal elements, the show often veers away from traditional plot to highlight issues like race, fame, beauty image, social media, mental illness and more. — Nina Garin, San Diego Union-Tribune, 31 Dec. 2021 Host Michelle Shephard and Thorpe discuss his experience, along with the surreal bureaucracy of extremist organizations. — Eric Mcquade, The Atlantic, 27 Dec. 2021 For the first-time visitor to the warehouse, the multiplicity of sacred objects usually seen by themselves can have a surreal aspect. — New York Times, 24 Dec. 2021 In his debut memoir Beaumonster — a play on his native Beaumont, Texas — Dayton, 55, connects the dots in his surreal life. — Joseph Hudak, Rolling Stone, 21 Dec. 2021 The occasionally punishing, often surreal conditions of rehab suited me. — Anna Shechtman, The New Yorker, 20 Dec. 2021 To watch so many working at bringing to screen something that was only originally intended to be a gift for family and friends, is a surreal wonder. — Skyler Caruso, PEOPLE.com, 16 Dec. 2021

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'surreal.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.