Surrealist paintings

Buy a surrealist painting at Carré d'artistes

Surrealist painting for sale: 

Carré d'artistes presents a large selection of surrealist paintings.
This avant-garde movement was born after the First World War with Dadaism. 

Carré d'artiste offers unique and certified works thanks to its network of over 600 emerging artists. The paintings are selected by our art curators, we select the latest trends to guide you in your purchase of painting.

Discover our selection of surrealist paintings in our galleries and on our website.
If you have any questions, our art curators can guide you by phone at 04 86 31 85 33 or by video conference. 

What are the characteristics of a surrealist painting?

It is an art that proposes to express either verbally the thought and the intellect in no control of the artist and without aesthetic or moral preoccupation. 

The surrealist painting is the absence of any control and represents unspeakable things coming from the unconscious and the dream. In other words, the imaginary. 
In this way, the surrealist painting is often poetic and represents untold, uncontrolled things from the dream and the unconscious.
One can recognize this painting by the imaginary subjects that are always present in the paintings. The symbols are also very strong and numerous in a surrealist work.*
 

A dreamlike atmosphere in your home

Although surrealist painting is not aesthetically pleasing, often described as affordable and mysterious, it is perfectly suited to decorate your home.

Installing a surrealist painting in your home is an opportunity to develop the imagination and everyone can make their own reading of the work. It is a unique way to decorate the walls by adding a touch of creativity in a living room, a bedroom and often in the corridors.

Both traditional and more modern, this movement breaks the monotony of a house. Indeed, the artwork attracts attention, creating a stylish effect!
By buying a surrealist artworks you open the doors to the unreal.
 

What is the surrealist movement? 

André Breton is the leader of the Manifesto of Surrealism signed in 1924. According to him, this art explores the unconscious in all art forms. This contemporary art movement involves all different types of creative processes and aesthetic expression (oil painting, drawing, music, film, writing and poetry).
This art form uses all the psychic springs such as automatism, dreams and the unconscious. The painters of the Surrealist movement freed themselves from the control of strict reason and engaged in a struggle against the established order and received values. 

Artists and writers such as André Breton, Louis Aragon, Philippe Soupault followed by Francis Picabia and Georges Bataille came together to mark their art with a form of revolt against the sad reality of the post-war period. The Manifesto defines surrealist painting as "pure psychic automatism". With this art form, there is no more censorship, no more limits in the way of creating or viewing painting. This art form explores the imaginary and dream world in order to reconnect man with his inner thoughts.

Many artists joined the movement, including René Magritte, Salvador Dalí, Marc Chagall, Max Ernst, André Masson, Joan Miró, Dora Maar, Man Ray, Meret Oppenheim, Alberto Giacometti and Dorothea Tanning.

From the 1930s, the movement took a much more political turn. The surrealist influence spread to many artistic fields such as cinema, writing, posters...

Discover the world of surrealist painting 

The key surrealist artworks 

There are many Surrealist painters who continue to inspire contemporary artists in their artistic approach.
The painter Joan Miró created the painting "Harlequin's Carnival" in 1924 based on his own hallucinations. In this painting, Miró reveals many strange characters from his imagination.

The artist René Magritte is internationally known for his painting "Ceci n'est pas une pipe". *
In his work "Faux miroir", he depicts an eye which is in fact a symbolic representation of the way we look at the world. The surrealist painter wanted to show that looking is a mental creation. We all interpret reality in our own way. 

Others like Robert Desnos, Guillaume Apollinaire, Salvador Dali...
 

Masterpieces of surrealist art : 

The persistence of memory by Dali, one of the most famous works is undoubtedly the painting entitled "The persistence of memory" or "The soft watches". Known throughout the world, these soft watches evoke time, death and dreams.

We can also mention "Les amants de Réné Magritte" made in 1928, this painting is kept at the MoMA in New York. It is composed of two figures embracing, their faces hidden by a white veil. This motif is found in other paintings by the artist and gives rise to several interpretations.

Joan Miro's Le carnaval d'Arlequin, painted between 1924 and 1925, was shown at the Surrealist group exhibition at the Galerie Pierre in Paris.
Alongside the great names of the Surrealist movement (de Chirico, Picasso, Man Ray, Paul Klee and Max Ernst), Joan Miró was a great success.