During the first part of the twentieth century, Surrealism upset the arts community by incorporating dream imagery and a recurring emphasis on the absurd. Two artists who often represent the Surrealism art style in painting fairyland vistas are Salvador Dali and Peter Max.

Salvador Dali: Master of Surrealist Painting

We can best understand surrealism through pieces like the melting clocks found in Salvador Dali's creation named The Persistence of Memory. This is oil on canvas work which is a depiction of the surrealist vision of the painter Salvador Dali art, a desert scene where the clocks hang listlessly on rocks and tree branches, their shapes akin to melting Camembert cheese. Spherical, amorphous like several organisms in the background of the painting are also gloomy and creepy making the work disturbing and bizarre. 

They have a familial relation to philosopher Henri Bergson’s idea of the rhythmic swelling and contraction of time and space that gives the painting a rubbery, molten quality. Soft watches imply the theory of relativity, time is not fixed, and it is relative. In addition, Dali took into account elements of the failure and the success of matter over spirit. The display of ants on one of the watches that is melting illustrates that value, such as time, doesn’t exist when people try to bypass natural laws.

Nevertheless, what is more compelling is that in addition to philosophical themes, Dali painted Salvador Dali surrealism artwork and actual visions into the work The Persistence of Memory. The Clocks are organic and rotting with the barren looks of the landscape suggest the background of his Catalonian homeland. Any word, symbol, or image that may be associated with ants and flies is related to rot and death. Dali did translate his standpoint in art into the principles of Surrealism, which include grotesque imagery, dream imagery, and INSIGHT into the unconscious.. 

Peter Max: Psychedelic Surrealist

Not only was Dali one of the leaders of European Surrealism in the 1930s, but Peter Max artwork was in the forefront of the Psychedelic Art movement in America in the 1960s. In use of vivid color cars and surrealist elements, Max illustrated the hippie era of thoughts like peace, love and free consciousness. 

Some of the Peter Max paintings include ‘Orange Sunshine Explosion.’This painting looks like the typical Max painting; it has short brush strokes, bold outlines, rain-colored palette, and coded messages. This stands as an acrylic painting in which a sensational yellow sun is highlighted and has rays that looks like a blast. Unnoticeable to the naked eye lying behind the beams of light are symbols of the sixties - the smiley face, the word ‘Love,’ people with flower leis around their necks, and the peace sign. Endeavor to reconcile the Surrealist tradition with the cheer of 1960s subculture.

Upon completion of that series, known as Liberty Head Explodes with Color, it becomes apparent that Max has developed past his Psychedelic phase; however, he still carries some aspects of Surrealism in his work. This mixed media includes a Statue of liberty with blue skin, her head split open with beams of rainbows inside the background with splattered colors and shapes. Max makes Lady Liberty into an illusion, suggesting that freedom relates to mental expansion rather than to politics. An ideal case of radially symmetrical compositions, optimistic sentiments, and a celestial interpretation of culturally important symbols can be found in the especially colorful Liberty Head.

Two artists are perfectly good examples of the fact that surrealism is far from being the thing that has stopped evolving centuries ago. The movement that initially emerged as an avant-garde movement, or a vanguard culturally, was reborn in the psychedelic visual culture of America. However the basic goals remain the same – utilizing dream signification and nonsensical associations to convey the esoteric truths of the psyche. Max created an immediately identifiable style which powerfully captured the spirit of the two epochs of his work; the same can be said of Dali. Their works are evidence that grotesque and creepy symbolism can also express otherworldliness, fun and positive attitude towards individual development.