a movement in art, literature, and film dating from the 1920s that reflected the influence of psychoanalysis, seeking to used the incongruous images formed by the unconscious to transcend reality as perceived by the conscious mind. Surrealist artists include Joan Miró, René Magritte, and Salvador Dalì, who also collaborated with the Spanish film director Luis Buñuel to make surrealist films
Surrealism was a movement which aimed at the transformation of humanity as well as the arts, replacing arid bourgeois normality with the spontaneous freedom of the irrational and unconscious (nonetheless there were fierce disputes over ideological orthodoxy). Many of its leading figures were poets, but artists – including Dali and Ernst – and the film director Luis Buñuel were also members — Martin Gayford
surrealist noun and adj
[French surréalisme, from sur-1 + réalisme realism]