Have you ever imagined you slept in an ‘over-sized’ shirt, as a bed you usually sleep on? Have you ever dreamt about dressing into a hot air balloon or have you ever thought that you saw a strange thing in the world which was a fish but had a human body? People always think these kinds of thoughts are over the top, but this is all about fantasy, our dreams and human imagination. Designers are able to create fascinating work; artists are able to construct gorgeous creations, because of the human imagination. In 1940 Dali summed up his aspiration to create objects, ‘I try to create fantastic things, magical things and things like a dream. The world needs more fantasy. Our civilization is too mechanical.’ I will never forget his words, especially when he said, ‘We can make the fantastic real and then it is more real than that which actually exists.’ I agree with him. I think the world needs more fantasy. People seem to forget how to dream and what dreams are. They are too sensible now. In my personal study, I would like to look at how the power of the human imagination influences artists and designers in their creations.
I will first of all look at the surrealism movement which first appeared in Paris in 1924. In Oxford Intermediate Learner’s Dictionary, ‘surreal’ is an adjective which means images mixed together in a strange way like in a dream. In art, it is an expression of eccentric thoughts of the subconscious mind. Surrealist artists always create something which people think are nonsense, because their creation is influenced by their imagination and it is something that comes from dreams.
There were lots of famous artists who came from the surrealism movement; Rene Magritte is one of the popular artists within this movement. Unlike other surrealist artists’ work, of rich and complex layers, Magritte’s works are straight forward and