What is the main difference between surrealism and neo-surrealism?

Answer 1

The main difference between surrealism and Neo-surrealism is that Surrealism puts emphasis on the distance that separates juxtaposed images while Neo-surrealism is more concerned with fantasy art with limited random imagery.

Surrealism was originally a literary movement, founded in the early 1920s by a group of writers and poets, and led by poet Andre Breton. It was later expanded to include visual artists, filmmakers, playwrights and musicians.

Surrealism in its original form was based on a set of specific principles, laid out in Surrealist Manifestos, and founded primarily on methods of artistic creation in which the work was generated by the subconscious, without interference by the rational mind.

Foremost of these methods was "automatism", more specifically "automatic writing" and "automatic drawing", in which the hand was encouraged to write or draw on its own, without conscious thought or the editing associated with the normal creative process. Surrealism also emphasized the expression of dreams, considered a direct line to the creations of the subconscious, resulting in many dream-inspired visual works in which seemingly disparate objects are juxtaposed.

Surrealism was a formal movement, both cultural and political, and members could be included or expelled by the group's leaders. Most notably, painter Salvador Dali was expelled from the group for refusing to adhere to the stated Surrealist principles.

Neo-Surrealism is a much looser and more broadly applied term, used to refer to a number of artistic styles that began to appear in the 1960s and 1970s that incorporated visual elements similar to or borrowed from Surrealism.

While these styles incorporate dream-like and oddly juxtaposed imagery, they are rarely based on actual dreams, and there is little if any emphasis on the original Surrealist principle of automatism.

Much of the work considered Neo-Surrealist might just as easily be fit into a number of other classifications, such as fantastic art, visionary art, fantasy art and Magic Realism.