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  Surreal Blog  
  The word surreal is used to describe a type of twentieth century European art in which unrelated objects are combined to create a scene that the viewer is more likely to encounter in a dream than in the real world. The artist's intent is to stimulate the creative potential of the viewer's unconscious mind which expresses itself less easily when awake than asleep. The unrelated objects are often arranged in a haphazard ways which adds to the difficultly of interpreting surreal art from a rational perspective. As a result, surreal art may not appeal to everyone.

In Japan, artists began to make surreal art in the 1950s. Some of their surreal compositions included birds and (or) flowers in the foreground. Two examples, chosen from the Reader Collection of Japanese Flower-and-Bird Art, are shown below.
 
  Two surreal examples  
  In other surreal pictures the birds and (or) flowers were placed alongside accompanyiing objects, as in the example below.  
 

Surreal example

 
 

To see more surreal prints from the Reader Collection click here.

 
 

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