René Magritte

The exhibition “The Collective Unconscious: Graphic Works of Surrealism from de Chirico to Magritte” opened at the beginning of March 2011 at the State Historical Museum of Russia, Moscow. Initiated by InArtis Project, the exhibition gave a rare opportunity to get acquainted with the art works of Giorgio de Chirico, Max Ernst, Salvador Dali and René Magritte from private collections from Europe and the USA, and aimed to show the development of the visual concept of Surrealism - the story of the emergence of the images of Surrealism and their further development as a distinct phenomenon. The graphic works at the exhibition show the viewer not only different works by acknowledged masters that are stylistically different in themselves, but also illustrate the development of Surrealism itself.
The first exhibition of Surrealist artists took place in 1925 in Paris, its participants including painters as diverse as Giorgio de Chirico, Paul Klee, Max Ernst, Joan Miro, and Pablo Picasso. In the opinion of Andre Breton the new art had to express the secret desires and needs of all people; to grasp this art, viewers only had to have a receptive mind and the spontaneity of a child.