Chagall was born into a tradition-steeped Russian household, which inspired in him a love of Russian-Jewish folktales and a deep reverence for the Jewish religion. From these elements he created the fantastical, personal paintings that relate a sense of fairytale atemporality -- in short, a poetic

Andre Breton's hallucinatory approach to poetry emerged as a reaction against the tiresome literary conventions of Paris in the 1920s. Abandoning traditional notions of creativity and promoting the philosophical and political ideals of the Surrealist movement, Breton's highly stylized yet spontane

"Since the age of the cave-dwellers, art has done nothing but degenerate." So said Joan Miro, one of the most unique painter-sculptors of the twentieth century. Miro's statement, aside from revealing his views on the history of art, also says something about his own artistic aims. He wanted to br