Among all the styles and genre of western art, surrealism is probably the most intriguing. Initially influenced by the ideas of Sigmund Freud, surrealism in course of time became the depiction of the absurd and the fantastic. It was typically a product of 20^th century Europe, when new discoveries in the field of science was creating possibilities of new realities.

But surrealism was a typical European phenomenon. The people of the downtrodden colonies, where everyday existential realities were so severe, did not find any attraction for mind-fantasies and absurdities. The new ism emerging from these colonies was magic realism, where reality of everyday lives was blended with the fantasies of escape to create an illusion of happiness. Unlike Surrealism, this new style was initially adopted in the literary works of the South American writers. But Magic realist art was mostly practiced in the rich west as a result of which in art magic realism lost much of its protest flavor.

One of Salvador Dali’s best known surrealist paintings shows clocks in the form of soft cloth in a meaningless deserted landscape.

After fifty years of the colonies’ independence, most of third world is now making steady progress. In this new era, the whole world is fast getting unified and what man faces now in any part of the world is the confusion between what is perceived as real and incomprehensible unreal. Pseudo-realism is a product of these unsure times.