I should clarify this comment I made a few days ago: surrealism didn't just come out of the ether of Andre Breton's head. It has at least two (if not more) predecessors. The first one, of course, is Dada. The second is Paul Klee.
Dada actually introduced the role of chance in art. Tristan Tzara created his word poems by drawing slips of paper randomly out of a hat. Kurt Schwitters and others became famous for developing the collage. Marcel Duchamp put out his freshly varnished "The Bride Stripped Bare By Her Bachelors Even" where it would gather dust and add a texture to the painted glass.
Paul Klee believed that there were other worlds beyond the purely visual. He was very interested in the dream world, and would put himself into a trance-like state before painting. His works often incorporated a juxtaposition of subjects, including words and numbers along with images. He explored mosaics and mixed media. They also bear the stamp of his delightful wit and sense of humor (at least until he was forced out of Germay).
The Surrealists fused these two different viewpoints. They wanted to both shock the bourgeoise and reunite the imagination with the world of reality. Andre Breton believed that the unconcious was the wellspring of creativity. He also wanted to move away from the world of "the rational" because he believed it had put a chain of events in motion that had caused the world much pain and suffering (and a world war at that).
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