As mentioned, Surrealism was a spawn of the movement known as Dadaism, an "art and literary movement reflecting nihilistic protests of all Western culture.

Its founder French writer André Breton (1896-1966), at first a Dadaist,  wrote three papers  about Surrealism -- in 1924, 1930, and 1934, and opened a working studio to promote "surrealist research."

What Surrealism accomplished was to "emphasize the role of the unconscious in creative captivity" and at the same time "employed the psychic unconscious in a more orderly and serious manner."

Surrealists harnessed elements that brought conscious and unconscious thought "into one blinding vision of pure emotion."