The term Surrealism was coined in 1917 by Guillaume Apollinaire, a French playwright and poet. During and after World War I, as a response to the unparalleled violence of the conflict, artists across Europe established movements that embraced pure creative expression and sought to find meaning in the chaos that surrounded them. These movements included Cubism, Dada, and Surrealism. The Surrealist movement was established in 1924 when Breton wrote the first Surrealist Manifesto. The Surrealists were a divided movement from the start; just two weeks prior to the publication of Breton's work, another manifesto was written by Yves Goll. Goll’s group of Surrealists was ultimately less successful in claiming the title than Breton’s, and the term became synonymous with Breton’s specific brand of philosophy.

Surrealism is often referred to as a mature version of Dada. Despite being born out of Dada, Breton’s brand of Surrealism had a much different philosophical viewpoint and goal. Dada was founded as a wholesale rejection of the art industry and aimed to show viewers the inherent ridiculousness of defining certain things as art and others as "not art." Surrealism maintained many of the same unconventional styles and nonconformist attitudes of its forebear, especially the automatic writing process.