WHY “SURREALISM”?

A Puzzle.

Why have “Surrealism” and its variants entered popular parlance but Dada and Constructivism not?

Why do Americans who have no idea about the radical modernist art movement use “surreal” to describe an experience that is weird–for which, for those of us who know the difference, “dada” might be more appropriate?

This development is even odder if you consider that examples of truly Surrealist art haven’t survived as well as Constructivism, say.

I raise this question not because I have an answer for it but because I don’t. I would never describe anything other than a work of art from a particular time in Europe as “surreal.” And even then, as a devotee of both Dada and Constructivism, I might be slow to come to that epithet.