A stuffed parrot and a stocking are among the objects placed on a bowler hat. Object with Grill, another example of Miro's work consists of found objects that are not things in the sense of shoes or sugar cubes, but materials and scraps that themselves carry associations. Phallic forms are painted on a small piece of wood and hung on a piece of wire mesh, which acts as a frame.
The Surrealists were committed to non-rationality as an ideal for all their actions, including their creation. They were angry at society and were determined to make their lives the instrument for ridiculing society. They protested against social structures such as the Catholic church. However, Surrealism itself had a structure of its own, ironically, much in common with the Catholic church. They had dogmas, rituals, saints, baptisms and their own Pope, namely Andre Breton. The Surrealists were a community and created a world of their own "that was ruled by the irrational, the magical and the instinctive." They even had a map of their new country in which the countries were redrawn to scale of Surrealist interest. Therefore, despite shunning rationality, the Surrealists contradicted themselves by creating this structure which stands in opposition to their original motivations.
The readymade object can be applied to items that are industrially mass-produced but whose function is altered. Thus an artist might find an artwork entirely "ready-made" for him by his environment, simply waiting to be called an artwork. The Surrealist uses the most common, material objects and creates it into an object of the mind. In the nineteenth century, the depiction of ironing in art identified the remorseless labour of women; Man Ray's Gift consists of an ordinary iron with nails protruding from the base. This "ironic Surrealist object thwarts its utility and titillates the imagination." It is a completely useless thing that is frozen in contradiction.
