Everything about Surrealist Automatism totally explained
Automatism is a
surrealist technique involving spontaneous
writing,
drawing, or the like practiced without conscious
aesthetic or
moral self-censorship.
Automatism has taken on many forms: the
automatic writing and
drawing initially (and still to this day) practiced by surrealists can be compared to similar, or perhaps parallel phenomena, such as the non-idiomatic improvisation of
free jazz.
Surrealist automatism is different from
mediumistic automatism, from which the term was inspired.
Ghosts, spirits or the like are not purported to be the source of surrealist automatic messages.
Origins
"Pure psychic automatism" was how
André Breton defined surrealism, and while the definition has proved capable of significant expansion, automatism remains of prime importance in the movement.
In 1919 Breton and
Philippe Soupault wrote the first automatic book,
Les Champs Magnétiques, while
The Automatic Message (1933) was one of Breton's significant theoretical works about automatism.
Surautomatism
Some Romanian surrealists invented a number of
surrealist techniques (such as
cubomania,
entoptic graphomania, and the movement of liquid down a vertical surface) that purported to take automatism to an absurd point, and the name given, "
surautomatism", implies that the methods "go beyond" automatism, but this position is controversial.
Automatic drawing
Automatic drawing (distinguished from
drawn expression of mediums) was developed by the
surrealists, as a means of expressing the
subconscious. In automatic
drawing, the
hand is allowed to move '
randomly' across the paper. In applying
chance and accident to mark-making, drawing is to a large extent freed of
rational control. Hence the drawing produced may be attributed in part to the subconscious and may reveal something of the
psyche, which would otherwise be repressed. Examples of automatic drawing were produced by mediums and practitioners of the psychic arts. It was thought by some
Spiritualists to be a spirit control that was producing the drawing whilst physically taking control of the medium's body.
Automatic drawing was pioneered by
André Masson.
Artists who practised automatic drawing include
Joan Miró,
Salvador Dalí,
Jean Arp and
André Breton. The technique was transferred to
painting (as seen in Miró's paintings which often started out as automatic drawings), and has been adapted to other media; there have even been
automatic "drawings" in computer graphics.
Pablo Picasso was also thought to have expressed a type of automatic drawing in his later work, and particularly in his etchings and lithographic suites of the
1960s.
Most of the surrealists' automatic drawings were
illusionistic, or more precisely, they developed into such drawings when representational forms seemed to suggest themselves. In the
1940s and
1950s the
French-Canadian group called
Les Automatistes pursued creative work (chiefly
painting) based on surrealist principles. They abandoned any trace of
representation in their use of automatic drawing. This is perhaps a more pure form of automatic drawing since it can be almost entirely involuntary - to develop a representational form requires the
conscious mind to take over the process of drawing, unless it's entirely
accidental and thus incidental. These artists, led by
Paul-Emile Borduas, sought to proclaim an entity of
universal values and ethics proclaimed in their manifesto
Refus Global.
As alluded to above, surrealist artits often found that their use of 'automatic drawing' wasn't entirely automatic, rather it involved some form of conscious intervention to make the image or painting visually acceptable or comprehensible, "...Masson admitted that his 'automatic' imagery involved a two-fold process of unconscious and conscious activity...."
Contemporary techniques
The
computer, like the
typewriter, can be used to produce
automatic writing and
automatic poetry. The practice of
automatic drawing, originally performed with pencil or pen and paper, has also been adapted to
mouse and
monitor, and other automatic methods have also been either adapted from non-
digital media, or invented specifically for the computer. For instance, filters have been automatically run in some bitmap editor programs such as
Photoshop and
The GIMP, and computer-controlled brushes have been used to "simulate" automatism.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Surrealist Automatism'.
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