Automatic Painting
also: Automatic drawing
Automatic painting and drawing are techniques in which the hand moves freely across the surface with conscious control suppressed, so that the resulting marks are credited to the unconscious or, in spiritualist practice, to a guiding spirit. The method was written about by Austin Osman Spare in 1913 and made central to Surrealism in the 1920s: André Breton and Philippe Soupault's automatic writing of 1919 fed André Masson's automatic drawings and, through him, Joan Miró's painting. Later the Canadian Automatistes led by Paul-Émile Borduas pushed the method toward pure abstraction, and their manifesto Refus Global (1948) helped launch modern art in Quebec.
Defining characteristics
- Rapid, unplanned mark-making with deliberation suspended
- Forms discovered in the marks rather than drawn in advance
- Continuous line, scribble, and accident kept on the surface
- Dreamlike or monstrous imagery emerging from chance shapes
- Spontaneity prized over finish: the process is the subject
Key figures
- André Masson (1896-1987) — Surrealist whose automatic drawings (from 1923) defined the technique for painting
- Joan Miró (1893-1983) — Translated automatic drawing into hallucinatory painting
- André Breton (1896-1966) — Defined surrealism as 'psychic automatism in its pure state'
- Austin Osman Spare (1886-1956) — English artist who theorized automatic drawing in The Book of Pleasure (1913)
- Paul-Émile Borduas (1905-1960) — Leader of the Automatistes and author of Refus Global (1948)
Example works
- Les Champs magnétiques — André Breton & Philippe Soupault (1919)
- Automatic Drawing — André Masson (1924)
- The Birth of the World — Joan Miró (1925)
Sources
- Automatic Painting - WikiArt institution
- Surrealist automatism - Wikipedia encyclopedia