French writer and poet André Breton is best known as one of the founders of the Surrealist movement in literature and art.
Breton was part of the Dadaist movement in 1916, but soon went on to initiate the first of the surrealist meetings. The arguments he had as part of the Dadaist movement caused him to move on. Andre Breton was the founder of the surrealist movement (1920’s). Breton specialised in histories, poetry and essays. Breton stated “surrealism is based on the belief in the superior reality of certain forms of previously neglected associations in the omnipotence of dreams, in the disinterested play of thought.” Andre Breton was part of the Dada movement in 1916 then later founded the surrealist movement in the 1920’s. In a book called ‘Les Champs Magnetiques’ by André Breton and Philippe Soupaulta, published in 1920. Andre Breton implemented the principle of automatic writing.
He published the Surrealist Manifesto in 1924. It was the conclusion of the writings of the surrealist group and sought to dispel the ‘rationalism’, which brought about the First World War.
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. 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.
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.
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 topainting (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.
Charlene Morgan / Illustration 