Everything about Surrealist Technique totally explained
Surrealism in
art,
poetry, and
literature utilizes numerous unique
techniques and games to provide inspiration. Many of these are said to free imagination by producing a creative process free of
conscious control. The importance of the
unconscious as a source of inspiration is central to the nature of surrealism.
The Surrealist movement has been a fractious one since its inception. The value and role of the various techniques has been one of many subjects of disagreement. Some Surrealists consider
automatism and games to be sources of inspiration only, while others consider them as starting points for finished works. Others consider the items created through automatism to be finished works themselves, needing no further refinement.
Aerography
Aerography is a technique in which a 3-dimensional object is used as a
stencil with
spraypainting.
Automatism
- Automatic drawing
- Automatic painting
- Automatic writing
- Automatic poetry is poetry written using the automatic method. It has probably been the chief surrealist method from the founding of surrealism to the present day. One of the oddest uses of automatic writing by a great writer was that of W. B. Yeats. His wife, a spiritualist, practised it, and Yeats put large chunks of it into his prose work, A Vision and much of his later poetry. Yeats, however, wasn't a surrealist.
Automatic poetry generators exist online, but they don't actually generate automatic poetry in this sense.
The Czech writer Bohumil Hrabal used the method of automatic text in his famous book I served a British king. One chapter in the book is written as one sentence and author indors the automatic writing in the end of the book.
Bulletism
Bulletism is shooting
ink at a blank piece of
paper. The artist can then develop images based on what is seen.
Calligramme
A
calligramme is a text or
poem of a type developed by
Guillaume Apollinaire in which the words or letters make up a shape, particularly a shape connected to the subject of the text or poem.
Collage
Collage is the assemblage of different forms creating a new whole. For example, an artistic collage work may include newspaper clippings, ribbons, bits of colored or hand-made papers, photographs, etc., glued to a solid support or canvas.
Coulage
A
coulage is a kind of
automatic or involuntary
sculpture made by pouring a molten material (such as
metal,
wax,
chocolate or
white chocolate) into cold
water. As the material cools it takes on what appears to be a random (or
aleatoric) form, though the physical properties of the materials involved may lead to a conglomeration of discs or spheres. The artist may utilize a variety of techniques to affect the outcome.
This technique is also used in the
divination process known as
ceromancy.
Cubomania
Cubomania is a method of making
collages in which a picture or
image is cut into squares and the squares are then reassembled without regard for the image. The technique was first used by the
Romanian surrealist
Gherasim Luca.
Cut-up technique
Cut-up technique is a literary form or method in which a text is cut up at random and rearranged to create a new text.
Decalcomania
Decalcomania is a process of spreading thick paint upon a canvas then—while it's still wet—covering it with further material such as paper or aluminium foil. This covering is then removed (again before the paint dries), and the resultant paint pattern becomes the basis of the finished painting. The technique was much employed by artists such as
Max Ernst.
Dream résumé
The
dream résumé takes the form of an employment
résumé but chronicles its subject's achievements, employment, or the like, in
dreams, rather than in waking life. Sometimes dream résumés contain the achievements of both, however.
Echo poem
An
echo poem is a
poem written using a technique invented by
Aurélien Dauguet in
1972. The poem is composed by one or more persons, working together in a process as follows.
The first "stanza" of the poem is written on the left-hand column of a piece of paper divided into two columns. Then the "opposite" of the first stanza, opposite in whatever sense is appropriate to the poem, is composed in the right-hand column of the page. The writing is done
automatically and often the "opposite" stanza is composed of a sound correspondence to the first stanza.
For a longer work, the third stanza can then begin in the left-hand column as an "opposite" or a sound correspondence to what preceded it in the right-hand column. Then the fourth stanza might be an "opposite" or sound correspondence to what preceded it in the left-hand column, and so forth. When the poem is completed, the opposite of the last phrase, line, or sentence, generally serves as the title.
This is unrelated to the non-Surrealist
echo verse form which appears as a dialogue between the questions of a character and
the answers of the nymph
Echo.
Eclaboussure
Process in Surrealist painting where Oil paint or Watercolour is laid down and water or turpentine is splattered then soaked up to reveal random splatters or dots where the media was removed, this technique gives the appearance of space and atmosphere. Used in paintings by
Remedios Varo.
Entoptic graphomania
Entoptic graphomania (sometimes, though inaccurately, called "entopic graphomania") is a surrealist and automatic method of
drawing in which dots are made at the sites of impurities in a blank sheet of paper, and lines are then made between the dots. It is apparently to be distinguished from other "entoptic" methods of drawing or art-making.
The method was invented by
Dolfi Trost, who as the subtitle of his
1945 book ("
Vision dans le cristal. Oniromancie obsessionelle. Et neuf graphomanies entoptiques") suggests, included nine examples therein. This method of "indecipherable writing" (see below) was supposedly an example of "
surautomatism," the controversial theory put forward by Trost and
Gherashim Luca in which surrealist methods would be practiced that "went beyond" automatism. In
Dialectique de Dialectique they'd proposed the further radicalization of surrealist automatism by abandoning images produced by artistic techniques in favour of those "resulting from rigorously applied scientific procedures," allegedly cutting the notion of "
artist" out of the process of creating images and replacing it with chance and scientific rigour. However, the question has arisen whether an algorithm should be used to determine in what order to connect the dots to maintain the "automatic" nature of the method.
The method has been compared to the "
voronoi mathematical progression."
Étrécissements
Collage is perceived as an additive method of visual poetry whereas
Étrécissements are a reductive method. This was first employed by
Marcel Mariën in the
1950s. The results are achieved by the cutting away of parts of images to encourage a new image, by means of a pair of scissors or any other manipulative sharpened instrument.
Exquisite corpse
Exquisite corpse or
Cadavre exquis is a method by which a collection of words or images are collectively assembled. It is based on an old parlour game known by the same name (and also as
Consequences) in which players wrote in turn on a sheet of paper, folded it to conceal part of the writing, and then passed it to the next player for a further contribution.
Frottage
Frottage is a method of creation in which one takes a pencil or other drawing tool and makes a "rubbing" over a textured surface. The drawing can either be left as is or used as the basis for further refinement.
Fumage
Fumage is a technique in which impressions are made by the
smoke of a
candle or
kerosene lamp on a piece of paper or canvas.
Games
In
Surrealism, games are important not only as a form of recreation but as a method of investigation. The intention is to cut away the constraints of
rationalism and allow concepts to develop more freely and in a more random manner. The aim is to break traditional thought patterns and create a more original outcome.
Old games such as
Exquisite corpse, and newer ones, notably Time Travelers' Potlatch and Parallel Collage, have played a critical role.
Exquisite corpse is a method by which a collection of words or images are collectively assembled, the result being known as the exquisite corpse or
cadavre exquis in
French. Later the game was adapted to
drawing and
collage.
Time Travelers'
Potlatch is a game in which two or more players say what gift they'd give to another person - this is usually an historical person who played a role in, or had an influence on, the formation of Surrealism.
Grattage
Grattage is a surrealist technique in
painting in which (usually dry)
paint is scraped off the canvas. It was employed by
Max Ernst and
Joan Miró.
Heatage
Heatage is an automatic technique developed and used by
David Hare in which an exposed but unfixed
photographic negative is heated from below, causing the
emulsion (and the resulting image, when developed) to distort in a random fashion.
Indecipherable writing
In addition to its obvious meaning of writing that's illegibile or for whatever other reason can't be made out by the reader,
indecipherable writing refers to a set of
automatic techniques, most developed by
Romanian surrealists and falling under the heading of
surautomatism. Examples include entoptic graphomania,
fumage and the movement of liquid down a vertical surface.
Involuntary sculpture
Surrealism describes as "involuntary sculpture" those made by absent-mindedly manipulating something, such as rolling and unrolling a movie ticket, bending a paper clip, and so forth.
Latent news
Latent news is a game in which an article from a
newspaper is cut into individual words (or perhaps phrases) and then rapidly reassembled; see also
Cut-up technique.
Mimeogram
A
mimeogram is a type of
automatic art made by peeling off the backing sheets of
mimeograph stencils.
Movement of liquid down a vertical surface
The
movement of liquid down a vertical surface is, as the name suggests, a technique, invented by surrealists from
Romania and said by them to be
surautomatic and a form of indecipherable writing, of making pictures by dripping or allowing a flow of some form of liquid down a vertical surface.
Outagraphy
The
outagraph is a photograph in which the subject, what the photograph is "of," is cut out. The method was invented by
Ted Joans.
Paranoiac-critical method
Paranoiac-critical method is a technique involving the use of the active process of the mind to visualise images in the work and incorporate these into the final product. An example of the resulting work is a double image or multiple image in which an ambiguous image can be interpreted in different ways.
Parsemage
Parsemage is a
surrealist and
automatic method in the
visual arts invented by
Ithell Colquhoun in which dust from
charcoal or colored
chalk is scattered on the surface of water and then skimmed off by passing a stiff paper or cardboard just under the water's surface.
Photomontage
Photomontage is making of composite picture by cutting and joining a number of photographs.
Soufflage
Soufflage is a
Surrealist technique originated by
Jimmy Ernst in which liquid
paint is blown to inspire or reveal an image.
Surautomatism
Surautomatism is any theory or act of taking automatism to its most absurd limits.
Triptography
Triptography is an automatic photographic technique whereby a roll of film is used three times (either by the same photographer or, in the spirit of Exquisite Corpse, three different photographers), causing it to be triple-exposed in such a way that the chances of any single photograph having a clear and definite subject is nearly impossible. Indeed, finding any edges on the negative itself during the developing process is a nearly impossible task. Typically the developing of such a roll of film is an exercise in automatic technique in and of itself, cutting the film by counting sprocket holes alone, with no regard for the images present on the negative. The results have a quality reminiscent of the transitory period in sleep when one dream suddenly becomes another.
Creativist Christopher Thurlow claims to have discovered this technique when his urge to continue taking photographs was suddenly challenged by the fact that he'd run out of un-exposed film.
Further Information
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