Psychic automatism
Techniques. Resources. Creative Processes. Genres
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Psychic automatism
It is a creative process fueled by Freud’s psychoanalytic theory. It lies in liberating the unconscious to reflect the artist’s inner world. It was mainly used by the Surrealists who wanted to transmit what was above reality. Decades later, Abstract Expressionists adopted it to let their deepest emotions and feelings surface.
In his 1924 Surrealist Manifesto, André Breton says that “Surrealism is psychic automatism in its pure state, by which one proposes to express —verbally, by means of the written word, or in any other manner— the actual functioning of thought. Dictated by the thought, in the absence of any control exercised by reason, exempt from any aesthetic or moral concern.”
This is something that we have to bear in mind when we discuss whether a work is Surreal or not. In some works, objects or situations may be weird, oneiric or be beyond reality; but the artist has carefully thought about putting them there with a symbolic sense. Therefore, they are not the result of the liberation of the unconscious mind.
For Breton, the most Surrealist painter ever is Joan Miró, for the “pure” use of this resource.
Miró, who in those times was dramatically poor, explains: “I tried to capture the hallucinations caused by my hunger.”
Image: The Harlequin’s Carnival (1925). Joan Miró.
Recommended links:
Artistic Movements, Periods and Styles in 5 Points: Surrealism.
The Exquisite Corpse Technique.
“I never dream when I am sleeping, but I always dream while I am awake.”
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