Surrealist techniques

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 Surrealist 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

See aerography.

Aerography is a technique in which a 3-dimensional object is used as a stencil with spraypainting.

Automatism

See Surrealist automatism.

Automatic drawing: See automatic drawing.

Automatic painting: See automatic painting.

Automatic writing: See 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, was not a surrealist.

"Automatic poetry generators" exist online, but they do not actually generate automatic poetry in this sense.

Bulletism

Bulletism is shooting ink at a blank piece of paper. The artist can then develop images based on what is seen.

See bulletism.

Calligramme

A calligramme is a text or poem, of a type, or the word for which was, developed by Guillaume Apollinaire in 1918, in which the words or letters make up a shape, particularly a shape connected to the subject of the text or poem.

Reference: Examples of calligrammes

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.

See collage.

Coulage

A coulage is a kind of automatic or involuntary sculpture made by pouring a molten material (such as metal, wax, or 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.

(This definition of cubomania is to be distinguished from the use of the word to mean "obsession with cubes.")

External link: Alternate definitions for cubomania.

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.

''See cut-up technique.

Decalcomania

Decalcomania is a process of spreading thick paint upon a canvas then - while it is 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.

''See decalcomania.

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.

Entoptic graphomania

Entoptic 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.

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 had 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.

External link: Example of Trost's entopic graphomania.

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 is a method by which a collection of words or images are collectively assembled. It is based on an old parlour game called 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.

See exquisite corpse.

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.

See frottage.

Fumage

Fumage is technique in which impressions are made by the smoke of a candle or kerosene lamp on a piece of paper or canvas.

See fumage.

Games

See Surrealist games.

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 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 is illegibile or for whatever other reason cannot 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 entopic 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.

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 to flow 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.

See paranoiac-critical method.

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.

See photomontage.

Soufflage

Soufflage is a technique in which liquid paint is blown onto a surface to inspire or reveal an image

''See soufflage.

Surautomatism

Surautomatism is any theory or act of taking automatism to its most absurd limits.

See surautomatism.