Heavy Rainbows
Automatism and Dreams
Surrealists were disillusioned with contemporary leaders who'd sent millions of soldiers to their death in an avoidable world war. Surrealist Max Ernst was interested in detaching the conscious mind from the creative process.
MarkCawood
5/7/20261 min read
Automatism and Dreams
Some artists receive creative inspiration from dreams. For example Paul McCartney's lyrics for his song 'Let It Be' were written almost entirely during a dream that involved a meeting with his deceased mother. On another occasion he woke up with the tune for 'Yesterday' ringing in his ears.
The majority of artists experience a degree of automatism which is utilised in conjunction with rational consciousness to create a satisfactory end result. Some artists have experimented with full automatism, including Surrealists, in a bid to liberate the mind from preconceived societal limitations. However I believe such a process leads to pure abstraction which, ultimately, has little or even nothing to say.
Surrealists were disillusioned with contemporary leaders who'd sent millions of soldiers to their death in an avoidable world war. Surrealist Max Ernst was interested in detaching the conscious mind from the creative process. The objective was to transform the author of the work into a mere spectator free from all moral and social responsibility. Other Surrealists such as Rene Magritte were inspired by the power of dreams and their freedom from conscious constraint.