Surrealist techniques

Surrealism in art, poetry, and literature uses numerous techniques and games to provide inspiration.

Man Ray recalled, "(…) It was thrilling to paint a picture, hardly touching the surface - a purely cerebral act, as it were.

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.

Tearing papers can suggest an act of artistic experience, connoting an emotional or creative crisis.

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.

[10] The method was invented by Dolfi Trost, who as the subtitle of his 1945 book ("Vision dans le cristal.

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.

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.

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 technique was developed in 1925 by Max Ernst, who was inspired by an ancient wooden floor where the grain of the planks had been accentuated by many years of scrubbing.

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.

The intention is to cut away the constraints of rationalism and allow concepts to develop more freely and in a more random manner.

Old games such as Exquisite corpse, and newer ones, notably Time Travelers' Potlatch and Parallel Collage, have played a critical role.

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.

[16] 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.

Paranoiac-critical method is a technique invented by Salvador Dalí which consists of the artist invoking a paranoid state (fear that the self is being manipulated, targeted or controlled by others).

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.

Sifflage is the technique used by Jimmy Ernst in which liquid paint is blown to inspire or reveal an image.