In the early 20th century, with the ascendancy of psychoanalysis in the West, artists sought to bypass the conscious, rational mind, and find a “subconscious method” by which they could create resonant art not dependent on visual accuracy. Artists looked for expressions of the subconscious in the works of others – the material culture of non-European peoples, the drawings of children, etc. – as well as methods for engaging the artist’s own subconscious mind.
By 1916, Austin O. Spare was suggesting automatic drawing, which he defined as “an automatic scribble of twisting and interlacing lines,” as a way to permit “the germ of an idea in the subconscious mind to express, or at least suggest itself to the consciousness.”
But it was with the Surrealists that automatic drawing came into its own. In André Breton's 1924 Surrealist manifesto, “psychic automatism,” as he termed it, was the defining characteristic of the movement, which he applied mainly to literature. But the underlying principle of creating “in the absence of any control exercised by reason, exempt from any aesthetic or moral concern” was quickly applied to the visual arts as well, most notably André Masson, who did a number of automatic drawings in the mid- to late 1920s. Masson feel out with the Surrealists by 1930, but the influence of automatic drawing can be traced through later artists, such as Ellsworth Kelly, Cy Twombly, and even, I would argue, Agnes Martin and Nasreen Mohamedi.
Automatic drawing doesn't exist only in the art world. Almost 20 years ago, while doing ethnographic fieldwork in North Carolina, a minister showed me a collection of what she called “spirit drawings.” These were large sheets of paper with heavy, repetitive lines, most often circles. (My own automatic drawing, inspired by these, at the end of the images below.) Sometimes the lines had been drawn so many times and with such force that they wore all the way through the page, leaving a large circular hole. The minister said she was guided by the Spirit, describing it in much the same way as she did other outpourings, such as speaking in tongues – engaging something beyond the rational mind.
It should also be noted that some Christians link this type of automatic drawing with the occult, similar to the use of a Ouija board: “Automatic writing is where you allow a demonic spirit to fully control your arm and hand so it can write whatever messages it wants to give you.” What I find interesting about this interpretation, which would seem to run completely counter to a modern psychological interpretation, is that it actual agrees with it on a central point. Both seem to suggest that something other than the conscious will of the person is guiding the drawing. In one case, it is the person’s subconscious; in the other, a demonic spirit. But that is a relatively minor quibble, a difference in labels, really.
