DOI issue:
Nr. 1
DOI article:Spare, Austin Osman; Carter, Frederick: Automatic drawing
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.29342#0030
by A. O. Spare & F. Carter
nished with abundance of designs and subjects,
perfectly new.”
From another, a mystical writer “Renounce thine
own will that the law of God may be within
thee.”
THE curious expression of character given
by handwriting is due to the automatic
or unconscious nature that it acquires by
habit. So Automatic drawing, one of the simplest
of psychic phenomena, is a means of characteris-
tic expression and, if used with courage and
honesty, of recording subconscious activities in
themind. The mental mechanisms used arethose
common in dreams, which create quick percep-
tion of relations in the unexpected, as wit, and
psycho-neurotic symptoms. Hence it appears
that single or non-consciousness is an essential
condition and as in all inspiration the product of
involution not invention.
AUTOMATISM being the manifestation
of latent desires (or wishes) the signifi-
cance of the forms (the ideas) obtained
represent the previously unrecorded obsessions.
ART becomes, by this illuminism or
ecstatic power, a functional activity ex-
pressing in a symbolical language the
desire towards joy unmodified—the sense of the
hMother of all things—not of experience.
THIS means of vital expression releases the
fundamental static truths which are re-
pressed by education and customary habit
and lie dormant in the mind. It is the means of
becoming courageously individual; it implies
spontaneity and disperses the cause of unrest
and ennui.
THE dangers of this form of expression
come from prejudice and personal bias
of such nature as fixed intellectual con-
viction or personal religion (intolerance). These
29
nished with abundance of designs and subjects,
perfectly new.”
From another, a mystical writer “Renounce thine
own will that the law of God may be within
thee.”
THE curious expression of character given
by handwriting is due to the automatic
or unconscious nature that it acquires by
habit. So Automatic drawing, one of the simplest
of psychic phenomena, is a means of characteris-
tic expression and, if used with courage and
honesty, of recording subconscious activities in
themind. The mental mechanisms used arethose
common in dreams, which create quick percep-
tion of relations in the unexpected, as wit, and
psycho-neurotic symptoms. Hence it appears
that single or non-consciousness is an essential
condition and as in all inspiration the product of
involution not invention.
AUTOMATISM being the manifestation
of latent desires (or wishes) the signifi-
cance of the forms (the ideas) obtained
represent the previously unrecorded obsessions.
ART becomes, by this illuminism or
ecstatic power, a functional activity ex-
pressing in a symbolical language the
desire towards joy unmodified—the sense of the
hMother of all things—not of experience.
THIS means of vital expression releases the
fundamental static truths which are re-
pressed by education and customary habit
and lie dormant in the mind. It is the means of
becoming courageously individual; it implies
spontaneity and disperses the cause of unrest
and ennui.
THE dangers of this form of expression
come from prejudice and personal bias
of such nature as fixed intellectual con-
viction or personal religion (intolerance). These
29