How the Surrealists used likelihood as a catalyst for creative expression

A century ago, the French author and poet André Breton wrote his “Manifesto of Surrealism”, which launched an art movement known for creating bizarre hybrids of words and pictures.

These comparisons, which regularly arise by likelihood, are intended to stimulate the subconscious and encourage the event of latest insights.

Man Ray's enigmatic photographs of blurry collages or Salvador Dalí’s shocking paintings of melting watches And elongated elephants were typical of the shape.

As I describe intimately in my book:The random factor“Much of life is influenced by likelihood – from natural evolution to the choice of friends and spouses. The Surrealists also made likelihood a cornerstone of their artistic practice.

Manifestations of the Miraculous

In 1928 the artist Otto Umberknown simply as Umbo, took a photograph from his window that happened to capture the road scene below.

The power of the image – “The secret of the road“” – comes not from the content, but from the orientation. When Umbo developed the photo, he decided to reverse it. The result’s an strange picture of individuals, but whose elongated shadows tackle a surprising lifetime of their very own.

As a recent photographer Sandrine Hermand-Grisel writes“The Surrealists question the documentary value of photography. They see in it the ability to capture the manifestations of the miraculous that can happen by chance.”

The surrealist painter Max Ernst often used the strategy of “decal”, by which a layer of paint was applied to a surface reminiscent of glass and the wet paint was then transferred on to the canvas. Some of the paint stuck, a few of it didn't. No matter: Ernst built the painting on the random patterns and textures.

From many, one

Another surrealist practice involving likelihood became often known as “Exquisite corpse.”

The first version of this collaborative exercise involved a small group of friends gathering and breaking a sentence down into different parts of speech, reminiscent of nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, etc. Each a part of the sentence was assigned to an individual. The first person wrote down a word for his or her a part of the sentence, folded the paper over, and passed it to the subsequent person. The second person then selected their word, without knowing what the primary person had written down, and passed the resulting sentence to the subsequent person.

In this fashion, the sentence was written because it moved across the room, without anyone knowing what the sentence looked like until it was finished and someone unfolded the paper.

The results of this process are sentences that an individual wouldn’t think up on their very own.
According to the legendThe first sentence that André Breton and his fellow Surrealists constructed was: “The exquisite corpse shall drink the new wine.”

Randomly in accordance with plan

The principle of the exquisite corpse has also been applied to other creative endeavors.

The Blackwing 602manufactured by the Eberhard Faber Pencil Company, is some of the famous pencils of the twentieth century. With the slogan “Half the pressure, twice the speed”, it became known for the standard of its graphite and its unique rectangular eraser.

The Blackwing was popular with many writers and artists, including John Steinbeck, Leonard Bernstein, and Looney Tunes animator Chuck Jones. But Eberhard stopped producing the Blackwing pencil within the Nineties.

Fast forward to 2010. The California Cedar Products Company re-launched the Blackwing 602. In March 2018, the corporate designed a limited edition Blackwing pencil to commemorate the Surrealists through the use of the exercise of the exquisite corpse to fashion a brand new pencil.

They divided the parts of the pencil into five sections: graphite, barrel, embossing, ferrule, and eraser. The first person on the design team selected the graphite. The second person, who was unaware of the primary person's alternative, designed the barrel, and so forth.

The result was a surprising pencil – considered one of my favorites – that might never have existed had I not embraced randomness.

The pencil has a pink barrel with teal print, a silver ferrule, a blue eraser and extra-strong graphite. The company called it the Blackwing Volume 54 in honor of 54 Rue du Chateau in Paris, the address of the home where this very first exquisite funeral exercise took place.

A leap of religion

Musicians, filmmakers and graphic designers also integrate likelihood into their work. The composer John Cage often used likelihood and coincidence in his compositions. In one piece, a pianist sits quietly, 4 minutes and 33 secondsand the audience is forced to witness the random coughing and rustling within the room.

In his “Imaginary landscapeIn the series “The 4000,” random elements created by electricity are part of the performance. For example, during one performance, Cage placed 12 radios on the stage, each tuned to a different station, and left them playing simultaneously. In describing this process Cage wrote“Chance is, to be precise, a leap; it enables a leap beyond the reach of one’s own self-understanding.”

While museums around the globe rejoice As we mark the centenary of the birth of Surrealism, it can be crucial to acknowledge that embracing likelihood allowed these artists to think outside the box. Chance continues for use as a creative tool today, offering a helping – and surprising – hand that takes artists and audiences to places previously unknown to them.