Introductory Art History Essay Assignments

Running head: ART HISTORY
ART HISTORY
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

ART HISTORY1
Art is mostly defined as the process of arranging elements in such a way which
appeals to the emotions or the senses of people. Art is seen to encompass a diverse and a
wide range of activities, expression and creations like paintings, sculptures, literature and
many more. Art has always had a huge influence on the society since its inception. There
have been several artists who had challenged the monotony and had introduced new form of
art in the society which is still being taught in art schools and have been used in the current
art forms as well. This paper will shed a light on Les Automatistes and Painters Eleven and
show who they rebelled against the mainstream society and had ushered a new form of
painting in Canada.
Automatism is commonly referred to technique of creating subconscious drawings in
which the painter or the artists allows their unconscious mind to take full control.
Automatism had garnered immense popularity in the 20th century by the Surrealist artists who
had unleashed creative forces of unconscious in art. According to scholars, automatic
painting and drawing was viewed as a means to escape from the intellectual, historical and
cultural constraints and unlock the simple and basic creativity that were lodged within the
personality of the artist deeply and was highly influenced by the concepts of Sigmund Freud
(Johnson, 2019). Automatic and drawing to the Surrealist artists represented more noble type
of behavior which was a different type of attitude unlike the ones that were expressed and
stated by the followers of the Outsider Art for whom education and culture was just some
kind of unique and creative straitjacket.
Automatism has seen to have played a huge role in various other movements and one
of them is the Canadian group which was known as Les Automatistes which came into
existence in the late 1940s. The most famous and popular painters that were associated with
this type of art were Jackson Pollock and Salvador Dali. Since the introduction of
Automatism, it has become an integral part of modern as well as the postmodern art.