Editing Surrealist automatism (section)

==Origins==
[[Automatic behavior|Automatism]] has taken on many forms: the automatic writing and [[#Automatic drawing and painting|drawing]] initially (and still to this day) explored by the surrealists can be compared to similar or parallel phenomena, such as the non-idiomatic improvisation.
"Psychic automatism in its pure state" was how André Breton defined Surrealism, and while the definition has proved capable of expansion, automatism remains of prime importance in the movement.<ref>{{Cite web|author=Staff|date=ndg|title=MoMA Learning: Surrealism|url=https://www.moma.org/learn/moma_learning/themes/surrealism/#:~:text=In%20his%201924%20Surrealist%20Manifesto,any%20aesthetic%20or%20moral%20concern.%E2%80%9D|access-date=December 12, 2022|website=[[MoMA]]|archive-date=December 12, 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221212230811/https://www.moma.org/learn/moma_learning/themes/surrealism/#:~:text=In%20his%201924%20Surrealist%20Manifesto,any%20aesthetic%20or%20moral%20concern.%E2%80%9D|url-status=live}}</ref>

Early 20th-century [[Dada]]ists, such as [[Hans Arp]], made some use of this method through chance operations. [[Surrealism|Surrealist]] artists, most notably [[André Masson]], adapted to art the [[automatic writing]] method of [[André Breton]] and [[Philippe Soupault]] who composed with it ''[[Les Champs Magnétiques]]'' (The Magnetic Fields) in 1919.<ref name="Dictionary">Chilvers, Ian and Glaves-Smith, John, ''A Dictionary of Modern and Contemporary Art'', second edition (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), p. 45-46. {{ISBN|0199239665}}.</ref> ''[[The Automatic Message]]'' (1933) was one of Breton's significant theoretical works about automatism.