Vertigo of the Hero
André Masson
ANDRÉ MASSON, 1974. PASTEL ON PAPER.
In a long life, Masson made time for everything. A pioneering surrealist, he was the most willing adopter of automatism, or the process of automatic drawing where the hand is allowed to run unchained on the canvas with no conscious decisions affecting its movement. He pushed these ideas further still, scattering sand or mud onto a surface and letting the organic shapes it feel in guide the direction of his work. A young rebel of Surrealism, he plumbed the depths of his subconscious until he, reaching the bottom, sought out structure once again. By the end of the war, having survived active duty and sharing a studio with Joan Míro, he abandoned the Surrealists and his work became structured, often depicting scenes of violence or eroticism. Condemned by obscenity laws under Nazi rule, he fled to America where he became a fatherly figure to the burgeoning Abstract Expressionist movement, until he returned to France to paint landscapes. In the evening of his life, he returned to a less disciplined form, retaining parts of all he had learned to produce moving, erotic works of the subconscious mind.