From: Introduction to "Drawing Surrealism"
by Leslie Jones
"Drawing and Surrealism. Surrealism and Drawing. The medium and the movement have been wholly entwined from the very beginning. Although launched initially as a literary movement with the publication of the Manifesto du surrealisme written by Andre Breton in 1924, surrealism's proponents were quick to realize the revolutionary potential of the visual arts-and drawing, in particular-for unlocking and expressing the imagery of dreams and the unconscious mind. As a strategy to combat the "reign of logic" Breton offers pure psychic automatism by which one proposes to express, verbally, by writing, or by any other means, the real functioning of thought...in the abscence of any control exercised by reason, beyond all aesthetic or moral preoccupation."