Kathleen Gomez December 7, 2012 A Block Art III LACMA: The Top Art Exhibit The surrealist exhibit

was absolutely phenomenal, so much so that I did not have a favorite artist or painting I loved them all. What I particularly enjoyed about them was the methods with which the Surrealists made their artworks, all of which contributed to the supernatural and bizarre tone I admire. Some approaches, like Federico Castellons, were downright incredible, as in Her Eyes Trembled when Castellon achieved the smoothness of graphite with pen and ink amazing. There was Andre Masson, with his automatic drawings, which he drew quicker than he could think. There was an artist that used photage, which is rubbing a paper over a textured object to get its pattern on paper, as a starting point for his surrealistic drawings. There was Matta, who incorporated 4th dimension, and there was even an artist, Philthorpe, who deliberately called up childhood traumas and drew from them. Ernsts decalcomania paintings were startling because of how simple his technique was (almost like stamping though not quite) and yet how magnificent his paintings were. Another interesting method used was fumage which was utilizing the smoke from a candle to make artwork on paper. The result at first seemed simple to me, an intriguing design that quickly became astonishing once I discovered how it was made. I loved Magrittes paintings, of which Androgyny Dream was one of my favorites because of the way it struck me: as inappropriately funny. And then there was Dali. His was such a genius that even his preliminary sketches were masterpieces, like in his Study for the Image Disappears. He was

always a favorite of mine because of his use of the paranoid critical method, which gave his paintings a double meaning and instilled a sort of uneasiness in the viewer. What really strikes me about the Surrealists methods is that you never know what the end result is going to be; there is almost no control over the resulting artwork. It is a scary thought, as a meticulous artist, but I guess that is what fascinates me so much about this genre its mystery and element of the unknown.