Surrealism and Modernism, as represented by abstract artists such as Malevich and Mondrian, were both reactions against the forces of conservatism in the early 20th century. Surrealism saw absurdity as the only possible response to world deadened by habit and rationality. Modernism wanted to replace that world with a new and progressive vision.

SURREALISM

One of Surrealism’s most interesting contributions to draughtmanship was automatic drawing. Pioneered by the English occultist Austin Osman Spare, the practice was used extensively by Surrealist artists such as André Masson (1896-1987), Joan Miró (1893-1983), Paul Klee (1879-1940), and Salvador Dalí (1904-1989). Making marks in an accidental, random fashion, their intention was to free drawing from rational control and access the subconscious. Nevertheless, many of the finished works produced as automatic drawings are loosely representational, suggesting that artists found it difficult to leave the results entirely to chance.

 MODERNISM

Black Square (1915) - a black square on a white background - by the Russian Kasimir Malevich (1879-1935,) and Suprematist Composition: White on White (1918) - an off-white square on an off-white ground by the same artist - took Western art to a new level of abstraction. Such abstraction was one of the characteristics of many modernist works over the next 25 years. It represented the rejection of realism, which was associated with the past, in favour of progress and modernity, as well as the urge to experiment with form, materials and techniques. Nevertheless, many modernists, such as Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) and Henry Moore (1898-1986), moved between abstraction and figuration. Moore’s drawings of Londoners sheltering from the Blitz in the Underground are some of his most moving works.