Exquisite Corpse

One of the favorite games played by artists of André Breton's Surrealist group, was that of "Exquisite Corpse".  A means of deriving fresh and startling images from unconscious thought and no premade plans, the game was played by one artist beginning a drawing at the upper portion of a piece of paper, folding the drawing from view, and then having another artist continue the drawing from where the original left off, not knowing what the previous artist had drawn.  Often, three or four artists would be involved in one drawing.  Here is one such drawing (Exquisite Corpse No. 10, year 1928), created by Yves Tanguy, Man Ray, Max Morise, and André Breton (image property of the Art Institute of Chicago):

This game likely derived its name from the poet Jacques Prévert...  The game originally consisted of written words, rather than images, thrown together at random to create unexpected phrases... "The exquisite corpse" being one such contribution to a game by Prévert, added to by others to come up with "The exquisite corpse will drink the new wine."


I suppose that the lower portion of the drawing, by Breton, might have been inspired by the statues and pedestals seen in paintings by Giorgio de Chirico.  I would have loved to have participated in one of these drawing sessions with the Surrealists, as I'm sure they took great delight in the finished drawings.  I'll have to find someone willing to play this game with me!  :)