Spontaneity & Creation
ÉLISABETH AMBLARD
wikicreation
“Beginning a painting: an adventure no one knows where it will lead”
Dubuffet, 1973, p. 28
BIOGRAPHY
Artist and lecturer in Visual Arts at Paris Panthéon-Sorbonne University, Elisabeth
Amblard was born in 1973 in Clermont-Ferrand – France. Her frequent exhibitions show
her involment in drawings and relations between object, art and nature, practice on
which her theoric researchs is based. Author of many articles (“Catharina van Eetvelde’s
drawings : objects of space”, 2011; “About black and white in Pierrette Bloch, Dove Allouche,
Mrzyk & Moriceau and Vija Celmins drawings”, 2012 ; etc.) she investigates contempory
drawings and questions the modi operandi that generate works of art.
KEYWORDS
Action, act, immanence, gesture, surprise, intuition, moment, flow, present,
acts of attention, immediacy, improvisation, habit
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SUMMARY
Is there room for spontaneity in visual arts? Answering this question is to consider
the possibility of creating works of art without any planning of their future form
and no preliminary sketches. This article will determine what are the conditions and
reasons for spontaneity, while situating it in regard to instinct or habit, establishing
the affinities between spontaneity and spontaneous creative acts, revealing the links
between spontaneity and immediacy towards an unexpected act of creation in the form
of a surprise. There would then be no dichotomy within material works between action,
memory and the tangible record of the experience.
•2•

This article focuses on spontaneity in the creation of visual art works, creation being
understood to be both a work of art and the process that leads to its conception. Does the
project – in the sense of an established plan, a sketch, a purpose developed in view of its
realization – precede all creation? Is there an alternative, another approach? Would this
pave the way for experimentation, which drives freedom and creativity? The purpose of
this article is to consider the possibility of art works created without any preconception
of their future form. What are the conditions for this? How and why minimizing “the
amount of control in favour of spontaneity” (Mathieu, 1973, p. 212)? What does working
without premeditation (other than perhaps the intention of creating) mean? This series
of questions means considering notably spontaneity and its developments.
CONDITIONS
The conditions for spontaneity are closely and intrinsically linked to the definition of
what one means by “being spontaneous”. Is it to be instinctive? Why should spontaneity
be sought after in the arts, and would it not be paradoxical if, as implied by its association
with instinct, it was related to animality? Is “being spontaneous” being able to give
an answer to a particular solicitation, guided by habit? Or does it mean, in contrast,
“being free?” Does “being spontaneous” mean being in a constant state of invention?
Here are some hypotheses that seem to broaden the meaning of spontaneity, it is also a
way of concentrating it after having, obviously, analysed it. One then discovers a form
of plural – therefore ambiguous – spontaneity. The term itself covers very different, if
not irreconcilable, real situations, sometimes resulting in a suspicious attitude towards
spontaneity.
SPONTANEITY AND INSTINCT
First hypothesis: being spontaneous would mean being instinctive. Spontaneity
“depends upon us [...] as the soul has within it the principle of all its actions” (Leibniz,
[1710]1969, p. 291). In a general sense, what is spontaneous is what the agent makes
by himself. Organic, physiological and instinct-related data differentiate the animal
condition from the human condition, which cannot indeed be reduced to it. To act
spontaneously, an agent must perform a gesture or an act upon his/her own initiative.
But where can initiative – which refers to two principles: autonomy and freedom – be
found in an instinctive response? The spontaneity of instinct is only an illusion. It is
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indeed independent from learning, imitation and experience. But one calls “instinct” a
hereditarily transmitted behaviour, characterized by an innate knowledge of life. This
is why one cannot confuse instinct and spontaneity. If instinct is today a scientifically
controversial1 concept, it can still be defined as “an innate plan of life, perfect, preformed,
which, driven by a vital force, inevitably and inexorably leads animals toward one
goal (which is the conservation of the species)” (Doron & Parot, 1991, p. 368). Instinct
allows us to respond immediately and accurately to stimuli in a given situation. But it
offers nothing new. It does not express the whole being but complements reflex as an
impersonal principle, often a defensive reaction. However, getting back to what G. W.
Leibniz said, spontaneity is similar to a certain form of self-determination, as defined
by Camille Bryen (b. Nantes 1907 – d. Paris 1977) and Raoul Ubac (b. Cologne 1910 – d.
Dieudonne 1985) when they wrote: “Poetic activity commits the individual completely
without any subordination external to it” (Bryen & Michelet, [1935]2005). This approach
has accents of spontaneity with terms that have a certain self-sufficient quality. Artistic
practice can therefore be seen as a primal movement that only owes its cause to itself. It
results in an interlocking between life and the work of art. “The life and work of a poet
are identical. The poem is only the objective witness of it, an absolutely selfless creation,
the testimony to its author’s existence as well as an irrational method of knowledge” (Bryen
et Michelet, [1935]2005)
. One could thus talk of spontaneity in the arts if one considers the works
themselves as well as the method and time of their creation. Untitled watercolour by
C. Bryen dated 1947 (53x37cm) is the drawing of a recording where decisions are made
during the action, with a continuous line created by the pencil and a mood-related
fluidity of colours that emphasize or dissolve. C. Bryen wrote in collaboration with Alain
Gheerbrant: “Poetry can be regarded as the expression of an immediate consciousness
that has no other criterion than that of its own existence” (Bryen & Gheerbrant, 1949). The
spontaneous form is there. To follow this example, at the same time, in 1948, Wolfgang
Wols – of whom Jean-Paul Sartre said that he “has understood that the experimenter
is inevitably part of the experience and the painter of the canvas” (Sartre, 1963) created
Fleur vénéneuse (Wolfgang Wols, Fleur vénéneuse, 1948, ink, gouache and watercolour,
private collection, 21x12cm). Both drawings, Untitled by Bryen and Fleur vénéneuse by
Wols, are the expression of a forever volatile moment, never the same, preserved in the
line and the colour. In their artistic practice, the two artists were certainly driven by
comparable forms of spontaneity, that relate to “a long-developed demand in Western
art for the immediate in experience and expression” (Schapiro, 1996, p. 85).
1. On the study of instinct, see Tinbergen, 1971.
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Another example: starting in 1948, Jackson Pollock (b. Cody 1912 – d. New York 1956)
used the technique of “dripping” to transform the canvas into a field on which to paint,
he borrowed this technique from the Surrealists and notably Max Ernst, who, as early
as 1942, used it to evoke the flight of a fly in all its unpredictability. This technique
offers the freedom of action that one can see in the two short films and photographs
of Hans Namuth (1950-1951), showing Jackson Pollock absorbed in the act of painting.
His steps around a canvas laid on the ground make him look like a dancer letting the
diluted paint flow onto the canvas or projecting it depending on the energy of the
moment. His gesture is both the expression of his vital being and the experience of a
field of action specific to the painter. Art is no longer only identified as the work, it can
be found in what generates it. There is an extensive shift in what the work is: it is the
canvas, i.e. Number 26 A “Black and White” (Jackson Pollock, 1948, enamel on canvas,
208x121.7cm, Pompidou Centre collection, Paris), and the action, both time and space,
that produced it.
This canvas, like any other painting, is an “action painting”. The spectator or
observer cannot forget that fact in front the canvas hung vertically on the wall of a
museum. “My painting is direct” commented Jackson Pollock off camera. His approach
is spontaneous. Here, one must consider the immediacy of creation, highlighted in
the fact that the painting, or the drawing, is created without any preparatory image,
without any image premeditated by the artist, otherwise there would be no action
painting. All Abstract expressionists refused to undertake preparatory sketches, they
were guided by intuition, in order to find a tension in the creative act, so the canvas
is “a revelation, an unexpected and unprecedented resolution of an eternally familiar
need” (Mark Rothko, 1999). In The Tradition of the New, H. Rosenberg emphasized and
highlighted the element of surprise: “If Lucrece should come out she will be among us
for the first time—a surprise. To the painter, she must be a surprise. In this mood there
is no point to an act if you already know what it contains” (Rosenberg, [1960]1962, p.
25). Thus Pierrette Bloch (b. 1928 Paris) wrote: “it happens, it wakes me and surprises
me: a rhythm, a cadence, a form. An adventure can begin” (Bloch, 2002, p. 27). This is an
important point. It would indeed prevent the potential pitfalls of a form of improvisation
simulated through habit. Even so, would it then be simulation? Can one find, in the
same artist, both technique and spontaneity?
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SPONTANEITY AND HABIT
With habits, one enters the domain of customs, practices and exercises. Our genetic
heritage is not the only explanation. Much of what one still calls “spontaneity” lies in
the habits, ways of being, permanent forms of behaviour acquired through repetition
and tending to be performed automatically, without thinking, as one says.
What relationship does spontaneity have with habits? Are social habits, memorized
gestures and acquired practices spontaneous acts? “As soon as a thing has become habitual,
it is virtually natural; habit is a thing not unlike nature” (Aristote, 1976, p. 100). A second
nature. Hegel gives us the keys to this term: “Habit is rightly called a second nature; nature,
because it is an immediate being of the soul; a second nature, because it is an immediacy
created by the soul, impressing and moulding the corporeality” (Hegel, 1990, p. 235). This
is interesting because, in this second scenario, nature beckons. It participates, through
integration, in what is spontaneous, sua sponte, on its own accord. Habit is not innate but
acquired. You put the top back on a bottle of ink without thinking. It is identical repetition,
exact reproduction. You no longer think about the gesture you make (and your mind can
then do other things). This is perhaps why, for Alain, reflecting on habit, defined it as “an
art of acting without thinking and even a better act than when thinking [...]. The habit,
in dividing the action of the muscles, and leaving aside those which do not intervene,
enables rapid and flexible action, without any embarrassment or discomfort” (Alain, 1990,
p. 1063). Fluidity, speed and flexibility are all valuable qualities. Regularity and practice
lead to precision; the hesitation of the start is replaced by the obviousness of habits that
occurs when learning is completed. Only then is the habit recorded in “what can be called
a motor memory of movement” (Berthoz, 2008, p. 55-56).
One must therefore question, in the artistic process, the degree of habit and its link
with potential spontaneity. Habit produces a “method,” “not in the logical sense, but in the
sense of “an average probability of similar cases,” which results in a “normally” adapted
working method, which, as it is gradually assimilated, “becomes a habit,” transforms itself
into a “routine,” and can therefore be used in the emergency of the act” (Jullien, 1996, p.
27). A habit may therefore well be a response parameter to a sudden solicitation, and in
fact, contrary to what one might have expected, the habit participates in spontaneity.
Both are at the basis of creation.
It is at this point that one can raise doubts about the inventiveness of certain works
of art. The artist can, of course, face the unexpected, ignore his/her artistic response in
front of a blank piece of paper, canvas or object, and therefore, from his/her point of view,
work “nestled” in spontaneity, accepting the baggage of what constitutes it, both innate
and acquired.
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The visual artists opting for spontaneity count on “the breakthrough of the moment
and direct sensation” (Greenberg, [1988]1994, p. 235). In the work of Pollock, C. Bryen and
Wols, Pierrette Bloch and in many others, the act of painting is related to the immediacy
of being, the attractiveness of an immediately perceptible vitality. If artists finally
give us images to see, they also engage themselves in actions. The exploration of new
artistic materials goes hand in hand with the experimentation of “gestures” as forms
of expression, the same gestures that create the work.
Without any guide, any anticipation, planning or programme, without all that
participates in the predetermination (of the situation or the artistic process) that is
incompatible with spontaneous artistic practice, there would be preliminary data, a
starting point, a moment in time: the present. Because, beyond the moments in time
developed by such practices, it appears that the very existence of creation and of the
search for a form of spontaneity depends on decisions made on the spot and in the spur
of the moment.
IMMEDIACY OR THE TIME OF SPONTANEITY
CREATION OF THE INSTANT
Spontaneity commits the artist to consider his/her time, the present time and more
particularly time in its most minimal unit: the instant.
If the word has its origin in the adjective instant: imminent, pressing, urgent, the
instant is also “a very short interval in time that passes” (Souriau (Ed.), 1990, p. 891). This
definition appears to contain two notions: on one hand, extreme speed, or even the
suddenness that is characteristic of the instant; and, on the other hand, the association
with the interval, contained duration, however small. A question arises: can the instant
be compared to a dot or a hyphen (“trait d”union” in French)? In other words, does it belong
to the order of what ends or of what links? Is it isolated or is it a puncture operated in the
continuum of time? The instant is considered as a concept of psychological aesthetics,
as it is involved in the perception of the arts of the time “(situated) by psychophysiology
between 1/16th and 1/20th of a second. An atom of perception, the instant is an indivisible
moment”. (Souriau (Ed.), 1990, p. 892). In mathematics and physics, 1/16th and 1/20th of a
second could potentially be fractioned; but perception is halted and cannot go beyond it.
Does this imply considering the instant as the smallest unit of duration measurement,
the shortest time interval that can be identified? Or is it fundamentally distinct from
duration? The Dictionnaire de philosophie by Jacqueline Russ (1991) considers it as the
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smallest unit of the measurement of time, but without any link to duration. S. Kierkegaard
wrote: “The moment signifies the present as that which has no past and no future”
(Kierkegaard, 1978, p. 90). The development of the usual conception that binds past and
present or present and future comes to a halt, the present stands alone. The present is
the only thing experienced, a volatile succession of instants. Kierkegaard emphasized
the current character of the instant (it should be noted here that, in French, the words
actuel and acte belong to the same lexical field; is actuel what is part of an acte). Being
attentive to life implies consciously placing oneself at its centre. The instant is the centre
of the feeling of existence. “There is an absolute identity between the feeling of the
present and the feeling of life,” explained G. Roupnel (Roupnel, 1927, p. 108). In Intuition
of the Instant (1931), G. Bachelard supported the hypothesis according to which “Time has
but one reality, that of the instant” (Bachelard, 1931, p. 13). Rather than subordinating the
instant to time, here time is defined as “reality compressed into an instant and suspended
between two voids”. From the beginning, Bachelard prepares us: “to understand, [...] we
must enter the full equality of the present moment and the real”. This precaution applies
to the metaphysical idea that is the main subject developed in his reflection. “It is this and
only this which we are conscious of” (Roupnel, 1927, p. 108). This state of consciousness
is linked to the recognition of the present. Bachelard believed the instant to be at the
centre of the sensation of existence. This consciousness of the instant is embodied in
what he called “acts of attention,” which he defined as “sensational sequences extracted
from the continuity of time” (Bachelard, 1931, p. 21).
The instant is present, full, whole and partial, punctiform and vast, complex and
perhaps thinner than a sheet of paper. From this relationship between the instant and
the ephemeral comes its aesthetic value, the instant is both unique and doomed to an
inevitable demise. There is no return.
AN INTERNAL AWARENESS OF TIME
The instant is related to the time lived. Edmund Husserl began his book Phenomenology of
internal time-consciousness (Vorlesungen zur Phänomenologie of inneren zeitbewusstseins)
by putting objective time aside. Using phenomenological analysis, Husserl refused the
idea of a pre-given objective of time whose subjective conditions of occurrence would still
remain to be defined. The problem is not how a constituted time would appear but how
“appearing time and appearing duration as such” (Husserl, [1905]1991, p. 7) are constituted.
This seems in opposition to the most common or the most accepted order of data.
Husserl’s “time lived” challenges our common views. Spontaneity seems related to
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the instant due to its characteristics of currentness and change. These qualities are
what Husserl called “flow”. And in the flow of the moments of time lived, “there is no
duration” (Husserl, [1905]1991, p. 151). Indeed, “duration is the form of something that lasts,
constancy, and in the flow, by definition, there is no constancy” (Frank, 1993, p. 187). In a
spontaneous act, it seems to reconcile inherent movement, a certain time span (plural)
and great mobility. As Husserl wrote: “In the same way as each instant (and each lapse of
time) is ‘individually’ distinct, so to speak, from the other, and in the same way as none
of them can happen twice, no type of flow can take place twice” (Husserl, [1905]1991, p.
42). This time lived is that of improvisation, spontaneity, urgency. And the philosopher
continued: “From the flow phenomenon, we know that this is a continuation of ongoing
changes, which form an inseparable unit, inseparable in fragments that could be for the
self and indivisible in phases that could be for the self, into points within continuity”
(Husserl, [1905]1991, p. 41). This implies breaking the dichotomy which could exist between
currentness and a certain development.
It is as if everything happened at the same time, in the sense of a present time, with
the instant as the centre point or as a “singular flow” to use Husserl’s term, which includes
the internal possibility of extension. The spontaneous act marks the repairing of the
separation and the end of moratoria, to use the Latin term designating the temporal gap
between today, tomorrow and yesterday. What is current.
However, how can one not give a point of origin to this present time? In his thoughts,
E. Husserl observed: “the original impression is the absolute beginning [...], the original
source from which everything continuously happens. But it does not happen itself, it is not
created as something produced, but through genesis spontanea, it is original generation.
It does not develop itself (it has no germ), it is original creation”. (Husserl, [1905]1991, p. 131)
Would this be its spontaneous form? Moreover, as Husserl expressed in what follows
immediately, if he uses images, the sudden burst of a spring or the continuity of what
is taking shape in the now, it is to express that “consciousness is nothing without the
impression” (Husserl, [1905]1991, p. 131)2.
All this leads us to reconsider and re-address the issue of beginning and end in creation,
its potential spontaneous form, following on from a fundamental remark by E. Husserl
on this subject: “One must first note that the types of flow of an immanent temporal
object have a beginning, a source-point, so to speak. This is the type of flow by which
the immanent object commences to be. It is characterized as the present. In the ongoing
pursuit (types of flow); we then observe this remarkable fact: each subsequent phase of
2. Please also see Supplement III: “Sensing is what we consider as the original time-consciousness […] Sensation is
the presentative time-consciousness” (Husserl, [1905]1991, p. 141).
•9•

the flow is itself a continuity, a continuously growing continuity, a continuity of pasts”
(Husserl, [1905]1991, p. 72). The “source-point” referred to here is a new opportunity to
progress further on the issue of the emergence of the artistic act. P. Picasso (b. Malaga,
188 – d. Mougins 1973) said: “The whole point of art is in the beginning. After the beginning,
it is already the end” (Tériade, 1932, 15 juin).
Why is the instant so insistent in positioning itself as essential in the concept of
spontaneity? Because we are thinking beings. In psychology, spontaneity opposes
thoughtfulness; spontaneity occurs or takes place without any reflection of thought or
consciousness on themselves. How do you stop thinking or dreaming that the gesture
is faster, that the act is an inconsiderate act? If it may be a condition for spontaneity, it
then must happen quickly; it must act before reasoning takes over. Acting spontaneously
(because there is always an action) will always mean acting fast.
Thus this great detour through the instant leads us to reconsider what is spontaneity.
Its conditions, among which instantaneity, now appear as a place, a nourishing and
active soil.
To those who object to the low turnover in a series of works by an artist in search
of spontaneity, let’s suggest that we put ourselves in the place of those who create and
decide to trust them.
Does the value of an artist not lie as much in the discovery of what he has produced
as in the artistic process? The visual and artistic distinction can be narrow. There lies
experience, in which, as Gilles Deleuze wrote: “Only differences are alike” (Deleuze,
[1968]2011, p. 153). The resemblance also creates the gap that can make a difference, the
constitutive gap of singularity.
Amblard, E. (2013, 22 novembre). Creation and spontaneity. Retrieved from http://www.
soft-avenue.com/wikicreation_new/readArticle.php?articleId=18
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