The Surrealists aimed to create a pictorial art that already existed in the art of psychotic patients by devising ways of tapping into their own unconscious mind. Whereas the psychotic artists did this naturally and unselfconsciously, the Surrealists’ deliberate efforts also succeeded, as Roeske’s exhibition demonstrates. Both groups of artists evoke in us the ‘disquieting feeling of strangeness’ that Prinzhorn described. Moreover, whereas the psychotic artists were untrained, the Surrealists went to great lengths to unlearn their training. Picasso claimed that he used to draw like Raphael and
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