Role of Chance in Painting of First Half of 20th Century
Soudabeh Mojaveri
Reprinted from: Honar Nameh, University of Art, Tehran, No. 25, Winter 2005 (A brief of the article)


Chance has since long ago been considered a source of creativity, and thus many valuable works of art have been created throughout the history.

Since the beginning of twentieth century artists, especially painters have due to historical and social reasons paid attention to chance as an important element in creating works of art. Dadaists and surrealists were some of the first artistic movements that made use of chance in their works.

The role of chance or accident in the process of creating works of art is a relative and completely arbitrary process. The painter, using his or her own mastery of technique, and by creating possibilities, chooses accident as the means of creating art, and thus creates the possibility for chance to work. Accident cannot be art, art being the selection of chance.