What is a collage?

Braque, Ace of Hearts, 1914

It’s not exactly a painting technique, since it’s not necessarily done with a paintbrush and painture. But it’s considered part of the History of Paintng because several painters have done collage works and because, even though not always, it is two-dimensional.

Arcimboldo, Summer,
1573

Then, what’s a ‘collage’? In French, it refers to a bunch of objects glued together, not necessarily pieces of paper. For example: a totem would be a collage too, or any painting by Arcimboldo. If it’s actually a bunch of piece of papers glued, it’s also called ‘papiers collés’ (as Picasso and Braque wouldname it, it stands for glued papers in French)

Its origins are quite distant: there are examples of it found in the Ancient Japan, in Persia, in Byzantium. In XVII century these artworks were done with pieces of butterfly wings. Around the middle of XVIII century, when celebrating Valentine’s Day got popular, the greeting cards sent were accompanied by laces glued. In 1840, German pedagogue Friedich Froebel incluided this technique in a Kindergarten’s activities in order to impulse the children’s creativity. Which other celebrities not involved in the world of painting tried doing some collage works? Víctor Hugo, Hans Christan Andersen, between others. 

The cubists didn’t invent anything new, they just revived it. Picasso and Braque found themselves in front of a dilemma: their constant researches about shape got them to destroy the figures, getting to the point where they aren’t even recognisable. Both used the glued papers to add some reality to the nonsense, just a reference that could make the painting intelligible. The piece of paper would give the painting some sense and also add, in most of the cases, relief, making the painting three-dimensional.

Carrà, Manifestazione
interventista, 1914

From then on, collage, or better said ‘glued papers’, will mature. We could name hundred of artists that tried this kind of art. The Italian futurists, like Boccioni, Carrà or Severini, discover in Paris what their cubist workmates are doing and decide to experiment themselves, not only on paintings, but also on sculptures (something that Picasso, by the way, had already done). The constant relationship between Moscow and Paris attracted Malevich and El Lissitzky. Almost at same time: dadaists, with Duchamp leading them, with Schwitters or Ernst in Germany. Collage will be key to the surrealists in their will to drown in the irrational. For example, Tanguy, Dali or Miró.

Matisse, 2 Dancers,
1948

Matisse started using this technique in 1941, when on a wheelchair after an operation due to a cancerous tumor. He painted with gouache the papers he was going to use and made huge figures. According to him, it was like painting with scissors.

After the World War II, the collage was mainly used in graphic design and advertisements. Pop art would revive it too: we have already talked onceabout Hamilton, Warhol and Rauscheberg. Motherwell and Pollock would also glue papers to their canvas, and many other objects: there is no way back.

Pollock, Collage and oil,
1951

Sources: Mayer, R. The artist’s handbook of materials & techniques. Londres, Faber& Faber, 1991;

Wolfram, E. History of Collage. Londres, Mc Millan, 1975

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