illustration techniques one: collage | from picasso through dada and pop art to contemporary collage
DESCRIPTION
Slide presentation about Collage as artistic technique, including the history of collage, important artists such as Picasso, Braque and artists from the Dada movement, and later artists involved in Pop-Art. The slides also include contemporary artists working with Collage.TRANSCRIPT
Introduction to Illustration
Illustration techniques 1: Collage
All artwork is copyright of the artist. Where possible all artists have been named and all artwork dated. This document should be used for educational purposes only.
Bill ZindelExplaining the Atom2010
MCD5190 Illustration | Illustration technique 1 | Collage
History of Collage as artistic technique
Collage as technique has a long history in modern art. It first became popular in the experimental and avant-garde movements of the early 1900s. Collage was popular for mixing up textures, type and pictures, different materials, colours and shapes. The technique was used to break up the barrier between art and ordinary life by integrating elements of both.
Among the first artists to work with collage were Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, shortly after the turn of the century.
Still life with chair caning,Pablo Picasso,
1912
Georges BraqueGlass Carafe and Newspapers1914
In the 1920s, artists involved with an art movement called Dada made use of collage for its conceptual connotations of fragmentation, recombination and the breaking up of order and organisation. Dada artists chose abstract collage over more identifiable subject matter because it suited their wish to deconstruct a bourgeouis society they felt responsible for the upheaval of the war. Here are some examples from the period, from Dada artists and others influenced by the movement
The Skat players, Otto Dix, 1920
Artists like Otto Dix were not affiliated with Dada but used similar methods and techniques, such as collage. This picture is a comment on Germany’s conservative society showing war veterans clinging on to pastimes such as traditional card games in spite of their horrific war injuries.
Cut with the Dada Kitchen Knife through the Last Weimar Beer-Belly Cultural Epoch in Germany, Hannah Höch, 1919
Dada artists were explicit in their criticism, as this picture and its title show. The use of collage has the dual effect of creating a sense of fragmentation and chaos, of overturning old rules, while also integrating elements of contemporary life.
Merzpicture thirty-oneKurt Schwitters1920
Under National Socialism much of Expressionist and Dada art was deemed “degenerate art” and artists had to flee the country, forbidden to exhibit and sell their artwork and expropriated. Avant-Garde art had been thriving in Europe, but the coming war put an end to the activity of many.
Raoul HausmannDada Cino1920
The Holy Night by Antoni Allegri, known as Correggio Kurt Schwitters1947
Some artists such as Kurt Schwitters took up the technique of collage after the war, but the times had changed. New art movements emerged, and artists took up collage as an art form to express new meanings.
Odalisk,Robert Rauschenberg,1955-58
The pop art movement, for instance, was also interested in art and its relationship to lived experience, but in a much less critical way. This new generation of artists was focused on popular culture and more likely to be based in the USA rather than in Europe, although many influential artists were in fact migrants who had fled the war.
Monogram,Robert Rauschenberg,1955-59
Retroactive IIRobert Rauschenberg1964
What remained important in these pop-art collages was the use of the technique to refer to contemporary life, rather than to make more general statements. Whether critical or not, collage continued to be an artistic comment on society at the time, for instance in this artwork by Robert Rauschenberg.
Just What Is It That Makes Today’s Homes So Different, So Appealing Richard Hamilton 1956
Bathtub No. 3, Tom Wesselmann, 1963
Afrodizzia, Second Version, Chris Ofili, 1996
Paper collage, oil paint, glitter, polyester resin, map pins and elephant dung on linen
Over the years artists experimented with many different styles as well as materials, blurring the boundaries between collage and sculpture. Chris Ofili for instance creates three-dimensional canvasses which include mounted objects, such as lumps of dried elephant dung.
Hellter Fucking SkelterTracey Emin2002
Tracy Emin, a contemporary of Ofili, uses techniques such as quilting to combine textures, colours, patterns and text in her artwork.
Sex Pistols, God Save The Queen single cover1977
As a vehicle for social criticism collage has found its way into popular culture, for instance in this record cover, including allusions to ransom notes.
Contemporary collage
Collage has developed into a popular technique used for all sorts of purposes, from advertising to book illustration. With the rise of digital image processing digital collage has made it even easier for artists to scale, cut, and recombine images with stunning results. In the following slides we will review some recent artworks and discuss the technique used by the artists, as well as the kinds of composition and visual effects created in their artwork.
Looking at these images, ask yourself to which period of time the different components refer to. Other interesting things to look for is the artist’s use of scale, colour versus black and white imagery, overlaying different elements, repetition and the use of textures and type.
Hugo BarrosSurrealist collages
Hugo BarrosSurrealist collages
Hugo BarrosSurrealist collages
Joseba Elorza Aka Mira Ruido200 dias en sing-sing2008
Joseba Elorza Aka Mira RuidoLost 2009
Joseba Elorza Aka Mira Ruido
matriarcado2008
Joseba Elorza Aka Mira Ruidoet les niches fiscales 2009
Julien PacaudHigh Land2014
Julien PacaudPerpendicular Dreams part 2 episode14 2014
Andy BurgessUrban Collages
Andy BurgessUrban Collages
Bill ZindelExplaining the Atom2010
Bill ZindelExplaining the Atom
2010
PNTSGrenoble2009
Mario WagnerPortal2013
Mario WagnerSighting2013
Mario WagnerAbsolut Vodka ad2011
Dan Hillieruntitled2014
Dan Hillieruntitled2014
Dan Hillieruntitled2014
Technique
World Association of Zoos & Aquariums 77th Anniversary Jonathan Woodward Studio
jonathanwoodwardstudio.com