Home | GALLERY | SHOWS
about me | contact | FAQs | site map | search | links | other stuff

Collage, montage, découpage, bricolage ...

Some of my collages date back to the late sixties; this one was on the wall of my studio at that time. I still use the form.

Click on an image below to see a larger version and to get more information

Sir Peter Blake, the arch exponent of the genre, defined collage as "anything where something is attached to something else".

'Collage' was originally a French word, derived from coller, meaning 'to paste'.
 

The principle of collage is the central principle of all art in the twentieth century.
 Donald Barthelme, writer (1931-1989)
Montage - a single composition made by juxtaposing or overlapping pictures or designs; the art or process of making such a composition; also the rapid succession of images in a movie.
Montage in German means 'fitting'. The style was developed by John Heartfield for propaganda purposes and the word 'photomontage' was first coined by the Berlin Dada group. Some of the early Dada montages were used in the movement's magazines and manifestos. Heartfield and his collaborators would be horrified that I should apply their word to my work!

In fact, the idea of photomontage dates back almost to the beginning of photography. Right from the start, photographers sought to manipulate and combine images.

"There is a problem with montage in that you see it everywhere now because of digital technology. There is so much transformed imagery around that people accept constructed images without questioning their meaning." Peter Kennard, artist

Bricolage - an improvised creation from whatever materials happen to be available; from the French bricole, meaning a trifle.

'Bricolage' is sometimes applied to artistic works in a sense similar to collage: an assemblage improvised from materials ready to hand, or the practice of transforming 'found' materials by incorporating them in a new work.  C. Baldick, The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms, Oxford University Press, 1990
artist's collection  

Découpage is decoration, usually of furniture or fittings, with shapes or illustrations cut out of magazines and newspapers. It was popular in Victorian times and the technique is a forerunner of collage. Matisse took to cutting out original paper shapes in his later years.
Copyright is a potential problem. The images used in these 60s collages will by now have passed in to the public domain.
     artist's collection

artist's collection   

The term 'photomedia' is becoming used to encompass the many digital techniques that surround and make use of photographic images – one reason why Photomedia was my trading name some years back.

Pauline Boty was a collage maker, clearly influenced by her mentor Peter Blake. Collage was a technique frequently used by the 60s pop art movement.

   © John Aston 1962

Unless otherwise specified, all images on this page are
© Colin Robinson 2008

email me
or telephone +44 (0) 1869 338 272