Module 6 - Two Dimensional Media

COLLAGE

Collage is a medium that uses found objects or images such as newspaper or other printed material, illustrations, photographs, even string or fabric, to create images. It also refers to works of art (paintings, drawings and prints) that include pieces of collage within them. Collage was made popular in western art history by Pablo Picasso and the cubists. The German artist Kurt Schwitters used collage as the dominant formal element in his works from the 1930’s. His work Opened by Customs is an excellent example of the importance of collage to the modern art movement in Europe before World War Two.

Artist Romare Bearden used collage to comment on urban life and the black experience in America. His Patchwork Quilt presents us with a figure in profile reminiscent of Egyptian painting. The starkness of the black figure surrounded by a collage of patterned fabric and dark background color creates a shallow space and dynamic composition.

The Japanese American artist Paul Horiuchi began as a painter but by mid career used collage almost exclusively. Mesa from 1960 is an abstract rendition of the geologic feature: an isolated hill with steeply sloping sides and a flat top (compare it to Joseph Goldberg’s “Spring Mesa” above in the encaustic painting section). Horiuchi’s art is a successful blending of the formal elements of cubist ideas with the oriental aesthetic of his Japanese heritage. His most ambitious piece is the Seattle Mural, a huge glass mosaic commissioned for the site of the1962 World’s Fair. Though not collage, this immense work mimics the artist’s collage technique in its shapes and composition.

Paul Horiuchi, Seattle Mural, 1962. Glass mosaic. The Seattle Center.
Digital image by Christopher Gildow. Used with permission.

Each individual two-dimensional medium has an extensive range of uses. Taken together their breadth is wide and the visual, textural and emotional effects they give to works of art are extremely varied as you can see in the many examples used throughout this module. Most of us have had some exposure to drawing and painting, maybe even printmaking and collage. They are tools artists use to express themselves, their thoughts and ideas. If your curiosity is stirred by the exposure you’ve had here, sign up for a studio art course. You’ll have the opportunity to learn additional techniques and skills in how to use them to express your own creative ideas.