An example of collage.
Collage, also known as "assemblage," is a fine art technique that consists of gathering found objects--like newspaper clippings or clips from photographs--and affixing them together. Collage can be sculptural, though this is more frequently referred to as sculptural assemblage.
People have used collage techniques for several centuries. With the rise and popularity of photography in the middle of the eighteenth century, many crafted family albums combining paintings, photographs, postcards (then known as cartes de visite), pieces of hair and newspaper clippings.
Most link collage, however, to modernist art practices of the twentieth century and beyond. The first modernist fine art collage is Pablo Picasso's "Still Life with Chair Caning" from 1912, where Picasso framed an oval-shaped canvas with rope and affixed a scrap of oil cloth patterned with an image of chair caning to the canvas. The oil cloth acted as both itself and an illusion of chair caning--this was Picasso's comment on art and its capacity to create an illusion of something else. Modern and post-modern artists who use collage follow in Picasso's tradition, juxtaposing found objects to change their meaning.
Collage
In collage, artists concentrate on composition; that is, the arrangement of elements on a page. Collage does not necessarily require much technical skill, but it does require a strong sense of design. The tools of collage are relatively simple--all you need are scissors, paper and glue.
Artists cut out shapes from newspapers, magazines or photographs, arrange the shapes on a separate piece of paper or canvas, and glue them down. Sometimes artists use colored bits of paper as well.
Decoupage
Decoupage is very similar to collage. Decoupage involves decorating an object with colored paper or photographs, as well as paint effects, gold leaf and other touches. Many use decoupage to decorate small objects or furniture. In decoupage, the artist seals each layer of cutouts with a coat of varnish, until the "glued on" and slightly raised texture natural to collage disappears and the surface looks like an inlay. Traditional decoupage required thirty to forty layers of varnish, which the artist then sanded for a polished surface.
A famous example of decoupage is Henri Matisse's "Blue Nude II" from 1952.
Photomontage
Photomontage is type of composite photography where multiple photographic images are combined into a single image. Photomontages can be made in the darkroom by cutting up and re-assembling film negatives, or with collage. Since the late twentieth century, artists like Vivan Sundaram--in his 2001 series "Re-take of Amrita"--have used Photoshop to create photomontages.
The term photomontage evolved in the 1920s among a group of Berlin Dadaists. Artists like Hannah Hoch and John Heartfield played with the realistic aspect of the photograph to recombine seemingly "real" images in to unreal--and often politically-loaded--compositions.
Digital Collage
Many artists today use software to create digital collages. Digital collage is a particularly popular technique among net artists, who search the Internet for images, alter them and then post the altered images to a group blog run by fellow artists.
