Research paper on the history of collage and it’s relevance in Graphic Design.
“Technology is destructive only in the hands of people who do not realize that they are one and the same process as the universe” Alan Watts
IS THE USE OF COLLAGE RELEVANT IN GRAPHIC DESIGN IN TODAY’S SOCIETY?
“A good composer does not imitate, he steals” can be applied to any art form. Collage can be defined as ‘An artistic composition of materials and objects pasted over a surface, often with unifying lines and color. A work, such as a literary piece, composed of both borrowed and original material. The art of creating such compositions. An assemblage of diverse elements. Collage was first used around 200 BC during the invention of paper in China and derives from the French word ‘coller’ which means glue. Collage was discovered as an innovation of communication and a form of expression, it allowed people to have a voice and create visually giving non-‘artists’ “the ability to manage the most striking contrast, to the achievement of perfect states of equilibrium”.
Although the technique wasn’t firmly established as an art form until the 1920s and 1930s through the work of artists such as John Heartfield, El Lissitzky, and Hannah Höch (Fig 1.), Collage has been a huge turning point for many art forms including Cubism from the earlier works of Picasso and Braque. Picasso said that he himself had already made his “first collage toward the end of 1911, when he glued a piece of imitation-caning oilcloth to a painting on canvas.”
