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Papier Collè

2/14/2018

 
by Ruby Inurriaga

      In the spring of 1912, Pablo Picasso created the first collage. This work, Still Life with Chair Caning, is considered the first because it is the earliest known artwork to have taken familiar materials, such as random papers, and deliberately arrange them in a fine art context (Shields). This new direction in modern art was coined papier collé, a French phrase for “glued paper,” by Picasso and Georges Braque, an artist who worked closely with Picasso during the creation of Cubism. Collage was a groundbreaking movement because it was a drastic change from the traditional domain of painting, as the “procedures for laying out, pinning, and gluing papier collés resemble commercial design strategies more than they do the protocol of the fine arts” (Bois, Buchloh, Foster, Joselit, and Krauss, 114). Not only did the collage movement completely shift the entire vocabulary of Cubism, it has inspired art of all different styles and forms throughout the twentieth century and even today.
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Picture
​      Picasso’s work, Still Life with Chair Caning, was created using oil and pasted oilcloth on canvas, rope, and a chair caning. The artwork depicts a still life and references objects that could be laid on a table in a café. In this piece, Picasso brought in foreign objects, like a chair caning, which could have been found in one’s seat at a coffee shop. The letters incorporated into the artwork could possibly be referencing newspapers that could have been laying on the table. This piece allowed Picasso to explore what would happen when other objects were inserted into a painting. He used pieces from the actual scene he was depicting and arranged them in a new, abstract way. Collage is an art form that accentuates process over product. A collage as a work of art, “consists of the assembly of various fragments of materials, combined in such a way that the composition has a new meaning, not inherent in any of the individual fragments” (Shields). Still Life with Chair Caning can be seen as a reinvention of the still life.
Picture
      ​Picasso created many more collage works, one being Bowl with Fruit, Violin and Wineglass, made in 1912-1913 with charcoal, chalk, watercolor, oil paint, and cut papers. This piece also seems to depict a still life inspired by a café scene. In this artwork, separate printed pieces of fruit are placed on top of a paper cut-out shaped like a bowl. Newspaper articles have been cut up and used many times, and some even assume that Picasso was referencing the conversations that happened at the table in a café. Collage works were not driven to accomplish illusionistic representation, but instead relied on various materials and compositional logic.
      Papier collé was a revolutionary movement in modern art as it seemed to attain several meanings; “the original identity of the fragment or object and all of the history it brings with it; the new meaning it gains in association with other objects or elements; and the meaning it acquires as the result of its metamorphosis into a new entity” (Shields). Due to the innovative nature of collage, it has served as source of inspiration throughout art history.
 
Works Cited:
Art, Philadelphia Museum of. “Bowl with Fruit, Violin, and Wineglass.” Philadelphia Museum     of Art,       www.philamuseum.org/collections/permanent/53855.html.

Foster, Hal, et al. Art Since 1900. Thames and Hudson.

Shields, Jennifer1. "Collage and Architecture." International Journal of the Image, vol. 2, no. 3,    Oct.         2012, pp. 85.

Still-Life with Chair Caning, 1912 by Pablo Picasso, www.pablopicasso.org/still-life-with-chair-                      caning.jsp#prettyPhoto.
Chloe Torri
2/15/2018 06:38:54 pm

Picasso formalizing this style of craft and creation and turning it into a recognized subgenre of fine art is really fascinating. His approach to paper as a medium verses substate is very in line with his approaches with painting, sculpting, and other practices. Huge shift to the cubism movement, no doubt.

Eva Chen
2/15/2018 07:32:20 pm

Hi Ruby, I think Picasso’s work is really classical one that people usually think about collection or collage. However, his work impact a lot of people in the future, and all of works that you mentioned are very remarkable for me when I read it. It just refresh my memory of art history again! Great work.

tessa rippenhagen
2/15/2018 07:54:39 pm

I love collage and I love cubism! It is my greatest thrill when I run into a paper colle by Picasso or Braque in a museum. The reference of the everyday 'still life' consisting of remnants from that very life, is so inspiring. I have so much to learn from them.

Lisa Zirbel
2/15/2018 08:22:42 pm

That darn Picasso. Sometimes I get really tired of him always being in the limelight then I read something like this that just reconfirms how innovative, radical, and revolutionary he was. I'll have to include this in my lectures next time my students complain about having to do a collage assignment.
P.S. Do you know if this has any relation to Chin Colle, a glued paper method in printmaking? I be curious to know if one influenced the other.

Susan Hamilton
2/15/2018 09:49:08 pm

This class has been such a discovery for me. Artist collaborations, like Braque & Picasso, have enriched the process of art making. When you look at the work you show here, you can almost still feel the energy that went into placing everything where it ended up.

Ellie
2/15/2018 09:55:53 pm

The collage works by Picasso and Braque did push the boundaries, literally outside the traditional contours of 2D art, through material use, and language. Unfortunately, collage is still putting up a hard fight, often finding itself stuck in the art vs. craft conversation. Many contemporary artists are considering their material use and its source, which is in turn supporting more unconventional materials and assemblages, which in turn creates new understandings in the meaning of art and its process.

Qing MA
2/17/2018 10:25:32 am

I tried to draw something abstract when i was in college and finally found out it's so hard to create something inexistent based on the specific objects. It takes a lot of imagination and creative thinking. And then i knew how great Picasso is to lead a revolution. It truly changed the way people think, make brought more kinds of beauty into the world.


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