Collage with a Message
Senior 1 · Fine Arts
Collage with a Message
Lesson 3 of 5
22 min
About 150 years ago in France, Marie-Blanche Hennelle Fournier filled an album with pages like the one below. Look at the wings before you read on. What has she painted, and what has she stuck on?
Worked example
Reading a collage: a page from The Madame B Album
Step 1. What you see. A large, carefully painted butterfly on an empty page. Instead of eyespots, its four wings carry small portraits of men and women in dark clothes.
Step 2. How it is made. The butterfly is painted in watercolour. Photographic portraits were cut into circles with great care and pasted into the painting, so painting and photograph become one picture. This mixing of paint and photographs is called photocollage.
Step 3. What it means. One way to read the page is as a joke and a puzzle: real people, probably the maker's family and friends, have become part of an insect. Albums like this were looked at together at home, and guests enjoyed finding familiar faces in surprising places. Many viewers see a playful message: our circle of friends, turned into something beautiful.
Collages are grouped by their main material and by how the pieces are put together. Each kind is good at a different sort of message.
| Type | Main materials | How it is made | Good for messages that… |
|---|---|---|---|
| Paper collage | coloured, printed or hand-painted paper | shapes cut or torn and laid flat | must be bold and simple, like a poster |
| Photomontage | photographs from magazines and newspapers | figures cut out exactly and combined into a new scene | surprise, protest or make people laugh |
| Text collage | letters and words cut from print | words arranged into slogans or patterns | depend on a short slogan |
| Fabric collage (appliqué) | kitenge offcuts, sacking, felt | cloth shapes glued or stitched onto cloth | celebrate identity, a group or an event |
| Natural-materials collage | dried banana leaves and bark, maize husks, seeds, sand | materials pressed flat, cut and glued | are about nature, farming or the environment |
| Mixed media and assemblage | any of these, plus paint, drawing, bottle tops, wire | layers of different media; assemblage adds real objects in relief | turn waste or everyday objects into a warning |
| Digital collage | scanned or photographed images | combined in an app on a phone or computer | will be shared on screens and online |
Definition
Photomontage: a collage made mainly from cut photographs, combined so they seem to form one new scene.
Example: a photograph of a gorilla cut out and placed in a busy Kigali street, with the words “Where will I live?”.
Definition
Papier collé (French, “pasted paper”): a collage of cut paper shapes, often with drawing or paint added. Appliqué: shapes of cloth sewn or glued onto a larger cloth.
Mixed media: an artwork that uses more than one medium, such as paper, paint and fabric together. Assemblage: a collage that also includes real three-dimensional objects.
Worked example: choosing a type for a message
Habimana's message is “Your waste can be a resource”, for his school's environment club.
1. What must the audience feel? Surprise that rubbish can be useful.
2. Which type makes that point by itself? Mixed media and assemblage: if the collage is made of bottle tops, sugar-bag paper and old packets, the materials prove the message.
3. Check it against the audience. The club will hang it in a corridor, so it must be light and flat enough to pin up: he chooses bottle tops and packet card rather than heavy tins.
Decision: a mixed-media collage, with the slogan cut as a text collage from packaging lettering.
Warning
Respect the people in your pictures. A common mistake is to cut up a photograph of a real classmate, teacher or neighbour to make fun of them, or to use pictures of accidents and suffering for shock. That hurts real people. Use pictures of people only in a respectful way, and ask permission before using a photograph of someone you know.
<em>Hannah Höch, Cut with the Kitchen Knife: Dada and political chaos, Berlin in 1919</em>, from Smarthistory. Watch for how Höch cut photographs of people, machines and crowds from magazines and combined them, and how the arrangement turns into a comment on the politics of her country.
Tip
Let the material say it. The best choice of type is the one where the materials themselves help carry the message: banana leaves for farming, bottle tops for waste, kitenge for identity and celebration.
Practice
Name the type of collage: (a) the word READ made from letters cut out of newspapers; (b) a village scene built from dried banana bark; (c) a photograph of a lion's head stuck onto a photograph of a bus.
What is the difference between photomontage and papier collé?
The banners of Abomey were sewn, not glued. Suggest two reasons why stitching suits a banner better than glue.
Choose the most suitable type of collage for the message “Protect Nyungwe Forest”, for display at a tourist information centre. Justify your choice.
A classmate plans a photomontage showing the head of a real teacher on the body of a cartoon animal. Evaluate this plan.
1. (a) text collage; (b) natural-materials collage; (c) photomontage.
2. Photomontage is made mainly from cut photographs, combined to look like a new scene. Papier collé is made from cut or torn paper shapes, which may be coloured, printed or painted, often with drawing added.
3. For example: a banner is carried, folded and hung outdoors, so stitched shapes do not peel off; cloth can be washed or rolled without the shapes cracking; stitching lasts for many years.
4. A natural-materials collage (leaves, bark, seeds) or mixed media: the forest's own materials make the message about nature, and visitors can see the textures up close. Any clear justification that links material to message is acceptable.
5. It uses a real person to mock them, which could hurt and embarrass the teacher. The idea of combining a head and a body is a real photomontage technique, but it should be used on a public figure only with respect, or on an invented character.
Sources and credits
