Photomontage
Encyclopedia
Photomontage is the process and result of making a composite photograph by cutting and joining a number of other photographs. The composite picture was sometimes photographed so that the final image is converted back into a seamless photographic print. A similar method, although one that does not use film, is realized today through image-editing software. This latter technique is referred to by professionals as "compositing", and in casual usage is often called "photoshopping".
in his book Virtual Art: From Illusion to Immersion notes that the creation of artificial immersive virtual reality, arising as a result of technical exploitation of new inventions, is a long-standing human practice throughout the ages. Such environments as diorama
s were made of composited images.
The first and most famous mid-Victorian photomontage (then called combination printing) was "The Two Ways of Life" (1857) by Oscar Rejlander, followed shortly by the pictures of photographer Henry Peach Robinson
such as "Fading Away" (1858). These works actively set out to challenge the then-dominant painting
and theatrical tableau vivant
s.
Fantasy photomontaged postcards were popular in the Victorian and Edwardian periods.The preeminent producer in this period was the Bamforh Company, in Holmfirth, West Yorksihire, and New York. But the high point came during World War I, when photographers in France, Great Britain, Germany, Austria, and Hungary produced a profusion of postcards showing soldiers on one plane and lovers, wives, children, families, or parents on another.
Many of the early examples of fine-art photomontage consist of photographed elements superimposed on watercolours, a combination returned to by (e.g.) George Grosz
in about 1915. He was part of the Dada
movement in Berlin which was instrumental in making montage into a modern art-form. They first coined the term "photomontage" at the end of the war, around 1918 or 1919.
The other major exponents were John Heartfield
, Hannah Höch
, Kurt Schwitters
, Raoul Hausmann
and Johannes Baader
. Individual photos combined together to create a new subject or visual image proved to be a powerful tool for the Dadists protesting World War I
and the interests that they believed inspired the war. Photomontage survived Dada and was a technique inherited and used by European Surrealists such as Salvador Dalí
. The world's first retrospective show of photomontage was held in Germany in 1931. A later term coined in Europe was "photocollage"; which usually referred to large and ambitious works that added typography and brushwork or even actual objects stuck to the photomontage.
Parallel to the Germans, Russian Constructivist
artists such as El Lissitzky
, Aleksandr Rodchenko and the husband-and-wife team of Gustav Klutsis
and Valentina Kulagina created pioneering photomontage work as propaganda
, such as the journal USSR in Construction
, for the Soviet government. In the education sphere, media arts director Rene Acevedo and Adrian Brannan
have left their mark on art classrooms the world over.
Following his exile to Mexico in the late 1930s, Spanish Civil War activist and montage artist Joseph Renau compiled his acclaimed Fata Morgana USA: the American Way of Life, a book of photomontaged images highly critical of Americana
and North American "consumer culture". His contemporary, Lola Alvarez Bravo
experimented with photomontages on life and social issues in Mexican cities.
In Argentina during the late 1940s, the German
exile Grete Stern
began to contribute photomontaged work on the theme of Sueños (Dreams), as part of a regular psychoanalytical article in Idilio magazine.
The pioneering techniques of the early photomontage artists were co-opted by the advertising industry from the late 1920s onwards.
Other methods for combining pictures are also called photomontage, such as Victorian "combination printing", the printing of more than one negative on a single piece of printing paper (e.g. O. G. Rejlander
, 1857), front-projection and computer montage techniques. Much like a collage
is composed of multiple facets, artists also combine montage techniques. Romare Bearden
's (1912–1988) series of black and white "photomontage projections" is an example. His method began with compositions of paper, paint, and photographs put on boards 8½ × 11 inches. Bearden fixed the imagery with an emulsion that he then applied with handroller. Subsequently, he enlarged the collages photographically.
The 19th century tradition of physically joining multiple images into a composite and photographing the results prevailed in press photography and offset lithography until the widespread use of digital image editing. Contemporary photo editors in magazines now create "paste-ups” digitally. Creating a photomontage has, for the most part, become easier with the advent of computer software such as Adobe Photoshop
, Paint Shop Pro, Corel Photopaint, Pixelmator
, Paint.NET
or GIMP
.
These programs make the changes digitally, allowing for faster workflow and more precise results. They also mitigate mistakes by allowing the artist to "undo" errors. Yet some artists are pushing the boundaries of digital image editing to create extremely time-intensive compositions that rival the demands of the traditional arts. The current trend is to create pictures that combine painting, theatre, illustration and graphics in a seamless photographic whole.
and ethics
- for instance, in faked news photographs that are presented to the world as real. In the United States
, for example, the National Press Photographers Association
(NPPA) have set out a Code of Ethics promoting the accuracy of published images, advising that photographers "do not manipulate images [...] that can mislead viewers or misrepresent subjects."
phenomenon, in which family images are pasted into scrapbooks and collaged along with paper ephemera and decorative items.
Digital art
scrapbooking employs a computer to create simple collaged designs and captions. The amateur scrapbooker can turn home projects into professional output, such as CDs, DVDs, display on TV, or uploaded to a website for viewing or assembly into one or more books for sharing.
History
Author Oliver GrauOliver Grau
Oliver Grau is a German art historian and media theoretician with a focus on image science, modernity and media art as well as culture of the 19th century and Italian art of the Renaissance.-Works:...
in his book Virtual Art: From Illusion to Immersion notes that the creation of artificial immersive virtual reality, arising as a result of technical exploitation of new inventions, is a long-standing human practice throughout the ages. Such environments as diorama
Diorama
The word diorama can either refer to a nineteenth century mobile theatre device, or, in modern usage, a three-dimensional full-size or miniature model, sometimes enclosed in a glass showcase for a museum...
s were made of composited images.
The first and most famous mid-Victorian photomontage (then called combination printing) was "The Two Ways of Life" (1857) by Oscar Rejlander, followed shortly by the pictures of photographer Henry Peach Robinson
Henry Peach Robinson
Henry Peach Robinson was an English pictorialist photographer best known for his pioneering combination printing - joining multiple negatives to form a single image, the precursor to photomontage...
such as "Fading Away" (1858). These works actively set out to challenge the then-dominant painting
Painting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...
and theatrical tableau vivant
Tableau vivant
Tableau vivant is French for "living picture." The term describes a striking group of suitably costumed actors or artist's models, carefully posed and often theatrically lit. Throughout the duration of the display, the people shown do not speak or move...
s.
Fantasy photomontaged postcards were popular in the Victorian and Edwardian periods.The preeminent producer in this period was the Bamforh Company, in Holmfirth, West Yorksihire, and New York. But the high point came during World War I, when photographers in France, Great Britain, Germany, Austria, and Hungary produced a profusion of postcards showing soldiers on one plane and lovers, wives, children, families, or parents on another.
Many of the early examples of fine-art photomontage consist of photographed elements superimposed on watercolours, a combination returned to by (e.g.) George Grosz
George Grosz
Georg Ehrenfried Groß was a German artist known especially for his savagely caricatural drawings of Berlin life in the 1920s...
in about 1915. He was part of the Dada
Dada
Dada or Dadaism is a cultural movement that began in Zurich, Switzerland, during World War I and peaked from 1916 to 1922. The movement primarily involved visual arts, literature—poetry, art manifestoes, art theory—theatre, and graphic design, and concentrated its anti-war politics through a...
movement in Berlin which was instrumental in making montage into a modern art-form. They first coined the term "photomontage" at the end of the war, around 1918 or 1919.
The other major exponents were John Heartfield
John Heartfield
John Heartfield is the anglicized name of the German photomontage artist Helmut Herzfeld...
, Hannah Höch
Hannah Höch
Hannah Höch was a German Dada artist. She is best known for her work of the Weimar period, when she was one of the originators of photomontage.-Biography:...
, Kurt Schwitters
Kurt Schwitters
Kurt Hermann Eduard Karl Julius Schwitters was a German painter who was born in Hanover, Germany. Schwitters worked in several genres and media, including Dada, Constructivism, Surrealism, poetry, sound, painting, sculpture, graphic design, typography and what came to be known as...
, Raoul Hausmann
Raoul Hausmann
Raoul Hausmann was an Austrian artist and writer. One of the key figures in Berlin Dada, his experimental photographic collages, sound poetry and institutional critiques would have a profound influence on the European Avant-Garde in the aftermath of World War I.-Early biography:Raoul Hausmann was...
and Johannes Baader
Johannes Baader
Johannes Baader , originally trained as an architect, was a writer and artist associated with Dada in Berlin....
. Individual photos combined together to create a new subject or visual image proved to be a powerful tool for the Dadists protesting World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
and the interests that they believed inspired the war. Photomontage survived Dada and was a technique inherited and used by European Surrealists such as Salvador Dalí
Salvador Dalí
Salvador Domènec Felip Jacint Dalí i Domènech, Marquis de Púbol , commonly known as Salvador Dalí , was a prominent Spanish Catalan surrealist painter born in Figueres,Spain....
. The world's first retrospective show of photomontage was held in Germany in 1931. A later term coined in Europe was "photocollage"; which usually referred to large and ambitious works that added typography and brushwork or even actual objects stuck to the photomontage.
Parallel to the Germans, Russian Constructivist
Constructivism (art)
Constructivism was an artistic and architectural philosophy that originated in Russia beginning in 1919, which was a rejection of the idea of autonomous art. The movement was in favour of art as a practice for social purposes. Constructivism had a great effect on modern art movements of the 20th...
artists such as El Lissitzky
El Lissitzky
, better known as El Lissitzky , was a Russian artist, designer, photographer, typographer, polemicist and architect. He was an important figure of the Russian avant garde, helping develop suprematism with his mentor, Kazimir Malevich, and designing numerous exhibition displays and propaganda works...
, Aleksandr Rodchenko and the husband-and-wife team of Gustav Klutsis
Gustav Klutsis
Gustav Klutsis was a pioneering photographer and major member of the Constructivist avant-garde in the early 20th century...
and Valentina Kulagina created pioneering photomontage work as propaganda
Propaganda
Propaganda is a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position so as to benefit oneself or one's group....
, such as the journal USSR in Construction
USSR in Construction
USSR in Construction was a propaganda journal published in the decade of 1930 to 1941, as well as briefly in 1949, in the Soviet Union. It became an artistic gem and counter-current in the first year of socialist realism. Its pages offered some of the greatest examples of early 20th-century...
, for the Soviet government. In the education sphere, media arts director Rene Acevedo and Adrian Brannan
Adrian Brannan
Adrian Brannan is a contemporary artist who works mainly in the medium of photo collage focusing on cityscapes as his most frequently chosen subject matter....
have left their mark on art classrooms the world over.
Following his exile to Mexico in the late 1930s, Spanish Civil War activist and montage artist Joseph Renau compiled his acclaimed Fata Morgana USA: the American Way of Life, a book of photomontaged images highly critical of Americana
Americana
Americana refers to artifacts, or a collection of artifacts, related to the history, geography, folklore and cultural heritage of the United States. Many kinds of material fall within the definition of Americana: paintings, prints and drawings; license plates or entire vehicles, household objects,...
and North American "consumer culture". His contemporary, Lola Alvarez Bravo
Lola Alvarez Bravo
Lola Álvarez Bravo was a Mexican photographer. She was a key figure in Mexico's post-revolution renaissance....
experimented with photomontages on life and social issues in Mexican cities.
In Argentina during the late 1940s, the German
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
exile Grete Stern
Grete Stern
Grete Stern was an German photographer. Along with her husband, she presented the first exhibition of modern photographic art in Buenos Aires in 1935.-Biography:...
began to contribute photomontaged work on the theme of Sueños (Dreams), as part of a regular psychoanalytical article in Idilio magazine.
The pioneering techniques of the early photomontage artists were co-opted by the advertising industry from the late 1920s onwards.
Techniques
Oscar Gustave Rejlander
Oscar Gustave Rejlander was a pioneering Victorian art photographer and an expert in photomontage...
, 1857), front-projection and computer montage techniques. Much like a collage
Collage
A collage is a work of formal art, primarily in the visual arts, made from an assemblage of different forms, thus creating a new whole....
is composed of multiple facets, artists also combine montage techniques. Romare Bearden
Romare Bearden
Romare Bearden was an African American artist and writer. He worked in several media including cartoons, oils, and collage.-Education:...
's (1912–1988) series of black and white "photomontage projections" is an example. His method began with compositions of paper, paint, and photographs put on boards 8½ × 11 inches. Bearden fixed the imagery with an emulsion that he then applied with handroller. Subsequently, he enlarged the collages photographically.
The 19th century tradition of physically joining multiple images into a composite and photographing the results prevailed in press photography and offset lithography until the widespread use of digital image editing. Contemporary photo editors in magazines now create "paste-ups” digitally. Creating a photomontage has, for the most part, become easier with the advent of computer software such as Adobe Photoshop
Adobe Photoshop
Adobe Photoshop is a graphics editing program developed and published by Adobe Systems Incorporated.Adobe's 2003 "Creative Suite" rebranding led to Adobe Photoshop 8's renaming to Adobe Photoshop CS. Thus, Adobe Photoshop CS5 is the 12th major release of Adobe Photoshop...
, Paint Shop Pro, Corel Photopaint, Pixelmator
Pixelmator
Pixelmator is a graphic editor developed for Mac OS X, by Pixelmator Team Ltd built upon a combination of open source and Mac OS X technologies...
, Paint.NET
Paint.NET
Paint.NET is a proprietary freeware raster graphics editor program for Microsoft Windows, developed on the .NET Framework. Originally created by Rick Brewster as a Washington State University student project, Paint.NET has evolved from a simple replacement for the Microsoft Paint program, which is...
or GIMP
GIMP
GIMP is a free software raster graphics editor. It is primarily employed as an image retouching and editing tool and is freely available in versions tailored for most popular operating systems including Microsoft Windows, Apple Mac OS X, and Linux.In addition to detailed image retouching and...
.
These programs make the changes digitally, allowing for faster workflow and more precise results. They also mitigate mistakes by allowing the artist to "undo" errors. Yet some artists are pushing the boundaries of digital image editing to create extremely time-intensive compositions that rival the demands of the traditional arts. The current trend is to create pictures that combine painting, theatre, illustration and graphics in a seamless photographic whole.
 |
 |
The ethics of photomontage
A photomontage may contain elements at once real and imaginary. Two-dimensional representation of physical space in a picture is, by definition, an illusion. Such combined photos and digital manipulation can set up a collision between aestheticsAesthetics
Aesthetics is a branch of philosophy dealing with the nature of beauty, art, and taste, and with the creation and appreciation of beauty. It is more scientifically defined as the study of sensory or sensori-emotional values, sometimes called judgments of sentiment and taste...
and ethics
Ethics
Ethics, also known as moral philosophy, is a branch of philosophy that addresses questions about morality—that is, concepts such as good and evil, right and wrong, virtue and vice, justice and crime, etc.Major branches of ethics include:...
- for instance, in faked news photographs that are presented to the world as real. In the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, for example, the National Press Photographers Association
NPPA
NPPA may refer to:* National Pest Plant Accord in New Zealand* National Press Photographers Association* National Professional Practice Assessment...
(NPPA) have set out a Code of Ethics promoting the accuracy of published images, advising that photographers "do not manipulate images [...] that can mislead viewers or misrepresent subjects."
Scrapbooking photo-collage
Photomontage can also be present in the scrapbookingScrapbooking
Scrapbooking is a method for preserving personal and family history in the form of a scrapbook. Typical memorabilia include photographs, printed media, and artwork. Scrapbook albums are often decorated and frequently contain extensive journaling...
phenomenon, in which family images are pasted into scrapbooks and collaged along with paper ephemera and decorative items.
Digital art
Digital art
Digital art is a general term for a range of artistic works and practices that use digital technology as an essential part of the creative and/or presentation process...
scrapbooking employs a computer to create simple collaged designs and captions. The amateur scrapbooker can turn home projects into professional output, such as CDs, DVDs, display on TV, or uploaded to a website for viewing or assembly into one or more books for sharing.
Photo manipulation
Photo manipulation refers to alterations made to a previously unchanged image. Often, the goal of photo manipulation is to create another realistic image. This has led to numerous political and ethical concerns, particularly in journalism.Artists known for photomontage
Key photomontage artists include the following, listed by alphabetical order:
|
Peter Kennard Peter Kennard is a London born and based photomontage artist and senior tutor in photography at the Royal College of Art. Seeking to reflect his involvement in the anti-Vietnam War movement, he turned from painting to photomontage to better address his political views... Gustav Klutsis Gustav Klutsis was a pioneering photographer and major member of the Constructivist avant-garde in the early 20th century... El Lissitzky , better known as El Lissitzky , was a Russian artist, designer, photographer, typographer, polemicist and architect. He was an important figure of the Russian avant garde, helping develop suprematism with his mentor, Kazimir Malevich, and designing numerous exhibition displays and propaganda works... John McHale (artist) John McHale was an artist and sociologist. He was a founder member of the Institute of Contemporary Arts, and a founder of the Independent Group, which was a British movement that originated Pop Art which grew out of a fascination with American mass culture and post-WWII technologies... Dave McKean David McKean is an English illustrator, photographer, comic book artist, graphic designer, filmmaker and musician.... László Moholy-Nagy László Moholy-Nagy was a Hungarian painter and photographer as well as professor in the Bauhaus school. He was highly influenced by constructivism and a strong advocate of the integration of technology and industry into the arts.-Early life:... Scott Mutter Scott Mutter was an American photographer best known for the use of photomontage.-Early life:Born to Charles and Lucille Mutter of Park Ridge, Illinois, he graduated from Maine East High School in Park Ridge in 1961. Mutter received a B.A. in history from the University of Illinois at... Robert Rauschenberg Robert Rauschenberg was an American artist who came to prominence in the 1950s transition from Abstract Expressionism to Pop Art. Rauschenberg is well-known for his "Combines" of the 1950s, in which non-traditional materials and objects were employed in innovative combinations... |
Man Ray Man Ray , born Emmanuel Radnitzky, was an American artist who spent most of his career in Paris, France. Perhaps best described simply as a modernist, he was a significant contributor to both the Dada and Surrealist movements, although his ties to each were informal... Henry Peach Robinson Henry Peach Robinson was an English pictorialist photographer best known for his pioneering combination printing - joining multiple negatives to form a single image, the precursor to photomontage... Thomas Ruff Thomas Ruff is an internationally renowned German photographer who lives and works in Düsseldorf.-Life:... Kurt Schwitters Kurt Hermann Eduard Karl Julius Schwitters was a German painter who was born in Hanover, Germany. Schwitters worked in several genres and media, including Dada, Constructivism, Surrealism, poetry, sound, painting, sculpture, graphic design, typography and what came to be known as... Scott Treleaven Scott Treleaven is a Canadian artist whose work employs a variety of media including collage, film, video, drawing, photography and installation.-Artwork:... Jerry Uelsmann Jerry N. Uelsmann is an American photographer.Uelsmann was born in Detroit, Michigan. When he was in high school, his interest in photography sparked. He originally believed that using a camera could allow him to exist outside of himself, to live in a world captured through the lens... Jeff Wall Jeffrey "Jeff" Wall, OC, RSA is a Canadian artist best known for his large-scale back-lit cibachrome photographs and art-historical writing. Wall has been a key figure in Vancouver's art scene since the early-1970s... |
See also
- @earth@earth@earth is a 2011 book made by London born photomontage artist Peter Kennard with Lebanese artist Tarek Salhany. It is a photo-essay told through photomontage with seven chapters exposing the current state of the earth, the conditions of life on it and the need to resist injustice...
- CollageCollageA collage is a work of formal art, primarily in the visual arts, made from an assemblage of different forms, thus creating a new whole....
- ComposographComposographComposograph refers to a forerunner method of photo manipulation and is a retouched photographic collage popularized by publisher and physical culture advocate Bernarr Macfadden in his New York Graphic in 1924....
- CubismCubismCubism was a 20th century avant-garde art movement, pioneered by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, that revolutionized European painting and sculpture, and inspired related movements in music, literature and architecture...
- DecollageDécollageDécollage, in art, is the opposite of collage; instead of an image being built up of all or parts of existing images, it is created by cutting, tearing away or otherwise removing, pieces of an original image. Examples include inimage or etrécissements and excavations...
- Multiple exposureMultiple exposureIn photography, a multiple exposure is the superimposition of two or more individual exposures to create a single photograph. The exposure values may or may not be identical to each other.-Overview:...
- Photo editingPhoto editingPhoto editing can refer to:* Image editing techniques applied to photographs.* The cultural impact and ethical concerns of photo manipulation....
- Photo mosaic
- ScrapbookingScrapbookingScrapbooking is a method for preserving personal and family history in the form of a scrapbook. Typical memorabilia include photographs, printed media, and artwork. Scrapbook albums are often decorated and frequently contain extensive journaling...
- SurrealismSurrealismSurrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....
- Surrealist techniquesSurrealist techniquesSurrealism in art, poetry, and literature uses numerous techniques and games to provide inspiration. Many of these are said to free imagination by producing a creative process free of conscious control. The importance of the unconscious as a source of inspiration is central to the nature of...
Further reading
- Photomontage (World of Art series) by Dawn Ades. Thames & Hudson, 1989;
- Jürgen Holtfreter: Politische Fotomontage (Berlin/West: Elefanten Press Galerie 1975) ISBN 978-3885200161;
- Brigitte Tast, Hans-Jürgen Tast: Als Lena schlief (Düsseldorf 1980) ISBN 978-3-88842-201-0;
- Hans-Jürgen Tast (Hrsg.): Edith Lechtape. Gossenportraits (Schellerten 1996) ISBN 978-3-88842-202-7;
- Hans-Jürgen Tast (Hrsg.): Eve of Destruction. Draußen ist Krieg, drinnen auch (Schellerten 2005) ISBN 978-3-88842-029-0;
- Hans-Jürgen Tast (Hrsg.): Edith Lechtape. Schauspielerin - Photobildnerin. 1921–2001 (Schellerten 2007) ISBN 978-3-88842-032-0;
- Virtual Art: From Illusion to Immersion, MIT Press 2002; Cambridge, Mass. ISBN 0-262-57223-0;
- Adobe Master Class: Photoshop Compositing with John Lund, Adobe Press, 2003;
- Real World Compositing with Adobe Photoshop CS4 (Valentine, Moughamian 2009) Adobe Press, ISBN 978-0-321-60453-8;
External links
- Photomontage Artists
- A timeline of fantastic photomontage and its possible influences, 1857–2007
- Cut & Paste: a history of photomontage
- Composite Photographs Historical essay on William Notman, with video clips.
- Interactive Digital PhotomontageInteractive Digital PhotomontageInteractive Digital Photomontage is GPL-licensed software for creating interactive digital photomontages.It was jointly developed by University of Washington and Microsoft Research and based on a publication in ACM Transactions on Graphics in 2004....
- a technical paper on a semi-automated approach to photomontage, published at SIGGRAPHSIGGRAPHSIGGRAPH is the name of the annual conference on computer graphics convened by the ACM SIGGRAPH organization. The first SIGGRAPH conference was in 1974. The conference is attended by tens of thousands of computer professionals...
2004. - Online Photomontage Generator