čeština English

1995 / Eva Petrová / Poems in Collages

Text z katalogu "Koláže" vydaného SGVU Náchod v roce 1995

 

EVA PETROVÁ / POEMS IN COLLAGES   The collage - one of the distinctive phenomena of the twentieth century

The collage - one of the distinctive phenomena of the twentieth century - has proved by the various forms it has taken that the technical process from which the term is derived is by no means determinative. What is important is not the sticking but the meaning, the  significance. The weaving together of heterogeneous elements in a picture or a drawing in a cubistic still life was intended to emphasize concreteness - pieces of newspaper pasted into a picture represented newspapers, a match-box label represented a match-box. Through the sticking on of pieces of paper and wallpaper the areas of colour reverted to the monochrome style of analytic cubism. These papiers collés encouraged a transition from analytic to synthetic cubism; by the use of two-dimensional forms they combined zo create the impression of multi-dimensional objects. In the works of Picasso and Braque the elements which were  pasted in became part of the picture or drawing, incorporated into a particular creative order. With these elements writing, individual letters of the alphabet, and numerals appeared on the surface of the picture. Under the term papiers collés can be included further developments, especially in various versions of constructivism in which the use of the pieces of coloured paper has a mrpological, structural function, and not a semantic or propositional one. Nowadays we make no distinction between paiers collés and the collage in the proper sense of the word; the concept of the collage has widened to include every kind of pastig together, regardless of style and period.