Paolo Monti - Serie fotografica - BEIC 6363418

A chemigram (from "chemistry" and ''gramma'', Greek for "things written") is an experimental piece of art where an image is made by painting with chemicals on light-sensitive paper (such as

photographic paper Photographic paper is a paper coated with a light-sensitive chemical formula, like photographic film, used for making photographic prints. When photographic paper is exposed to light, it captures a latent image that is then developed to form a v ...

). The term ''Chemigram'' was coined in the 1950s by Belgian artist

Pierre Cordier Pierre Cordier (born January 28, 1933 in Brussels) is a Belgian artist. He is considered to be a pioneer of the chemigram and of its development as a means of artistic expression. Childhood and education Cordirn into a family of Franco-Belg ...

History

Johann Schulze is regarded as the first to obtain a chemigram-like image; in 1725, he produced such a work using opaque paper and a bottle of silver salts.

Hippolyte Bayard Hippolyte Bayard (20 January 1801 – 14 May 1887) was a French photographer and pioneer in the history of photography. He invented his own process that produced direct positive paper prints in the camera and presented the world's first public e ...

produced another chemigram-like image during sensitization tests he conducted in 1839. In the 1930s and 1940s, the German

Edmund Kesting Edmund Kesting (27 July 1892, in Dresden – 21 October 1970, in Birkenwerder) was a German photographer, painter and art professor. He studied until 1916 at the Dresden Academy of Fine Arts before participating as a soldier in the First World W ...

and the French

Maurice Tabard Maurice Tabard (July 12, 1897 – February 23, 1984) was a French photographer. Tabard was one of the leading photographers of the Surrealist movement, which he entered under the influence of his friend, American photographer Man Ray. His work w ...

produced pictures by painting with developer and fixer on photographic paper. It is the Belgian artist

(born 1933), however, who has been most responsible for developing and exploring chemigrams. From his early days, in 1956, he was one of its rare practitioners, and contributed to its development by expanding its technical and esthetic possibilities. He adopted the name ''chimigramme'' in French in 1958 (''chemigram'' in English and Dutch, ''Chemigramm'' in German, ''chimigramma'' in Italian, and ''quimigrama'' in Spanish and Portuguese), the most widely accepted designation today. In 1974 Josef H. Neumann advanced the process in his

chemogram A chemogram (from "chemistry", "optic" and ''gramma'', Greek for "things written") is an experimental art where a photographic image is partly or fully enlarged and processed onto photographic paper in the darkroom and afterwards selectively pai ...

s by incorporating optical elements before applying chemicals.

Process

Essais de photosensibilisation, Hyppolite Bayard

A chemigram is made by painting with chemicals on photographic paper and lies within the general domain of experimentation in the

visual arts The visual arts are art forms such as painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, ceramics, photography, video, filmmaking, design, crafts and architecture. Many artistic disciplines such as performing arts, conceptual art, and textile arts al ...

. It requires the use of materials from

silver halide A silver halide (or silver salt) is one of the chemical compounds that can form between the element silver (Ag) and one of the halogens. In particular, bromine (Br), chlorine (Cl), iodine (I) and fluorine (F) may each combine with silver to prod ...

-based photography (light-sensitive paper,

developer Developer may refer to: Computers * Software developer, a person or organization who develop programs/applications * Video game developer, a person or business involved in video game development, the process of designing and creating games * Web d ...

, and fixer), but it is not a photograph. Like the

photogram A photogram is a photographic image made without a camera by placing objects directly onto the surface of a light-sensitive material such as photographic paper and then exposing it to light. The usual result is a negative shadow image th ...

, the chemigram is made without a camera, yet it is created in full light instead of in the darkness of the

darkroom A darkroom is used to process photographic film, to make prints and to carry out other associated tasks. It is a room that can be made completely dark to allow the processing of the light-sensitive photographic materials, including film and ph ...

. For this reason it is not "light that writes" (''photo graphein'' in the Greek) but rather "chemistry that writes". Chemigrams can be made solely with photo paper, developer, and fixer, with results that will somewhat resemble watercolor. The possibilities can be multiplied by using materials from painting (such as

varnish Varnish is a clear transparent hard protective coating or film. It is not a stain. It usually has a yellowish shade from the manufacturing process and materials used, but it may also be pigmented as desired, and is sold commercially in various ...

wax Waxes are a diverse class of organic compounds that are lipophilic, malleable solids near ambient temperatures. They include higher alkanes and lipids, typically with melting points above about 40 °C (104 °F), melting to give low ...

, or oil), These kinds of experiments are akin to those of

Paul Klee Paul Klee (; 18 December 1879 – 29 June 1940) was a Swiss-born German artist. His highly individual style was influenced by movements in art that included expressionism, cubism, and surrealism. Klee was a natural draftsman who experimented wi ...

Max Ernst Max Ernst (2 April 1891 – 1 April 1976) was a German (naturalised American in 1948 and French in 1958) painter, sculptor, printmaker, graphic artist, and poet. A prolific artist, Ernst was a primary pioneer of the Dada movement and Surrealism ...

, and

Antoni Tàpies Antoni Tàpies i Puig, 1st Marquess of Tápies (; 13 December 1923 – 6 February 2012) was a Catalan People, Catalan painter, sculptor and art theorist, who became one of the most famous European artists of his generation. Life The son of Jo ...

. In contrast to chemograms, the first step in chemograms s is to expose images in the darkroom and then process them with chemicals in daylight. The technique of the first chemigrams was first developed in its origins, beginning in the 30s of the 20th century, in the application of chemicals on black and white photo paper. This process of chemigramne, also presented by

in Dresden as "chemical painting" in the 1930s, served a cameraless art. Likewise, the Chemigramme, works by the Belgian artist

, coined by him under the French term Chimigramme, are works of art without a camera. Traumarbeit 1976

Unlike chemigrams the production process of

s consists of two different steps. First an

enlarger An enlarger is a specialized transparency projector used to produce photographic prints from film or glass negatives, or from transparencies. Construction All enlargers consist of a light source, normally an incandescent light bulb shining thou ...

is used to partly or fully process a

photographic image A photograph (also known as a photo, image, or picture) is an image created by light falling on a photosensitive surface, usually photographic film or an electronic image sensor, such as a CCD or a CMOS chip. Most photographs are now created ...

onto

in the

and thereafter the chemicals are applied in full light. Hannes Schmidt: Bemerkungen zu den Chemogrammen von Josef Neumann. Ausstellung in der Fotografik Studio Galerie von Prof. Pan Walther. in: Photo-Presse. Heft 22, 1976, S. 6.

Notes

References

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External links

{{Commons category
"Camera-less photography"
from the

Victoria and Albert Museum The Victoria and Albert Museum (often abbreviated as the V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.27 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and nam ...

Photographic techniques