Alberto Baumann Eredità del ventesimo secolo 1980 cm 100x100

SOMETIME LAST JANUARY I AWOKE IN THE MORNING WITH MY HAND UP, 2005 mixed media

visual art 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 ...

, mixed media describes

artwork A work of art, artwork, art piece, piece of art or art object is an artistic creation of aesthetic value. Except for "work of art", which may be used of any work regarded as art in its widest sense, including works from literature ...

in which more than one

medium Medium may refer to: Science and technology Aviation * Medium bomber, a class of war plane * Tecma Medium, a French hang glider design Communication * Media (communication), tools used to store and deliver information or data * Medium ...

or material has been employed. Assemblages, collages, and sculpture are three common examples of art using different

media Media may refer to: Communication * Media (communication), tools used to deliver information or data ** Advertising media, various media, content, buying and placement for advertising ** Broadcast media, communications delivered over mass e ...

. Materials used to create mixed media art include, but are not limited to,

paint Paint is any pigmented liquid, liquefiable, or solid mastic composition that, after application to a substrate in a thin layer, converts to a solid film. It is most commonly used to protect, color, or provide texture. Paint can be made in many ...

cloth Textile is an umbrella term that includes various fiber-based materials, including fibers, yarns, filaments, threads, different fabric types, etc. At first, the word "textiles" only referred to woven fabrics. However, weaving is not the ...

paper Paper is a thin sheet material produced by mechanically or chemically processing cellulose fibres derived from wood, rags, grasses or other vegetable sources in water, draining the water through fine mesh leaving the fibre evenly distribu ...

wood Wood is a porous and fibrous structural tissue found in the stems and roots of trees and other woody plants. It is an organic materiala natural composite of cellulose fibers that are strong in tension and embedded in a matrix of lignin ...

and found objects. Mixed media art is distinguished from multimedia art which combines visual art with non-visual elements, such as recorded sound, literature, drama, dance, motion graphics, music, or interactivity.

History of mixed media

The first modern artwork to be considered mixed media is

Pablo Picasso Pablo Ruiz Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist and Scenic design, theatre designer who spent most of his adult life in France. One of the most influential artists of the 20th ce ...

's 1912 collage ''Still Life with Chair Caning'', which used paper, cloth, paint and rope to create a pseudo-3D effect. The influence of movements like Cubism and

Dada Dada () or Dadaism was an art movement of the European avant-garde in the early 20th century, with early centres in Zürich, Switzerland, at the Cabaret Voltaire (in 1916). New York Dada began c. 1915, and after 1920 Dada flourished in Pari ...

contributed to the mixed media's growth in popularity throughout the 20th century with artists like

Henri Matisse Henri Émile Benoît Matisse (; 31 December 1869 – 3 November 1954) was a French visual artist, known for both his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a drawing, draughtsman, printmaking, printmaker, and sculptur ...

Joseph Cornell Joseph Cornell (December 24, 1903 – December 29, 1972) was an American visual artist and film-maker, one of the pioneers and most celebrated exponents of assemblage. Influenced by the Surrealists, he was also an avant-garde experimental filmm ...

Jean Dubuffet Jean Philippe Arthur Dubuffet (31 July 1901 – 12 May 1985) was a French painter and sculptor. His idealistic approach to aesthetics embraced so-called "low art" and eschewed traditional standards of beauty in favor of what he believed to be a ...

, and

Ellsworth Kelly Ellsworth Kelly (May 31, 1923 – December 27, 2015) was an American painter, sculptor, and printmaker associated with hard-edge painting, Color Field painting and minimalism. His works demonstrate unassuming techniques emphasizing line, c ...

adopting it. This led to further innovations like installations in the late 20th century. Mixed media continues to be a popular form for artists, with different forms like wet media and markings being explored.

Types of mixed media art

Mixed media art can be differentiated into distinct types, some of which are: Collage: This is an art form which involves combining different materials like ribbons, newspaper clippings, photographs etc. to create a new whole. While it was a sporadic practice in antiquity, it became a fundamental part of modern art in the early 20th century, due to the efforts of Braque and Picasso. Assemblage: This is a 3-dimensional variant of the collage with elements jutting in or out of a defined substrate, or an entirely 3-D arrangement of objects and/or sculptures. Found object art: These are objects that are found and used by artists and incorporated into artworks because of their perceived artistic value. It was popularized by the conceptual artist

Marcel Duchamp Henri-Robert-Marcel Duchamp (, , ; 28 July 1887 – 2 October 1968) was a French painter, sculptor, chess player, and writer whose work is associated with Cubism, Dada, and conceptual art. Duchamp is commonly regarded, along with Pablo Picasso ...

Altered book An altered book is a form of mixed media artwork that changes a book from its original form into a different form, altering its appearance and/or meaning. An altered book artist takes a book (old, new, recycled or multiple) and modifies it in any ...

s: This is a specific form where the artist will reuse a book by modifying/altering it physically for use in the work. This can involve physically cutting and pasting pages to change the contents of the book or using the materials of the book as contents for an art piece. Wet and Dry Media: Wet media consists of materials such as paints and inks that use some sort of liquidity in their usage or composition. Dry materials (such as pencils, charcoal, and crayons) are lacking this inherent liquidity. Using wet and dry media in conjunction is considered mixed media for its combination of inherently differing media to create a finalized piece. Expansion is a mixed media sculpture by

Paige Bradley Paige Bradley (born 1974) is an American sculptor known for representative figurative bronzes. She became known for her sculpture technique using mixed media of bronze and illumination. Her work became well known with the public display of her ...

which combined bronze and electricity. The Expansion sculpture is thought to be the first bronze sculpture to be illuminated from within.

Examples of mixed media artwork

''Still Life with Chair Caning'': Picasso's piece depicts what can be seen as a table with a cut lemon, a knife, a napkin and a newspaper among other discernible objects. It is elliptical (with speculation that the work itself could be depicting a

porthole A porthole, sometimes called bull's-eye window or bull's-eye, is a generally circular window used on the hull of ships to admit light and air. Though the term is of maritime origin, it is also used to describe round windows on armored vehicle ...

) and uses a piece of rope to form its edge. Paper and cloth are used for the objects present on the table. ''Angel of Anarchy'':

Eileen Agar Eileen Forrester Agar (1 December 1899 – 17 November 1991) was a British-Argentinian painter and photographer associated with the Surrealist movement. Biography Agar was born in Buenos Aires, to a Scottish father and American mother. Her fat ...

's 1937 sculpture is a modified bust of Joseph Bard, which was covered by paper and fur. When this was lost, she made a 1940 variation which shrouded and blinded the figure with feathers, beads and cloth creating an entirely different perspective on the sculpture.Windsor, Alan. ''British sculptors of the twentieth century''. Routledge, 2017.

References

{{Authority control Visual arts media Contemporary art Painting

History of mixed media

Types of mixed media art

Examples of mixed media artwork

See also

References