Tutorials

The Art forms of Collage and Montage though often interchangeable in their meaning possess subtle differences.

A COLLAGE is traditionally a picture created by cutting and adhering various flat elements such a paper, cloth or photographs to a flat surface, to produce a result that gives the illusion of dimension. That dimension may have all or a combination of the following: Height, Width or Depth. Traditional examples can be viewed below, though you need look no further than handcrafted scrapbook pages.

The art of collage goes back to 1912 when Pablo Picasso (Spanish, 1882-1973) pasted a section of commercially printed oilcloth onto his cubist painting, Still Life with Chair Caning, and French Artist, Georges Brasque (1882-1963) quickly followed suit. It is then no surprise that the word “collage” is derived for the French word coller which means “to paste”, and is interestingly the same verb we use in software programs today.

A MONTAGE, on the other hand, is a composition of many pictures or designs, put together in a way that conveys a particular mood, such as joy, sadness, enchantment, magic, fear, romance etc... Examples of montage artwork can be viewed at the following link:

A montage also happens to be a rapid succession of different images or shots in a movie. The montage technique was developed by D.W. Griffith in about 1912, when each scene of a film was shot from a single view point. Sergei Eisenstein developed the technique further, so that the sequence of images evoked an emotional response in the viewer.

A PHOTOMONTAGE, as you might then expect, is a composition of photographs, though non photography related pictures can also be used in enhancing this art medium. This is the artform practised by Fotoscrapix in that photo-editing software is used to manipulate photos and in doing so, is able to convey mood or emotion in the preservation of memories. Photomontage or FotoArt captures a single moment in time so that it may remembered forever.