The Prismatic and Manic Collage Rhythms of Bernice Sokol Kramer
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The psychologically loaded space created by the astute combination of mixed pre- printed imagery is something to which we have become accustomed since the early decades of the twentieth century. Collage, as it was named, became one of the central aesthetic strategies of Cubism. and through them it became enmeshed in the methodology of many generations of artists. The concept of generating meaning independent of a sinuously drawn line or the structures of painting was especially attractive to new artists who did not hold an academically rigorous ability in either discipline. However, it introduced a discipline of its own which, by inserting the visual culture of both photography and the graphic arts helped break down the barriers between fine and commercial art. Collage has achieved a formalist middle ground in situations where a hybrid image was most suitable. It’s been aided in achieving cultural authority by traditional practitioners who imagined a collage inspired vision different in every way from the context specific painting of eras and centuries past. In truth, collage represents a logical next step in a process of aesthetic development that begins with the senses overpowered and esthetically transformed by the depiction of elemental impressions; then came images of the senses overpowered by machinations of velocity inspired by industrial and technological advancement; and then came the world overpowered by an esthetic in which reality itself became irrevocably splintered and in which scenes depicted with a singular medium became products of a multifaceted and kaleidoscopic genre of imagination. The influence of collage carried over into Dada and Surrealism, in which a hybrid image became the norm, and became proof of the primacy of psychological forces not previously corralled by rational justification. Pop art carried the baton forward again a half century later, with artists actively inspired by a hybridized reality.
The Prismatic and Manic Collage Rhythms of Bernice Sokol Kramer
The Prismatic and Manic Collage Rhythms of…
The Prismatic and Manic Collage Rhythms of Bernice Sokol Kramer
The psychologically loaded space created by the astute combination of mixed pre- printed imagery is something to which we have become accustomed since the early decades of the twentieth century. Collage, as it was named, became one of the central aesthetic strategies of Cubism. and through them it became enmeshed in the methodology of many generations of artists. The concept of generating meaning independent of a sinuously drawn line or the structures of painting was especially attractive to new artists who did not hold an academically rigorous ability in either discipline. However, it introduced a discipline of its own which, by inserting the visual culture of both photography and the graphic arts helped break down the barriers between fine and commercial art. Collage has achieved a formalist middle ground in situations where a hybrid image was most suitable. It’s been aided in achieving cultural authority by traditional practitioners who imagined a collage inspired vision different in every way from the context specific painting of eras and centuries past. In truth, collage represents a logical next step in a process of aesthetic development that begins with the senses overpowered and esthetically transformed by the depiction of elemental impressions; then came images of the senses overpowered by machinations of velocity inspired by industrial and technological advancement; and then came the world overpowered by an esthetic in which reality itself became irrevocably splintered and in which scenes depicted with a singular medium became products of a multifaceted and kaleidoscopic genre of imagination. The influence of collage carried over into Dada and Surrealism, in which a hybrid image became the norm, and became proof of the primacy of psychological forces not previously corralled by rational justification. Pop art carried the baton forward again a half century later, with artists actively inspired by a hybridized reality.