The initial idea of making pictures by sticking together bits and pieces of random and miscellaneous bric-a-brac which might take one's fancy and stir the imagination to release hidden associations heighten a written text or illustrate a narrative is simple and as shrouded in the genesis of man's creative urge as his impulse to dance and tell stories.Picture making and building images in three dimensions by associating unlikely material can be found in primitive as well as ancient and sophisticated cultures.
Hans Christian Andersen (1805-75) besides writing fairy tales used paper and scissors to make pictures for his relative's children.In his "Picturebook for Agnes, Mary and Charlotte ", cutouts and sketches were collaged to create pictures of animals, gnomes and diverse sprite like creatures.He is reputed to have made ink-blot pictures by pouring ink onto a piece of paper and carefully folding it.But his most outstanding work in this line is unquestionably the four leaf folding screen he decorated towards the end of his life in 1873-74.He covered it with heterogeneous collection of reproductions and cutouts,whatever took his fancy or reminded him of places and days past withportraits of famous people and his friends incorporated.The spatial realization of the composition is quite remarkable and in this sense it set the pictorial scene for Surrealism with its emphasis on the realization of dreams and fantastic versions.
The History of Collage -Eddie Wolfram
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