Decalcomania

Decalcomanía pictorial technique detail

The decalcomanía (from French: décalcomanie) is a pictorial technique that consists of applying images, for example black gouache, on a paper, which is placed on top of from another sheet on which light pressure is exerted, then they are peeled off before they dry. In its broadest sense, it consists "in moving from paper to various objects made of wood, porcelain, silk, etc., colorful images...".

In 1868, the magazine Harper's Bazaar published an article dedicated to this technique and in which it mentioned that it was already "fashionable in the days of our grandmothers".

At the end of the 19th century the technique for imitating gold leaf for iron artifacts such as iron machines was perfected. sewing, carriages and coachwork, etc., both inside and out.

Origins

Its origins had been attributed to 1756, and to two Liverpool engravers, John Sadler and Guy Green, working for Josiah Wedgwood, but there is evidence that in 1751 an engraver at the Battersea Enamel Factory in London, John Brooks, tried to patent a method to transfer an image from a copper plate to paper and from there to a piece of porcelain. However, the technique developed by Sadler and Green was decisive in lowering the production costs of porcelain and it soon spread through northern Europe and, from there, to the United States.

Another possible "inventor" of the technique was Simon François Ravenet, a French engraver living in England since 1743, who perfected a process that he called "decalquer".

Decals and Art

The "decalcomania" has been one of the most famous techniques of surrealism, and of personal contributions such as his surreal objects, "cosmic landscapes" or "lithochronic surfaces".

It has been used by the surrealist artist Óscar Domínguez, who took up the technique in 1936, he debuts his new technique called "decalcomania without object" or "decalcomanía del deseo", Achieved by applying ink, watercolor or gouache stains on a sheet that is folded in half, thus obtaining fabulous landscapes, of an extraordinary diversity, similar to madrepores, rocks, rivers of lava, concretions washed away by torrential floods these effects arise randomly, spontaneously and from the physical and chemical properties of the material. It was the artist Max Ernst who enriched this technique by applying it to oil with the same procedure, which is why many artists were seduced by this technique to achieve these new effects, such as the artist Hans Bellmer, Remedios Varo, Salvador Dalí, among others.