Above: Max Ernst "The Fugitive" from Natural History (1925) Lead pencil rubbing on paper
In ancient China, ink rubbing developed as a convenient method of making reproductions. The oldest surviving rubbing is Fountain Memory from the Tang dynasty, found in Cave 17 at Dunhuang, however the origin of ink rubbing is thought to date back to even earlier times. Rubbing, one of the most universal and perhaps the oldest of the techniques used in printmaking. A carefully made rubbing provides an accurate, full-scale facsimile of the surface reproduced. Frottage is a surrealist and ‘automatic’ method of creative production that involves creating a rubbing of a textured surface using a pencil or other drawing material.
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Frottage is a technique that involves rubbing pencil, graphite, chalk, crayon, or another medium onto a sheet of paper that has been placed on top of a textured object or surface. The process causes the raised portions of the surface below to be translated to the sheet. The term is derived from the French frotter, which means “to rub.” Max Ernst created his frottages images by placing paper atop various materials—wood floorboards, lengths of twine, leaves, wire mesh, crumpled paper, crusts of bread—and rubbing the surface with a pencil or crayon. Inspired by the resulting textures, he added details to transform them into fantastical landscapes, objects, and creatures. It is seen as a form of Surrealist automatism, whereby an artist attempts to let the unconscious guide their hand in the creation of an image.
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ARTISTS THAT USE RUBBING
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