Editing Decalcomania

{{Short description|Technique for transferring engravings and prints}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=October 2018}}
{{More citations needed|date=March 2013}}
[[File:Dekalkomanie hg.jpg|thumb|''Fire & Ice'' – Example of a painting made with the technique decalcomania]]
'''Decalcomania''' (from {{langx|fr|décalcomanie}}) is a decorative technique by which engravings and prints may be transferred to pottery or other materials. 

A shortened version of the term is used for a mass-produced commodity, art transfer, or product label, known as a "[[decal]]".

Decalcomania is adapted from French {{lang|fr|décalcomanie}}, equivalent to {{lang|fr|décalquer}}, "to transfer a tracing of", plus English ''-mania''. The verb "{{lang|fr|décalquer}}" is based on Italian {{lang|it|calcare}}, "to stomp, trample", ultimately from Latin {{lang|la|calx}}, "heel". Decalcomania was first recorded in English in the early 1860s.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2022-12-04 |title=decalcomania {{!}} Word of the Day {{!}} December 4, 2022 |url=https://www.dictionary.com/e/word-of-the-day/decalcomania-2022-12-04/ |access-date=2023-12-20 |website=Dictionary.com |language=en-US}}</ref>

==History==
[[File:Decalcomania Advertisement by W. Atkinson & Co.png|400px|thumb|Advertisement for the decalcomania process in the 1870 New York City directory]]
Decalcomania was first used commercially in England about 1750 and imported into the United States at least as early as 1865. Its invention has been attributed to [[Simon François Ravenet]] (1706–1774), an engraver from France who later moved to England and perfected the process, which he called "{{lang|fr|décalquer}}" (derived from French {{lang|fr|papier calque}}, "tracing paper").{{Citation needed|date=June 2018}} The first known use of the French term {{lang|fr|décalcomanie}}, in [[Mary Elizabeth Braddon]]'s ''Eleanor's Victory'' (1863), was followed by the English ''decalcomania'' in an 1865 trade show catalog (''The Tenth Exhibition of the [[Massachusetts Charitable Mechanic Association]]''); it was popularized during the ceramic transfer craze of the mid-1870s. By around 1875 decalcomania designs printed in colored glazes were being applied to [[porcelain]], an extension of [[transfer printing]], which had been developed in England since the late 18th century. The decalcomania was applied over an already glazed surface and re-fired. The process began to be mechanized from the turn of the 20th century.

==Artists==
The [[Surrealist art|surrealist]] [[Óscar Domínguez]] referred to his work as "decalcomania with no preconceived object". He took up the technique in 1936, using [[gouache]] spread thinly on a sheet of paper or other surface (glass has been used), which is then pressed onto another surface such as a [[canvas]]. Domínguez used black gouache, though colours later made their appearance.{{Citation needed|date=June 2018}}

German artist [[Max Ernst]] also practiced decalcomania, as did [[Hans Bellmer]] and [[Remedios Varo]].{{Citation needed|date=June 2018}}

French surrealist [[Yves Tanguy]] used the technique in his 1936 works ''Paysage I'' and ''Paysage II'', which were included in the [[Guggenheim Museum]]'s exhibition "Surrealism: Two Private Eyes" (4 June – 12 September 1999, New York).<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.guggenheim.org/publication/surrealism-two-private-eyes |title=Surrealism: Two Private Eyes |date=6 August 1999 |website=Guggenheim  |access-date=12 June 2018}}</ref>

American visual artist Perry Hall has created hundreds of paintings solely through the use of decalcomania and has developed variations on the technique.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Perry Hall Studio |url=https://www.perryhallstudio.com/paintings4 |access-date=2023-12-13 |website=Perry Hall Studio |language=en}}</ref> Hall sees decalcomania as the way in which the material of paint "self organizes" when pressurized, with paint forming into intricate inner-locking networks of ridges and line that bifurcate, splitting and reassembling into complex structures—a kind of physical "fractal" network. The bifurcating systems created with decalcomania in his paintings resemble structures seen in nature: the branching of trees, crystalline structures, networks of capillaries and veins, as well as the forms seen in river deltas and sand dunes.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Studio |first=Balmond |title=Perry Hall's Oceans of Paint {{!}} Balmond Studio |url=http://tip.balmondstudio.com/tip/animate-paint/ |access-date=2023-12-13 |language=en}}</ref>

==Fractals==
The production of decalcomanias has not been confined to art. At [[Yale University]], [[fingerpaint]] decalcomanias have been analysed for their tendency to generate [[fractal]]s when the process is repeated several times on the same paper.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://users.math.yale.edu/public_html/People/frame/Fractals/Panorama/Art/Decalcomania/Decalcomania.html |title=Fractal Geometry Panorama |website=Math, Yale University |access-date=12 June 2018}}</ref>

==See also==
* [[Decal]], a mass-produced derivative of decalcomania
* [[Surrealist techniques]]
* [[Rhizome (philosophy)|Rhizome (philosophical concept of connectedness)]]

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==Further reading==
* "Decalcomania", ''Harper's Bazaar'', 4 April 1868.

==External links==
*[https://ingeniumcanada.org/channel/articles/industrial-transfers-and-art-decalcomania-collection-profile Industrial Transfers and the Art of Decalcomania]

{{Authority control}}

[[Category:Surrealist techniques]]
[[Category:Pottery]]