Decalcomania

Decalcomania is an image-transfer technique in which liquid paint is applied to a surface, another surface such as paper, glass, or canvas is pressed against it, and the two are then pulled apart. The stretching and lifting of the paint produces unexpected, mirror-like branching, spongy, or lacy structures that suggest rocks, forests, coral, or clouds. Decalcomania began as a commercial method of transferring patterns onto ceramics in the nineteenth century, but around 1936 the Surrealist Oscar Dominguez developed it as an artistic device, and Max Ernst later used it extensively, embedding chance textures into fantastic landscapes. For the Surrealists decalcomania was another method of automatism, a way to invite chance and the unconscious and to free the image from the artist's conscious control. The resulting textures often became a starting point for painted-over scenes in which an abstract blot was transformed into a recognizable yet unsettling world.