Grattage

Grattage (from the French gratter, «to scrape») is a painting technique in which paint is scraped away from the surface of a canvas or paper with a sharp tool, exposing lower layers or the ground beneath. Typically a canvas prepared with a layer of oil paint is laid over a textured object, and the subsequent scraping produces unexpected surface effects. The method was invented by the Surrealist Max Ernst in 1927 as a form of automatism — a means of bypassing the artist's conscious control and giving scope to chance and the unconscious. Max Ernst was its most inventive practitioner, combining grattage with frottage to transfer the relief of wood, leaves, or wire mesh onto the painted surface. Alongside decalcomania and fumage, grattage belongs to the repertoire of experimental methods with which Surrealists expanded the boundaries of traditional painting. It remains a key example of automatist techniques that shaped European modernism and the graphic experiments of the twentieth century.