Definition:
(noun) - Photocollage may be the original idea of Facebook (literally). This particular kind of collage combines cut-and-pasted photographs integrated into hand painted or drawn imagery. The photographs and depictions relate to one another in order to convey some commentary about the people or pets captured in photographs.
During the nineteenth century, when visiting cards (carte de visite) were especially plentiful and popular among the middle and upper classes, young ladies often created photocollages in albums, like today's scrapbooking.
They incorporated the heads of the sitters into imaginary landscapes, interiors, or activities (such as the circus). This amateur hobby anticipates Surrealism and the opening credits of Monty Python's Flying Circus. But, it does not comment on art itself, which was the point of Picasso and Braque's collages and papiers collés or Hannah Höch's photomontage.
The Victorian photocollagers were usually upper-class women who amused themselves with these private, and often irreverant commentaries about friends and family. Just imagine Sally and Mary Highbrow painting a toupee on a photograph of bald Uncle Harold and then rolling in laughter as they place his corpulant body on a tiny throne.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art organized 48 excellent examples in the exhibition Playing with Pictures: The Art of Victorian Photocollage, on view from February 2 through May 9, 2010. Here we see albums and loose pages from the 1860s and 1870s that capture imaginary family frolics with accomplished wit and skill. Among many impressive names, we discover that Queen Elizabeth II loaned an album created by Alexandra, Princess of Wales, in 1866-69.
Pronunciation:
foe·toe·co·laje