Mixed media

 ( Visual Arts Media ) 

In visual art, mixed media describes artwork in which more than one Art medium or material has been employed.

Assemblages, collages, and sculpture are three common examples of art using different media. Materials used to create mixed media art include, but are not limited to, paint, cloth, paper, wood and found objects.

Mixed media art is distinguished from Multimedia which combines visual art with non-visual elements, such as recorded sound, literature, drama, dance, motion graphics, music, or interactivity.

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History of mixed media The first modern artwork to be considered mixed media is Pablo Picasso's 1912 collage Still Life with Chair Caning, which used paper, cloth, paint and rope to create a pseudo-3D effect. The influence of movements like Cubism and Dada contributed to the mixed media's growth in popularity throughout the 20th century with artists like Henri Matisse, Joseph Cornell, Jean Dubuffet, and Ellsworth Kelly adopting it. This led to further innovations like Installation art in the late 20th century. Mixed media continues to be a popular form for artists, with different forms like wet media and markings being explored.

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Types of mixed media art Mixed media art can be differentiated into distinct types, some of which are:

Collage

This is an art form which involves combining different materials like ribbons, newspaper clippings, photographs etc. to create a new whole. While it was a sporadic practice in antiquity, it became a fundamental part of modern art in the early 20th century, due to the efforts of Georges Braque and Picasso.

Assemblage

This is a three-dimensional variant of the collage with elements jutting in or out of a defined substrate, or an entirely 3-D arrangement of objects and/or sculptures.

Found object art

These are objects that are found and used by artists and incorporated into artworks because of their perceived artistic value. It was popularized by the conceptual artist Marcel Duchamp.

Altered books involve physically modifying or repurposing a book as part of an artwork, such as by cutting, pasting, or reshaping its pages. This can involve physically cutting and pasting pages to change the contents of the book or using the materials of the book as contents for an art piece.