Mixed media

Mixed media is a term describing artworks made from a combination of different materials or means of expression within a single image or object. For instance, a drawing might combine graphite pencil, ink, watercolour, and pasted paper elements, while a painting might unite oil paint with collage or everyday objects. The practice of systematically mixing media became a defining feature of twentieth-century art, when the boundaries of traditional techniques began to be deliberately broken down. A turning point was the invention of collage by the Cubists Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque around 1912, when newspaper, wallpaper, and fabric were first glued onto the painted surface. Mixed media developed further in Dada, Surrealism, and the art of assemblage. The term is distinct from «multimedia», which usually implies an electronic or time-based component. Mixed media gave artists an almost limitless freedom of materials and became one of the defining traits of modern and contemporary art.