collage
A technique that incorporates fragments of commercially printed paper into compositions. Introduced into fine art by Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso circa 1909, collage was later developed by artists of the Dada and Surrealist movements to include found objects. Today any material fixed to a surface may be termed collage. http://www.nga.gov/gemini/glossary.htm

assemblage
An art object that uses three-dimensional found objects. An extension of collage, this technique became popular towards the end of the 1950s. http://www.nga.gov/gemini/glossary.htm

            He was not a trained artist because he never attended art school or studied under the guidance of a master artist, and he couldn’t even paint or draw.  In fact, Joseph Cornell, one of America’s most brilliant artists never had an art lesson. What he did was collect interesting objects, study French philosophy, read almost any book he could get his hands on about poetry and travel, and visit art galleries whenever he got a chance. When he picked up a copy of artist Max Ernst’s collage novel one day in the 1920s, all the things he did and all the things that mattered to him, suddenly came together. In the moments that he studied the collages in the book and saw that there was an art form other than painting and drawing, a form which he himself could create, he realized he had found a way to express what was in his soul.

            Cornell immediately began to create collages using eighteenth century engravings. His collages were quickly shown in galleries alongside works by famous artists. But after several years of cutting and gluing, collage gave way to assemblage, and he entered the world of the box.

Boxes were to Cornell, contained universes. He would take a thought or an idea and give it life inside a crude wooden box, a box that could be opened and explored. In much the way that fourth graders create topic webs, Cornell would use found objects to support the ideas. Some of his ideas connected to philosophy, but many connected to the haunting world of his dreams. Joseph Cornell was a man who dreamed of travel, but never traveled. He dreamed of beautiful movie stars, singers, and ballerinas, but never married or even had a girlfriend. He dreamed of forgotten heroes and lost children and even physics. He boxed in each dream and tucked the boxes away. Sometimes he gave the boxes away, and sometimes he sold them. Sometimes he demanded that the boxes be given back.

Who was this strange, untrained artist? When he was young, his family was wealthy, but when his father died, the Cornell family moved to a small house in Queens, New York on Utopia Street. He lived there for the rest of his life with his incredibly bossy and domineering mother. He had a sister who married and left home, and a handicapped younger brother whom he loved and cared for. Although he lived to be 69, he never grew up. He ate only cake and candy, he was extremely shy and would rarely talk to anyone but when he did, he would often talk for hours without stopping. Only as an artist, as a maker of his boxed-in universes did he learn to speak, and the world still looks and listens.

Learn more about collage and assemblage!

Definitions of collage on the Web:

A technique that incorporates fragments of commercially printed paper into compositions. Introduced into fine art by Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso circa 1909, collage was later developed by artists of the Dada and Surrealist movements to include found objects. Today any material fixed to a surface may be termed collage.
www.nga.gov/gemini/glossary.htm

The technique of creating a pictorial composition in two dimensions or very low relief by gluing paper, fabrics, or any natural or manufactured materials to a canvas or panel.
www2.parsons.edu/foundation/glossary/definitions.html

Artwork created by securing pieces of paper, fabric or other materials onto a substrate. Though basically two-dimensional, it may have a sculptural effect.
www.gallerydirectart.com/art-dictionary.html

An image created by gluing materials such as paper scraps, photographs, and cloth to a flat surface.
www.bced.gov.bc.ca/irp/visart810/apf.htm

A technique in which pictorial images or patterns and pieces of colored, textured material are superimposed onto each other.
doityourself.com/wallpaper/decordictionary.htm

A composition produced by pasting together disparate objects such as train tickets, newspaper clippings, or textiles. Compare assemblage, montage.
lms.thomsonelearning.com/hbcp/glossary/glossary.taf

A work made by pasting various scraps or pieces of material--cloth, paper, photographs--onto the surface of the composition.
webpages.marshall.edu/~bruggemann1/glossary1.htm

A film style that assembles footage from widely disparate sources, often juxtaposing staged fictional scenes with newsreel, animation, or other sorts of material. Explored by experimental filmmakers such as Joseph Cornell in the 1930s, it became a major resource for the avant-garde and political filmmaking of the 1960s.
highered.mcgraw-hill.com/sites/0070384290/student_view0/glossary.html

an artistic composition made up of different, combined materials.
www.library.arizona.edu/branches/ccp/education/guides/reframe/glossary.html

More or less two-dimensional objects glued or somehow mounted toa more or less flat surface as elements in a design or picture. Collage also usually implies that space will remain between some of the objects as part of the design. When the objects mostly overlap,the work will usually be called decoupage.
https://web.mcn.org/d/paperpage/glossary.html

Collage from the French word coller (to stick), collage is a work created by gluing material to a surface. By doing so, the artist incorporates actual fragments of the real world. Close
cybermuse.gallery.ca/cybermuse/teachers/plans/gloss_e.jsp

A print with elements adhered to the surface or incorporated by photographic transfer, stamping, inking, or methods. top
www.kqfineart.com/glossary/

A work made by pasting various scraps or pieces of material -- cloth, paper, photographs -- onto the surface of the composition.
www.hearts-ease.org/cgi-bin/termsn.cgi

is a picture made by sticking together pieces of paper, photographs (montage), or other two dimensional objects.
www.mcpss.com/connections/glossary_vocabulary.htm

From the French coller, to glue. A work made by gluing materials such as paper scraps, photographs, and cloth on to a flat surface.
www.gtwvisions.com/infoglos.htm

A group of pictures arranged in montage to form a new picture.
ikjeld.com/info/glossary/glossaryC.html

An artistic composition made of various materials (e.g., paper, cloth, or wood) glued on a surface.
www.brawleyhigh.org/~graphics/glossary.htm

A series of staged "moments" related to the topic of a collective and depicting a range of perspectives on that topic.
www.sasked.gov.sk.ca/curr_content/drama30/mainpages/glossary.html

Genres and Categories of | Structure [Str]
www.mti.dmu.ac.uk/EARS/Data/node429.html

A French term meaning "gluing;" it refers to works of art that are an assembled from cut papers and/or found objects which are arranged in a composition and glued together.
webhost.bridgew.edu/jmadani/101/pages_101/study%20guide%20pages%204/glossary4_101.html

Collaborative (shared whiteboard) software developed by the NCSA.
usit.shef.ac.uk/old/jan96/glossary.htm

fining of wine.
www.sasky.com/saskycom/databases/glossary/glossary2.html

A composition made of cut and pasted scraps of materials, sometimes with lines or forms added by the artist.
ex.susd.org/kmcgregor/glossary.htm

A pictorial technique in which the artist creates the image, or a portion of it by adhering real materials that possess actual textures to the picture-plane surface, often combining them with painted or drawn images.
www.khsd.k12.ca.us/bhs/Perry/art%20vocabulary.htm

An artwork created by assembling and pasting a variety of materials to a two-dimensional surface.
www.onealliance.com/client_access/graphic_glossary.htm

a paste-up made by sticking together pieces of paper or photographs to form an artistic image; "he used his computer to make a collage of pictures superimposed on a map"
www.cogsci.princeton.edu/cgi-bin/webwn

any collection of diverse things; "a collage of memories"
www.cogsci.princeton.edu/cgi-bin/webwn

Definitions of assemblage on the Web:

several things grouped together or considered as a whole
www.cogsci.princeton.edu/cgi-bin/webwn

Forms of modern sculpture and painting utilizing readymades, found objects, and pasted fragments to form an abstract composition. Louise Nevelson's boxlike enclosures, each with its own composition of assembled objects, illustrate the style in sculpture. Pablo Picasso developed the technique of cutting and pasting natural or manufactured materials to a painted or unpainted surface.
www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0106225.html

The making of a sculpture or other three-dimensional art piece from a variety of materials. Compare collage, montage.
lms.thomsonelearning.com/hbcp/glossary/glossary.taf

An art object that uses three-dimensional found objects. An extension of collage, this technique became popular towards the end of the 1950s.
www.nga.gov/gemini/glossary.htm

EXAMPLES OF ASSEMBLAGES

Dale Copeland http://dalecopeland.co.nz/Room1/exhibit1.htm
Richard Fulham http://www.centrart.qc.ca/richardfulham/galerie/indexgalerie.html
Janette Janson http://carolinaartist.com/
William Skrips http://www.wmskrips.com/

Katarina Dak http://www.geocities.com/collagegallery2002/framed.html