Cliché Verre - Arcy Art Original Oil Paintings Art Dictionary

In this process a piece of transparent material is painted with an opaque paint. Images are drawn on this opaque paint to expose its transparency. When the piece of material is placed on a piece of photographic paper and both are exposed to an even light, the marks in the material allow light to pass through to the paper which then turns black or grey depending on the time for which the paper is exposed to light.

The blackness or greyness is made by immersing the paper in developing chemicals, and the whites of the paper are preserved by fixing and stopping chemicals. Subtle effects can be achieved by varying the degrees of the opacity of the paint on the transparent material; by using various transparent materials; by varying the marks in the paint and by differing the times of exposure of the paper.

The Cliché Verre repertoire is further extended by the possibility of sticking opaque objects to the transparent material and of incorporating photographic negatives into the image. Cliché Verre is normally produced in black and white as colour developing and fixing require fine temperature controls beyond the average photographic studio's resources. However, as the process does not require expensive equipment it can easily be produced in the average artist's studio.