Fumage

Fumage is a surrealist art technique popularized by Wolfgang Paalen in which impressions are made by the smoke of a candle or kerosene lamp on a piece of paper or canvas.

[1] The earliest documented practitioner of the technique was American clockmaker Silas Hoadley whose circa 1810-1820 fumage decorated clock is in the permanent collection of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston.

[2] The technique has been utilized by artists including Bimal Banerjee,[3] Alberto Burri, Burhan Doğançay, Jiri Georg Dokoupil, Hugh Parker Guiler, Yves Klein, Antonio Muñiz, and Otto Piene.

[4] Scholar Mary Flanagan compared the technique to the reading of tea leaves and to the Rorschach test.

[5] José Antonio Pérez Esteban's 2013 doctoral thesis analyzes fumage art, especially "soot paintings" by Jiri Georg Dokoupil.