Frottage

Frottage is an automatic surrealist technique where a textured surface is rubbed with a pencil or other drawing tool to create art.

Frottage is a method where you rub pencil, graphite, chalk, crayon, or other media on paper placed over a textured object or surface. This transfers the texture's raised parts onto the paper.

Max Ernst started using the frottage technique in sketches from 1925 onwards. The word ‘frottage’ comes from the French word for rubbing. Ernst was inspired by an aged hardwood floor with pronounced grain patterns caused by years of cleaning, which resembled strange images to him.