fumage

English

Fumage by Wolfgang Paalen, 1938, candle smoke on paper—an example of fumage (art technique)

Etymology

From Old French fumage, fumaige, from Latin fumus (“smoke”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈfjuːmɪd͡ʒ/

Noun

fumage (uncountable)

1. (historical) Hearth tax.
   • 1765–1769, William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England, (please specify |book=I to IV), Oxford, Oxfordshire: […] Clarendon Press, →OCLC:

     As early as the conquest mention is made in domesday book of fumage or fuage, vulgarly called smoke farthings; which were paid by custom to the king for every chimney in the house

   • 1888, Stephen Dowell, A History of Taxation and Taxes in England from the Earliest Times to the Year 1885, Volume 1, Longmans, Green and Co, page 10,

     A FUMAGE, or tax of smoke farthings, or hearth tax, a kind of tax usually to be found among the fiscal traditions of communities in remote times, ranges among those of the Anglo-Saxon period. Such a tax is mentioned subsequently in Domesday Book.

2. (art) A surrealist art technique, devised by Wolfgang Paalen, in which impressions are made by the smoke of a candle or kerosene lamp on a piece of paper or canvas.
   • 2013, Whitney Sherman, Playing with Sketches, The Quarto Group (Rockport Publishers), page 32,

     Fumage is not a frequently used drawing technique, but when used it can produce a subtle and mysterious effect. One notable twentieth-century fumage artist was banker Hugh Parker Guiler, spouse of diarist Anaïs Nin.

Usage notes

• (art technique):
  • Salvador Dalí made use of Paalen's technique, and regarded it as a form of sfumato.

Translations

hearth tax

• French: please add this translation if you can
• German: please add this translation if you can
• Italian: please add this translation if you can
• Latin: fumagium n

art technique

• French: fumage (fr) m
• German: please add this translation if you can
• Italian: please add this translation if you can

See also

• sfumato

References

• “fumage”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.

French

Etymology

From fumer +‎ -age.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /fy.maʒ/

• Audio:

  (file)

Noun

fumage m (plural fumages)

1. smoking (of food etc)

Further reading

• “fumage”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.