10 things to know about XXL PAPER

Paper is such a fragile material. It can easily become torn, creased or discoloured. That’s why it’s so special when a sheet of paper has remained intact for a long time – centuries, even. That’s especially true of large paper objects of course.

As well as being more likely to get damaged, large paper works are difficult to store properly. And if an object is made up of multiple sheets, there’s also the chance of parts of it getting lost. Fortunately, some have stood the test of time.

Technical restraints meant for a long time there was a limit to how long a sheet of paper could be. But there were always artists who created on a grand scale, making compositions using multiple woodblocks or copper plates on paper panels that were joined together – some measured more than seven metres long!

There are many reasons for choosing paper as your medium. As well as being relatively cheap, it’s lightweight and versatile. These last two qualities meant it was easy to arrange and hang up this altarpiece comprising nine different engravings.

This broad scene is reminiscent of a sculpted antique marble frieze, and it was used in a similar way to a frieze: to decorate the upper wall of a room or the facade of a building.

This scroll was never intended to be completely unrolled. Each of the 12 scenes set in a Chinese garden – showing boys at play, playing music and making calligraphy – were meant to be revealed one-by-one. The viewer was in this way able to control the tempo to suit them.

Paper was also used as a working material. When making a stained-glass window, the glass painter needed an actual-size design drawing, known as a cartoon. The original stained-glass window is still in place at the Utrecht Cathedral.

This 23-metre landscape is just a small section of the original work. It comes from a moving panorama that was 1.5 kilometres long! The entire scene would be slowly rolled out in front of a live audience. This type of entertainment was a precursor to cinema.

Technical progress led to the production of ever-larger sizes of paper sheets, and this coincided with innovations in printing methods, printing presses, cameras and printers. This photograph rolled off the largest printer the photographer had at her disposal.

Artists worked with ever greater freedom on these increasingly large, seemingly boundless paper surfaces. The resulting works invite the viewer to become part of the image – you could almost step into this landscape.