# Merz (メルツ)

> A one-man movement flying a word clipped from a bank advertisement as its banner, building compositions solely from refuse—tickets, wrapping paper, torn type. Its attitude of treating rubbish as building material, and its abstract placement of typographic fragments, decisively shaped the vocabulary of collage and magazine design.

- IndexStyle No.477 — https://indexstyle.org/styles/merz
- Kind: Style · Family: Avant-garde · Era: 1919–1948
- Mood: Technology, Nostalgia, Rebellion
- Color cues: #e9e6dd / #67635d / #171615 (cues taken from reference works, not a fixed palette)

## Defining characteristics

- Pasted refuse such as tickets and wrappers
- Fragments of torn type and numerals
- Diagonal axes of construction
- The colour of aged paper

## Best used for

- Collage-driven editorial and zine layouts built from printed ephemera
- Craft-minded branding that composes real tickets, stamps and offcuts

## Research method

This entry records a historical style; derive the treatment from its sources rather than a fixed recipe:

- Salvaged letterpress fragments—mismatched sizes, partial words, stray numerals
- Tilted constructive axes locking scraps into an abstract armature
- Aged tickets, wrappers, stamps and torn print, glued with visible edges

## What to avoid

Avoid arranging the scraps as nostalgic decoration—Merz is construction with rubbish, so every fragment must serve the composition's axes, not evoke the past.

## Application checklist

Before calling a piece an application of this style, check it against the defining characteristics:

- [ ] Pasted refuse such as tickets and wrappers
- [ ] Fragments of torn type and numerals
- [ ] Diagonal axes of construction
- [ ] The colour of aged paper
- [ ] At least one reference work below has been studied directly
- [ ] The caution above ("What to avoid") has been addressed

## Related styles

- **Dada (ダダ)** — Deliberately dislocates meaning and order, making authority itself the material of the joke. → https://indexstyle.org/styles/dada
- **The New Typography (ニュー・タイポグラフィ)** — Turned printed matter into rational information structure through asymmetry, sans-serifs, photography and functional hierarchy. → https://indexstyle.org/styles/new-typography

## Further study

- The page layouts of the magazine Merz
- The space of the Merzbau
- The collaborations with Constructivism

## Reference works

- Kurt Schwitters《Merz 50》— Wikimedia Commons / Public domain — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kurt%20Schwitters%20-%20%22Merz%2050%22%20Composition%20-%20Google%20Art%20Project.jpg
- Kurt Schwitters『Merz 3』1923 — Wikimedia Commons / Public domain — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kurt%20Schwitters%20Merz%203.jpg
- Kurt Schwitters『Merz 3』図版2, 1923, リトグラフ — Wikimedia Commons / Public domain — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Plate%202%20from%20Merz%203%20by%20Kurt%20Schwitters%2C%201923%2C%20lithograph%2C%20Metropolitan%20Museum%20of%20Art.jpg

## Source of record

- Tate — Art Terms: Merz — https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/m/merz

## Machine surfaces

- JSON: https://indexstyle.org/api/styles/merz
- Image-generation prompt (legally clean): https://indexstyle.org/styles/merz/prompt.txt
- MCP: https://indexstyle.org/mcp (tools: search_styles, get_style, compose_styles; prompts: image-prompt, apply-style)

## 日本語

銀行の広告文の断片から採られた一語を旗印に、切符・包み紙・破れた活字といった廃品だけで構成をつくる個人の運動。ゴミを構成材として扱う態度と、活字断片の抽象的な配置は、コラージュと雑誌デザインの語彙を決定づけた。

特徴: 切符・包紙など廃品の貼付／破れた活字と数字の断片／斜行する構成軸／経年した紙の色
注意: 表面的な記号へ還元せず、時代・地域・技術・制作主体の文脈を確認する。