grattage

Noun

grattage (countable and uncountable, plural grattages)

1. The scraping away of granulations (from an ulcer etc.) in order to stimulate healing.
   • August 18th.—Operation by "grattage" without ether. The pain experienced by the patient was quite severe.1891 October 24, John E. Weeks, “The surgical treatment of granulated lids”, in New York Medical Journal, volume 54, page 456
   • Among those vaccinated by piqûre (sticking) a very small number only contracted the disease, and in these it was mild, while in those vaccinated by grattage it was, in general, severe.1894, “Progress of Medical Science”, in The American Journal of the Medical Sciences, page 334
2. A technique popularized by Max Ernst involving scraping at dried paint in order to form patterns.
   • Automatism in art can arise quite deliberately from manual techniques (such as frottage, grattage and decalcomania in the visual arts, algorithmic or statistical procedures in musical composition, or random verbal collages in poetry) or accidentally from altered states of consciousness (for...2010, Eran Guter, Aesthetics A-Z, page 25
   • These same forest images appeared when he adapted his frottage technique to the roughly rubbed and scratched painting techniques of grattage.2013, M. E. Warlick, Max Ernst and Alchemy: A Magician in Search of Myth, page 193