CONTENTS:
1- RECIPE
2- OVERVIEW
3- RECONSTRUCTION/FIELD NOTES
4- RESEARCH
5- TO DO
6- CALENDAR
7- DRAFT
1-RECIPE(S)
“Molded letter paper”
BnF Ms. Fr. 640, fol. 131r
Transcription (tc_p131r, Fall 2018)
Le{tt}re et papier moule
Escripts de quelque ancre bien gommee ou de quelque couleur
qui aye corps & qui ne se defface point estant mouillee deau
de vye Puys pose ton papier sur la plastre dardille & le
mouille deau de vye Et gecte dune part & daultre
Translation (tl_p131r, Fall 2018)
Letters and molded paper
Write with well gummed ink or with any color which has body & which does not erase once moistened with eau-de-vie. Then, place your paper on a clay slab & moisten it with eau-de-vie and cast on one side & the other.
Write with well gummed <m>ink</m> or with any color which has body & which does not erase once moistened with <fr>eau-de-vie</fr>. Then, place your <m>paper</m> on a <tl><m>clay</m> slab</tl> & moisten it with <fr>eau-de-vie</fr> and cast on one side & the other.</ab>
Transcription (tc_p142v, Fall 2018)
Si tu as a mouler un papier escript qui soict trop tanvre apres que tu as faict le premier gect & quil ha faict prise donne un peu despesseur au revers de ton papier avecq du
beurre fondu qui est le plus propre moyen qui soict & pour fortifier les aisles ou dun papillon ou dune saulterelle ou quelque delicate partye danimal a quoy tu as besoing
de donner espesseur Mays advise dapliquer ce beurre fondu dessoubs laisle ou en tel lieu quil ne soict poinct voeu Pour donner espesseur a une pensee Ou aultres fleurs
le boeurre nest pas bon Ains lhuile de froment qui est bien tost sec & tient ferme La cire ny seroit pas propre Car elle est trop chaulde estant fondue & faict retirer
la chose a quoy elle est apliquee Mays le boeurre est amiable et maniant
Si tu escripts sur papier ou carton commun & que ta l{ett}re soict a gomme
Lhumidite de la plaste dardille ou le sable destrempe pour noyau humectero{n}t
ta l{ett}re la defferont escripts doncq de cinabre destrempe a huile sur du
papier huile & imprime
Translation (tl_p142v, Fall 2018)
If you have a written paper to mold, which is too thin, after you have made the first cast & it has set, give a little thickness to the reverse of your paper with melted butter, which is the most appropriate means there is, & for fortifying the wings of either a butterfly or a grasshopper, or some delicate part of an animal to which you need to give thickness. But take heed to apply this melted butter underneath the wing or in whichever place it cannot be seen. For giving thickness to a pansy or other flowers, butter is not good, but rather wheat oil, which is soon dry & holds firm. Wax would not be appropriate here for it is too hot once melted, & it makes the thing to which it is applied contract. But butter is amiable and handleable.
If you write on paper or on common carton & that your letter is with gum, the humidity of the clay slab or the wet sand for noyau will moisten your letter {&} undo it. Therefore write with cinnabar wettened with oil, on oiled paper &impress.
2-OVERVIEW:
Focus:Reconstruct Molded Letter and Paper (fol. 131r). Refer to 2 previous annotations (Carlson/Katz,2014, Fu and Zhang, 2015) on the subject.
1-Try to expand on the following aspects of the reconstruction:
-The tools used
-The consistency, strength and viscosity of the ink “bien gommee”:
a-by adding ingredients to the iron gall ink based on the ink recipes of the period
b-by experimenting gum (gum arabic, gum tragacanth) ratio to increase both fluidity and thickness of the ink
-The casting in tin and lead, previously done by Fu and Zhang with poor results
-The meaning of casting both sides
2-Try to ask questions and explore from the point of view of historical research:
a-the purpose and uses of such recipe in the period
b-handwriting and signatures as extension of the hand, the body and the identity of artist/artisan
c-the idea of capturing a gesture as opposed to a living thing outside of the body. capturing the self in the act of making/creating, a gesture that is extension of the body. Turning fluid into static
d-its relation to casting things too thin, and casting things from life-dead things.
3-RECONSTRUCTION:
Reconstruct the recipe using 131r and referencing both Jordan/Katz and Fu/Zhang annotations.
Cast the outcome using
a-materials:
-gum tragacanth
-gum arabic
-iron gall ink
-cotton/hemp paper
-clay
-brandy
b-outline of reconstruction:
1-I will prep the paper by oiling it with wheat germ oil
2-I will boil the iron gall ink and add glass-powder, powdered charcoal, oak gall and dried fish dust to strengthen the ink
3-I will mix the ink with gum tragacanth and also with gum arabic to achieve “well-gummed” ink
4-I will try using a quill, and a variety of brushes shooting for the thickest yet fluid viscosity I can achieve.
5-I will spell out “BODY” on the paper.
5-I will let it dry overnight
6-I will prepare a slab of clay to press onto.
7-I will press the writing onto the plasticine
In the lab: Casting Using Tin/Lead Alloy
1-I will melt one part tin/one part led in the pot under fume hood.
2-I will pour it onto the clay mold.
MANUSCRIPT RESEARCH of MATERIALS:
Paper: I am provided with historic paper from the lab.
Ink: The recipe doesn’t specify ink. Jordan/Katz used iron gall ink. The manuscript has one mention of oil-based ink recipe, mentioning it peripherally.
Cutters of printing plates_51r
To clean the copper plates, or to have worn ones print better, boil them for four or five good hours in a good lye with lye which is quite spent. Then make your ink with some linseed oil & not with walnut oil & press with the rollers. The copper plates are sooner made than wood blocks, but they are not so appropriate for printing promptly. The wood ones are laborious but also will sooner have printed twenty sheets than the other will have done two. To carve in wood, the secret is firstly to poach, that is to say to lay the counterproof or drawn piece onto the wood block & to make sure that the side with the traced line is stuck to the wood. Once dry, you then gently rub with a moist handkerchief the back of the paper which, by rubbing, will become so delicate that almost only the line will remain, which, next, one follows in cutting the surface. You could do this with historiated glass & coat with noir d’escaille, to then scrape & layer your colors on the uncovered area. To make ink for copper plates
Continued...
These rollers are good for printing promptly with cut cartons different kinds of pastes.
One can place the plates among the linens when the lye is quite fine, or also in a pot.
Elsewhere_Medieval Ink Recipes:
Iron gall ink: The black ink that was used in medieval Europe is called iron-gall ink. There are hundreds of recipes for making iron-gall ink, but they have a few things in common. These things are gallnuts, iron vitriol (a. k. a. copperas), and gum arabic. Many recipes also use rainwater and wine.
RECIPE FOR IRON GALL INK
Preparation time: Approximately three days.
1. Take a jar and fill it with eight pounds of rainwater.
2. Add half a pound of small gallnuts and crush them.
3. Put the jar on the fire and boil until the water with the gallnuts is reduced by half.
4. Take three ounces of gum arabic and grind it.
5. Add the gum to the mixture.
6. Boil until reduced by half again and remove the jar from the fire.
7. In a separate jar, take four ounces of vitriol and one pound of warm wine and mix them.
8. Add the mixture little by little to the ink while stirring.
9. Leave to rest for two days.
10. After the two days, stir the ink everyday four times with a stick.
There were two completely different types of ink. The first is carbon ink, made of charcoal or lamp-black mixed with a gum. The second is metal-gall ink, usually iron gall, made by mixing a solution of tannic acids with ferrous sulphate (copperas); it too requires added gum, but as a thickener rather than as an adhesive.
Gummed-ink:
CUTTIING QUILL PENS
4-RESEARCH
Historical question
I’m interested in the crossover between printmaking and sculpture in casting letters in form of casting handwriting. To what end one would wish to cast handwriting? The earlier annotations conclude that this was possibly a whimsical idea to try out. It is not clear it is for purposes relating to text and printed material such as signing, using embossed lettering in a manuscript or even using for relief printing or for physical application to three dimensional surfaces.:
-embossed lettering in texts, seals, signum manus
-writing as sculpture or relief element in 3 dimensional forms.
Recipe genealogy
-Plat
-Palissy
-Mayerne
-Cennini
Historical research
-handwriting
-signatures in medieval europe
-seals
-signum manus
-how is handwriting affected or altered by the advance of printmaking
-what were things cast in? what was writing cast in?
-how were the metal letters were cast for printmaking
Comparison to other Ms. Fr. 640 recipes and to other prior or contemporaneous sources
Historical background
-books of secrets
-books of art methods
-books on casting
Object research
Evidence of techniques/materials described in museum objects
Examples of intended outcomes of recipes
What is the date and place of these objects? (Try to locate objects that are regionally and temporally relevant--late sixteenth-century France)
General research topics:
-Printmaking
-Handwriting
-Life-casting
-signatures in medieval europe
-seals
-signum manus
-how is handwriting affected or altered by the advance of printmaking
-what were things cast in? what was writing cast in?
Working Bibliography:
*Petrucci, A. 1995 Writers and Readers in Medieval Italy New Haven and London: Yale University Press (Ed. and trans. C.M. Radding) ?
*Palissy Jstor pdf
*Making and Growing
Hallam, Elizabeth AMAzon
*The Body of the Artisan: Art and Experience in the Scientific Revolution
Smith, Pamela H. AMAZon
*The Craftsman's Handbook: "Il Libro dell' Arte" AMAzon
Cennino d'Andrea Cennini
*Jewell House of Art, Hugh Plat PDF
*Nature and Art, Making and Knowing:
Reconstructing Sixteenth-Century
Life-Casting Techniques*
by PAMELA H. SMITH AND TONNY BEENTJES PDF
*Books of Secrets in Medieval and Early Modern Science By William Eamon JSTOR PDF
*In the Workshop of History: Making, Writing, and Meaning Pamela H. Smith Jstor pdf
5-CALENDAR:
Wednesday Nov 28
-Get materials from the lab
-Meet with Andy
-Order the others
Friday Nov 29
-Draft annotation
-Email JJ Peet about firing the mold
-Contact Pauline
Sunday Dec 2
-Attempt reconstruction of Raising letters and making an impression
Monday December 3
-Read annotation in class
-Andy
-Build the sprue system
Friday December 14
-Second draft of annotation due
Friday December 21
-Final annotation due
6-TO DO
-Search other recipes inside manuscript relating:
Ink, letters/writing, molds, gum, cast_tin/lead
-Search other recipe books for recipes relating:
Ink, letters/writing, molds, gum, cast_tin/lead
-Add to the bibliography
-Go through bibliography
-Source materials
7-DRAFT:
“Molded letter paper”
BnF Ms. Fr. 640, fol. 131r
Transcription (tc_p131r, Fall 2018)
<head>Le<exp>tt</exp>re et <m>papier</m> moule</head>
<ab>Escripts de quelque <m>ancre</m> bien gommee ou de quelque couleur<lb/>
qui aye corps & qui ne se defface point estant mouillee d<m>eau<lb/>
de vye</m> Puys pose ton <m>papier</m> sur la <tl>plastre <m>dardille</m></tl> & le<lb/>
mouille d<m>eau de vye</m> Et gecte dune part & daultre</ab>
Translation (tl_p131r, Fall 2018)
<head>Letters and molded <m>paper</m></head> <ab>Write with well gummed <m>ink</m> or with any color which has body & which does not erase once moistened with <fr>eau-de-vie</fr>. Then, place your <m>paper</m> on a <tl><m>clay</m> slab</tl> & moisten it with <fr>eau-de-vie</fr> and cast on one side & the other.</ab>
PARTS:
-Introduction
-Inquiry
-Information
-Reconstruction
-Conclusion
Introduction: 1000w
In a few lines that read almost like a sketch, the “Molded letter paper” recipe on fol.131r of BnF Ms. Fr. 640 brings together two categories of major interest of the book (casting and printmaking) in one bold, vague stroke. The author-practitioner describes an idea of making molds out of handwriting to be casted. It is however not clear what is cast with or for.
Making 3 dimensional letters in some way constitutes an interesting intersection between printmaking and sculpture. A large portion of the manuscript is dedicated to mold-making and casting, a good portion of that is on casting living things, small and thin things but this recipe stands out as a unique one casting a gesture, action performed by the artist, and in this case the author-practinner.
In the two earlier annotations, very little is found on the background of this recipe
INQUIRY 1500w
This annotation concerns itself the motivation for such act and the potential uses of raised hand-writing in the context of early modern europe. It constitutes of reading the recipe, reconstruction the recipe searching similar recipes from the time. It also includes Looking at objects and prints that feature this use or similar techniques. It concludes with further speculations of its use and meaning at the time and some contemporary variations based on current material and technology.
-The elements
To do so, it is helpful to break down this short recipe into its thematic and material components. On one hand, the task implies transforming a gestural free form writing as opposed to casting individual letters.
Arrival of printmaking
Handwriting vs prints
The process of casting letters for printpress
Casting live things
Ephemerality, memento mori, individual signatures
-The questions
RECONSTRUCTION 2000w
CONCLUSION 500w