BRUSH AS BODILY EXTENSION -- MEANING OF "PINCEAU"?

LOOK INTO SQUIRRELS IN FRANCE--WHAT TYPES?

I. Tentative Plan
II. Source Recipes
a) BNF 066v - 67v
b) Cennini 40-42
C) Cipriano Piccolpasso, I tre libri dell’arte del vasaio, manuscript, Castel Durante 1556-9, cited in Jo Wheeler's Renaissance Secrets
III. Notes on Project


So far, our group has found three major recipes from which we will be working, along with a variety of secondary sources (see attached notes). In general, the secondary sources instruct the reader how to choose a brush, what sort of brushes are used for different painting applications, or instruct the reader in how a brush is made so that the reader may appear knowledgeable when speaking about painting.

I. Tentative Plan

We have acquired a grey squirrel tail, and goose quills. We will boil the quill stems until they are supple and expanded. We will remove the ends of the squirrel hairs from the tail and arrange them into a brush, in the center of which we will place whiskers acquired from a cat (as mouse whiskers are not currently available). The hairs should be rolled with a card and arranged until the the desired shape is acquired. We will bind the hair using silk thread, as described by the manuscripts, and then force the hairs into the boiled quills. Once this is done, the quill will be placed to dry and contract around the hairs of the brush, after which we will fasten the quill ends to a wooden brush handle.

II. Recipes

(a)
<id>p066v_4</id>
<head>Brushes</head>

<ab>In order to make them good, cut the <m>hair</m> from the tail of a <al>squirrel[d]</al>, as as much in one take as could be held in a card rolled like a hollow straw[e]. And putting them thus in the aforesaid folded card, tap it and ruffle it so that the <m>hair</m> gathers together and becomes the same length. Put in the middle one or two <m><al>rat</al> whiskers</m>, then grab and hold it tightly between your thumb and index finger, and dip all the tips of <m>hair</m> deeply in <m>water</m>, then, when you approach
<id>p066v_4</id>[a]

daylight, pull out with the tip of your fingernails the <m>hairs</m> which make the point too long, until the point seems good to you, and when you notice the <al>rat</al> <m>hairs</m> that are entirely black and the <m>hairs</m> of the same <al>squirrel</al> that are whitish from their root to their middle. When it pleases you, tie and hold it tight with a thread in two places, then cut that <sup>the <m>hairs</m></sup> which is superfluous and fit it to a quill whose size is appropriate, of a <al>duck</al> or a <al>crow</al> for the small ones. The good brushes are those that, having been dipped into <m>water</m>, do not collapse if you try to trace it on your hand.</ab>

b) (See Cennini 40-- thought to not be a first hand description)

C) Piccolpasso
“In this profession two sorts of brushes are needed: Miniver [Siberian Squirrel] brushes and hog-bristle brushes. The miniver ones are made like this. Take raw miniver tails (for only these will do) that should be cooked […] Pull out the tip for these are the long hairs and combine the tips of several tails. Out of six or eight tips you will get a soft brush for gilding on panel, that is for wetting down […] Next take the straightest and firmest hairs from the middle of the tail and little by little form into little bunches; moisten them in a glass of clear water; and press and squeeze each bunch between your fingers. Trim with scissors […] make up the size you want your brushes: some to fit into a vulture’s quill; some to fit a goose quill; others into a hen’s or a dove’s quill. [,,,] Take thread or waxed silk and with two knots […] tie each type up well, according to the size you want the brushes. Next insert these tied up hairs into the barrel of your quill. Then take a little stick of maple or chestnut (or other good wood), clean it up and form into the shape of a spindle and so it fits snugly into the quill. It should be a span in length. And there you have how a miniver brush ought to be made.”

III. Notes


Medieval and Renaissance Treatises on the Arts of Painting (Original Texts with English Translations), Mary P Merrifield

Brussels Manuscript Entitled “Recueuil des Essaies Des Merveilles de la Peinture” by Pierre LeBrun, Painter, 1635

- MS appears to have been intended for publication, as it contains many drawings
- Pierre LeBrun was contemporary with Caracci, Rubens, Dubry the Fleming, Vouet—“the scattered notices he has given relative to painting in oil must be considered as indications of the practice of this art in France, or rather at Paris, during the middle of the 17th c.” Author was living in paris when MS was written.
- “the object of the author in writing the treatise seems to have been to give amateurs such a knowledge of the mechanical parts of the art, and of technical terms, as would enable them to speak on the subject of painting with propriety, and without incurring ridicule” (emph added) (759)
- instructions for yellow ground in Chap 1

MS Preface to the reader:

- (766) “The greatest deceiver in the world is the greatest painter of the universe and the most excellent workman [DC: note the dual identity] for, to tell the truth, eminence in this art consists in a deception, innocent, and full of enthusiasm and divine spirit. Poets have their inspirations in the head, which is the seat of the poetic nerve; painters in the tips of the fingers, and in the flowing point of the pencil [DC: note contiguity of body and object].
- Pencil seems to be the historical term for brush—I will have to redo search
- (770) “The pencils are made of a soft kind of hair, but which has sufficient resistance to keep itself straight, and to make a firm point for painting; the hairs of bear are very good, so are those of martens and similar animals. Small brushes made of hogs’ or pigs’ bristles are also used, and pencils of fishes’ hair (seals fur) for softening.”
- The pinceliere is a vase in which the pencils are cleaned with oil, and of the mixture of oil and dirty colors is made a grey color, useful for certain purposes, such as to lay on the first coats, or to prime the canvas. The pincelier is a vase containing oil, in which the pencils are placed that they may not dry.”
- “The painters palette is the mother of all colors; for, from the mixture of 3 or 4 principle colors, his pencil will create, and, as it were, cause to flourish all kinds of colors.” {DC note agency of object, the pencil]
- (788) [On fresco painting] “The pencils are made with tolerably coarse hogs’ bristles.
- (Pencil may just be merrifield’s term, according to eds)

Look up Theophilus

The Grove Encyclopedia of Materials and Techniques in Art, Gerald W. R. Ward, oxford 2008

Entry on brushes (72)
- In ancient Egypt, macerated reed fibres were employed.
- Minver probably means ermine, the winter fur of the stoat
- Squirrel TAIL, ox ear, badger (back). Hair should be straight, resilient, finely tapered.
- -squirrel is softer, less resilient, and has a shape that offers less control; ox ear hair is coarser and largely used for flat brushes
- Brush manufacture: “Hair must be sterilized and then dressed; taking sable as an example, the end of the tail is broken off and discarded, the hair is cut from the tailbone with scissors, the short soft hair is combed out from the guard hairs and disgarded and the guard hairs are dragged so that the hair is grouped according to length. Blunt or reversed hairs are then removed as the hair in any group must remain with root at one end and tip at the other, any mixed group is sorted by means of a turning stick, a skillful operation that is dependent on the taper of the hair (turning stick?). Small or medium sized brushes incorporate a single, uniform length of hair, while large sables have several lengths blended together.
- A quantity of hair is selected, tried for size through the appropriate ferrule, withdrawn, knocked down in a small metal cylinder called a cannon so that the ends are level and then tied and knotted loosely with a thread. The hair is then domed for a pointed brush by rotating and shaping it with the fingers, the knot is tightened, the thread cut, and the hair is placed in the ferrule, drawn through and measured for length. The knot and back of the brush are glued into the ferrule, which is then fittend and crimped onto a wooden handle. (how can we do this with the quill?)
- The older quill mounts, of duck, goose and swan, were boiled to make them pliable while constructing the brush. ON drying they contracted to hold the hair tightly and were tied with silk threads, the colours of which denoted different brush sizes.
- Cennini (1370-1440) gives only cursory description of brush making, “does not appear to reflect any first hand knowledge of the technique” (73). By the 17th c, artists spoke of choosing, rather than making brushes for themselves. These would generally have been mounted in quills, with wood or bone handles. By 1655, tin ferrule is used for hog brush.
- Egg tempera- soft hair brush, with fine point
- The recommended purposes of individual types of brushes are usually explained in colourmen’s catalogs [LOOK THESE UP]
- Stout “The grip of the artist’s brush” technical studies in the field of fines arts, x (1941) pp 3-17 “Representations of early European artists show them with the brush at right angles to the fingers
- Further reading: L Sickman, “some chinese brushes” technical studies in the field of fine arts, viii (1939) pp 61-4
- PJ Garrard: “The making of a brush”, the artist, xci/ 7 july 1976) pp 29-31
- RD Harley: Artist’s brushes—historical evidence from the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries”, conservation and restoration of pictoral art, ed N Brommelle and P smith (London 1976) pp 123-9
- J turner: Brushes: a handbook for artists and artisans (1992)

Same book, entry on pencil (482)
- Originally the name of a small brush, the term was subsequently transferred to a wooden-cased graphite strip, presumably bc of its analogous function.
-The term “pencil” derives from the use of a feather quill to mounth the hair of the original brush and therefore has the same origin as pen.


Jo Wheeler, Renaissance Secrets
Miniver Brushes
“In this profession two sorts of brushes are needed: Miniver [Siberian Squirrel] brushes and hog-bristle brushes. The miniver ones are made like this. Take raw miniver tails (for only these will do) that should be cooked […] Pull out the tip for these are the long hairs and combine the tips of several tails. Out of six or eight tips you will get a soft brush for gilding on panel, that is for wetting down […] Next take the straightest and firmest hairs from the middle of the tail and little by little form into little bunches; moisten them in a glass of clear water; and press and squeeze each bunch between your fingers. Trim with scissors […] make up the size you want your brushes: some to fit into a vulture’s quill; some to fit a goose quill; others into a hen’s or a dove’s quill. [,,,] Take thread or waxed silk and with two knots […] tie each type up well, according to the size you want the brushes. Next insert these tied up hairs into the barrel of your quill. Then take a little stick of maple or chestnut (or other good wood), clean it up and form into the shape of a spindle and so it fits snugly into the quill. It should be a span in length. And there you have how a miniver brush ought to be made.”
n from Cipriano Piccolpasso, I tre libri dell’arte del vasaio, manuscript, Castel Durante 1556-9
n SEE PICTURES (in evernote)

51) “In fifteenth-century Florence, most painters did not make these brushes; instead, they bought them ready made from apothecaries or specialist makers. Artists such as Lorenzo Lotto and Titian in sixteenth-c Venice purchased such brushes from the city’s famed color sellers. Accordingly Giovan Battista Armenini’s 1587 manual De vera precetti della pittura (On the True Precepts of the Art of Painting) refrained from describing how to make miniver brushes because “they are sold everywhere in shops and by apothecaries; among the best are those which come from Venice.” Some artists did make their own stiffer brushes of hog-bristle for fresco and other wall painting, since they were around twice the price of small fine-pointed miniver ones.

Armenini recommended miniver brushes for secco and oil painting. They were favoured by miniature painters, manuscript illuminators, and for applying gold leaf. Sixteenth century Mughal and Persian sources show that miniature painters there similarly used soft brushes made from squirrel or kitten hair, carefully graded and fastened into bird quills. As in Europe, these quills were trimmed and attached to handles of the artist’s choice.

In contrast, Piccolpasso states that the brushes used by maiolica painters were made from either goat’s hair or from the mane of an ass. For fine work these hairs were mixed with rat or mouse whiskers. The hairs were tied and then lashed directly onto sticks or wooden handles with the thread of waxed yarn.”

[DB: notes to self/group: cf contemporary images that depict artists at work, eg. St Luke]