Square network

Abraham Bosse (around 1604–1676) shows in this etching how an artist draws a portrait with the help of a net frame and a square net.

The square network, grid or grid is a term used in painting for a network of lines running at right angles to one another and intersecting one another on a picture carrier.  

use

The square net served firstly to make the work easier when producing a drawing / signature based on a three-dimensional model and secondly to transfer a draft drawing to another image carrier such as a wall ( wall painting ), wooden panel ( wooden panel painting ) or canvas ( canvas painting ). Depending on the size of the squares on the image carrier, it is possible to transfer the drawing in the same size, reduced or enlarged.

Mention in the literature

This technique, which probably goes back to Fillippo Brunelleschi , was first described by Leon Battista Alberti (1435). He used a fine, transparent gauze into which a grid was worked with thicker dark threads. It was stretched between the artist and the person or landscape to be reproduced. Even Leonardo da Vinci recommends this technique in 1492 "for a correct and good seeing the characters," as well as Albrecht Dürer , who held in a woodcut this technique.  

Manufacturing

When producing a drawing based on a three-dimensional model, the artist needs a net frame, also known as a thread net, thread grid or painter's frame, through which he can view the object and a drawing surface on which he has drawn a square net . In this he transfers the shape that he sees through the square network, square by square.

When transferring a design drawing, the artist draws a square grid on the design drawing and on the new image carrier. If the drawing is to be enlarged during transfer, which is usually the case, the grid on the new image carrier is made larger and then the drawing is transferred square by square. en

proof

The infrared reflectogram (right) shows that the painting was transferred to a primed canvas with the help of a square grid, presumably from a photo or postcard, and that it was enlarged accordingly.

Square nets were found on paintings from the 15th to 20th centuries. In individual paintings, they can be seen with the naked eye due to the increase in transparency of the layer of paint above them over time. As a rule, square nets are detected in a painting examination with the help of infrared examination.

interpretation

The use of square nets for the transfer of form was common in the workshops of the old masters to make work easier. The determination of a square network on a work of art only means that the shape was transferred from a "model". It does not prove that the work of art in which a square net was detected is a copy or a forgery.

literature

• Joseph Meder : The hand drawing, its technique and development. Vienna 1923.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Knut Nicolaus: DuMont's handbook of painting . DuMont Buchverlag, Cologne 2003, ISBN 3-8321-7288-2 .
2. ^ Hermann Kühn et al: Reclam's handbook of artistic techniques . tape 1 . Stuttgart 1984.
3. ↑ Joseph Meder: The hand drawing . Vienna 1923.
4. ↑ Knut Nicolaus: Painting. Explore-Discover-Explore . Klinkhardt & Biermann, Braunschweig 1979, ISBN 978-3-7814-0146-4 .