Silver pen

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Silver pen

The silver pen is a drawing pen with a silver tip that was used in a similar way to the pencil later on . The heyday of silver pen drawing was in the 15th century . The silver pen is still used by artists occasionally, but in most cases it has been replaced by the pencil. A silver pencil is unbreakable and hardly needs to be sharpened. In contrast to pencils, however, it can only be used on primed paper, parchment and primers for drawings or for signing .

Burg Weinsberg 1515, drawn in silver pen by Hans Baldung Grien .
The Aachen City Hall in 1520, drawing by Albrecht Dürer
Profile of a warrior, around 1475, drawing by Leonardo da Vinci

history

The silver pencil was already known among the metal pencils in Roman antiquity and was a widespread drawing medium throughout the Middle Ages. Cennino Cennini mentioned the silver pen in his treatise around 1400. With the end of the Gothic period and the beginning of the early Renaissance, the pen developed into the actual means of autonomous drawing, that is, the drawing itself became a work of art and was no longer an aid and preliminary stage to the actual work. The technology reached its peak in the second half of the 15th century. Jan van Eyck , Leonardo da Vinci , Hans Holbein , Albrecht Dürer , Hans Baldung and others used the silver pen frequently. After 1500 only a few works using this technique appear. In the 19th century, the pen was rediscovered during the Romantic era , primarily for sculptures. In the 20th century, Joseph Meder, with the little book from the Silbersteft in 1909 , encouraged artists to deal with the silver pen again. Examples are Otto Dix and Franz Lenk .

Old silver pens usually consist of a solid metal pen made of copper or bronze, onto which a short round silver tip is soldered. They are often richly decorated and have an eyelet at the end to attach a string so that the valuable pen is not easily lost.

Procedure

The tip of silver pencils is slightly rounded so that it does not scratch the drawing surface. The surface must be slightly rough and contain greasy lubricants so that the silver rubs off the pencil. Even so, only thin light gray lines are possible. Over time, these darken to a brownish hue due to the formation of silver sulfide . Silver sulfide is actually black, but looks rather brownish in the small amount. This darkening is supported by a sulphurous background.

Parchment roughened with pumice and rubbed with bone meal or wet-primed paper was used as a drawing base . The primer consisted of plaster of paris or chalk and glue water, with some recipes also egg yolk. Plaster of paris and egg yolks contain sulfur, which ensures a better and faster darkening than would only be possible in air. Today, a coating with Lithopone and synthetic resin dispersion binder is recommended as a substrate , here the zinc sulfide contained in the Lithopone brings the sulfur with it. Alternatively, a mixture of primer white, synthetic resin dispersion binder and water can be used.

Kurt Wehlte mentions three recipes for silver pen primers in his book Materials and Techniques in Painting (1967). Silver pen paper is also available in stores.

Drawing technique

The hatching technique is the most suitable technique for the silver pen. A surface filling is possible through hatching, similar to copper engravings and etchings . Settlements are possible if the tip has been flattened on a whetstone. Once a fine gray line has been set, it can only be removed with an eraser to a limited extent on some surfaces . For complete removal, the coating ground must be lifted off with a fine cutter, or it must be painted over with a new coating ground.

literature

  • Joseph Meder : The hand drawing. Vienna 1923
  • Joseph Meder: The little book from the Silbersteft. Gerlach and Wiedling, Vienna 1909; Reprint: The little book from the silver pen. Revised for today's use by Aline Ehrhardt. (Historical texts on art) Cenninas, Freiburg im Breisgau 2015, ISBN 978-3-946089-01-8 .
  • Kurt Wehlte : Materials and techniques of painting . 3. Edition. Otto Maier Verlag, Ravensburg 1977, ISBN 3-473-61157-3 .
  • Walter Koschatzky : The Art of Drawing . Residence, Salzburg 1977, ISBN 3-7017-0172-5 .

Web links

Commons : Silver Pen Drawings  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Kurt Wehlte: Materials and techniques of painting. Christophorus Verlag, Freiburg 2009, p. 303