Brown paper portraits
At an exhibition at the National Gallery in London, I found myself transfixed by a the smallest exhibit, a Leonardo da Vinci drawing, a tiny scrap torn from a sketchbook ...
Leonardo da Vinci is one of the artists I most admire. His drawing skills are breathtaking. And he was left-handed, like me! His use of line and chiaroscuro – the contrast of light and dark – made him a master. There were no photographs then. Artists could only rely on observation, drawing from life over and over again to capture a line or hold an image in memory.
Of all the famous works on display, the one that enchanted me was one of the smallest, a scrap torn from a notebook. Most of my preliminary sketches end up in the bin. Only a few are kept. And here was Leonardo da Vinci going through the same process, saving a drawing to use later, tearing out a sketch before pricking it out to transfer it to canvas. Somehow it survived until a careful curator glued it to a bigger piece of paper.
Precious papers
Paper was far less available at that time. Artists used it carefully, often covering every bit with small drawings. And just as they do today, artists sought out the best papers, buying from merchants in Florence and Venice. Nearly all paper was in shades of brown as whiter papers were rare and expensive. The preferred paper, for any Renaissance artist who could afford it, was Fabriano.
The papers of Fabriano
The first paper was made in China. The process was a closely-guarded secret for centuries before it eventually spread along the Silk Road trade routes. One of the first European towns to make high quality paper was Fabriano in Italy, near the port city of Ancona, which traded with the Levant. Fabriano's fast-flowing, limestone-filtered mountain streams made it an ideal location for papermaking, and one of the first paper mills was established there in 1264. The master papermakers refined their process to make paper which could compete with parchment for legal documents and drawing, as it did not yellow or deteriorate with age.
Handmade paper is still made in Fabriano today. At the Museo della Carta e della Filigrana (Museum of Paper and Watermarks) in Fabriano you can see some of Europe's oldest paper making machinery in action.
The Fabriano papers became famous, used by Michelangelo, da Vinci, Raphael and Durer, Giambattista Bodoni and Beethoven. Fabriano watermarks have been identified on the paper used for some of Michelangelo’s most renowned drawings.
Brown paper and chiaroscuro
Whiter papers could only be produced from white rags and bleaching textiles, a long and unreliable process at that time. You can imagine the merchants of the day pulling out sheets for important customers, but the prices put it beyond everyday use. So artists developed the chiaroscuro techniques for drawing on brown papers which spread to all western art.
Today, the paper most often described as ‘brown paper’ is kraft paper, a paper made by a process invented in 1879 in Danzig, Gemany. The name comes from the German word, ‘Kraft’, which means ‘strength’. Kraft paper has become a popular medium for artists today as it's easily available and holds graphite well; it is often used for preliminary studies and pencil portraits.
Torn paper portraits
The tiny drawing I saw at the exhibition inspired a series of brown paper portraits presented as if torn from a sketchbook. The irregular shapes remind me of the way Renaissance artists had to perfect their drawing skills using every scrap of paper sparingly, making every line count. I love working with brown paper, for portrait studies and commissions.
Some of my brown paper portraits
