“Diarist and painter Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528) recorded his 1494-95 travels in watercolors of alpine scenes and views of Italy, many of which survive today. Dürer was not unique in this practice. Few of his contemporaries traveled so much as he, nor took similar pains to preserve their sketchbooks and journals. Leonard da Vinci (1452-1519). In 1520, Dürer journeyed from Nuremberg to Aachen, to attend the imperial coronation of the new Holy Roman emperor Charles V, whom Dürer hoped would renew the pension granted to him by the late Maximilian I, and to land a few portrait commissions to pay for the trip. He bundled up his long-suffering (or insufferable) wife Agnes, a maid, and a cargo of prints he hope to sell along the way. Traveling through The Netherlands, Dürer filled a silverpoint sketchbook with drawings of landscapes, animals, buildings, and human beings. Only one sketchbook from the trip is known to exist. There may have been more, but none so far have come to light.
Readers may be unfamiliar with the drawing technique known as silverpoint. A coating of opaque white watercolor is first thinly applied to a sheet of paper. Dürer would have used Flake White (Lead Carbonate) as the pigment. Drawing on this surface with a silver needle produces a linear effect similar to graphite. What happens is when silver touches lead, a chemical reaction leaves faint marks on the page. These slowly darken as the silver residue tarnishes.
Graphite (1.CB. O5a) is a naturally-occurring crystalline form of Carbon harvested by mining. Prior to the 19th century it was widely used as an industrial lubricant. Joseph Dixon (1799-1869) discovered the mineral’s potential as a writing material, by inventing a way of enclosing a thin graphite rod within a Cedar wood holder. He first manufactured these pencils. . .”
The text above is an excerpt from a Substack article scheduled to appear on July 1, 2023. To receive a link, and future notifications, sign up for a free subscription below:
