The Craftsman's Handbook: "Il Libro dell' Arte"
by Cennino d'Andrea Cennini, Jr. Daniel V. Thompson
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Book Summary Information
Author: Cennino d'Andrea Cennini, Jr. Daniel V. ThompsonEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1954-06-01
ISBN: 048620054X
Number of pages: 192
Publisher: Dover Publications
Book Reviews of The Craftsman's Handbook: "Il Libro dell' Arte"
Book Review: Cennino's Handbook, Still Illuminating
Summary: 5 Stars
Art, genuine art, is a pleasure not only in the thrill of color and line but in its procedure and materials. In fifteenth-century Florence, an artist named Cennino d'Andrea Cennini compiled a handbook for contemporary and future painters to consult in their drawing and painting from the beginning, in choosing their ingredients, mixing their paints and preparing their paper or cloth for painting on.
Unlike the making of sausage, the elements of creating art are a delight. Here are some how-to's excerpted from this wonderful little book (translated by Daniel V. Thompson, Jr., 1933, reprinted numerous times by Dover), still vibrant five hundred years after it was composed. The details also unwittingly reveal something of contemporary everyday life, where the art came from.
To paint on a panel, you start with a little boxwood panel nine inches square, washed with clear water and rubbed and smoothed down. "And when this little panel is thoroughly dry, take enough bone, ground diligently for two hours, to serve . . . take less than half a bean of this bone, or even less. And stir this bone up with saliva. Spread it all over the little panel with your fingers; and, before it gets dry, hold the little panel in your left hand, and tap over the panel with the finger tip of your right hand [presumably Cennino was right-handed] until you see that it is quite dry. And it will get coated with bone as evenly in one place as in another."
Wondering where to find the bone? "You must know what bone is good. Take bone from the second joints and wings of fowls, or of a capon; and the older they are the better. Just as you find them under the dining-table, put them into the fire; and when you see that they have turned whiter than ashes, draw them out, and grind them well on the porphyry."
Parchment comes from sheep or goats; to draw on sheep parchment, the artist lightly inscribes the background of bone with a sharp point. "On the parchment you may draw or sketch with this [stylus] of yours if you first put some of that bone . . . all over the parchment . . . dusting it off with a hare's foot." To add ink, "shade the folds with washes of ink; that is, as much water as a nutshell would hold, with two drops of ink in it; and shade with a brush made of minever tails . . ."
"And if you ever make a slip, so that you want to remove some stroke made by this little lead, take a bit of the crumb of some bread, and rub it over the paper, and you will remove whatever you wish."
The artist gives equally clear and detailed instructions for whittling goose quills to get a sharp point for ink drawing, to tempering paper with several coats of glue (tempera), to making clear tracing paper by scraping kid parchment and treating it with linseed oil. White lead is a basic ingredient, so is saliva. (Saliva combined with lead poses a health hazard; painters often died young.) Colors come largely from minerals, and the author explains how to pulverize and mix minerals to produce the paints desired.
Cennino explains every procedure in gessoing, stamping on gold, working on cloth, painting on velvet (yes, it goes way back), gilding saints' haloes, designing brocades, and embellishing with gold or tin. Much of a loss for art history, his instructions for mosaics are regrettably long since gone.
The author also makes some opening remarks designed to put art in context in creation. Much as he loves art, Cennino subordinates it to thinking, and he never loses sight of the fact that it is work. After the fall, "Man . . . pursued many useful occupations, differing from each other," some "more theoretical than others; they could not all be alike, since theory is the most worthy." Art is a "labor of love," but it is still labor.
Still, his praise for art, being genuine, is as strong as any I have ever read: "Close to [theory], man pursued . . . an occupation known as painting, which calls for imagination, and skill of hand, in order to discover things not seen, hiding themselves under the shadow of natural objects, and to fix them with the hand, presenting to plain sight what does not actually exist. And it justly deserves to be enthroned next to theory, and to be crowned with poetry."
Summary of The Craftsman's Handbook: "Il Libro dell' Arte"
"Obviously of great merit." ? Art Material Trade News. Fifteenth-century handbook, written by a working artist of the day, reveals secrets and techniques of the masters in drawing, oil painting, frescoes, panel painting, gilding, casting, more. Direct link to artists of the Middle Ages. Translation and Introduction by D. V. Thompson. "Delightful flavor..." ? N.Y. Herald Tribune.
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