Nathaniel Dearborn (1786–1852) was an engraver in 19th-century Boston, Massachusetts. He was born in New England in 1786 to inventor Benjamin Dearborn;[1] siblings included John M. Dearborn and Fanny Dearborn Hanman.[2] In Boston he learned engraving from Abel Bowen. By 1814 Dearborn worked from quarters on School Street; later moving to Market Street (ca.1823), State Street (ca.1826-1831) and Washington Street (ca.1832–1852).[1][3] Around 1830, he also gave musical lessons on the flute.[4]
He died November 7, 1852, in South Reading.[1] His son, Nathaniel S. Dearborn, continued as an engraver and printer in Boston, working on Water Street (ca.1847–1851) and School Street (ca.1857-1868).[5][6] N.S. Dearborn exhibited several printed specimens in the 1850 exhibition of the Massachusetts Charitable Mechanic Association.[7] His grandson S.B. Dearborn also worked as a printer.[8]
Works by Dearborn
Views from the Mass. State House, Boston. ca.1838.
American Textbook for Letters. 1842.
Boston Notions; an Account of That Village from 1630 to 1847. 1848
Dearborn's Reminiscences of Boston, and Guide through the City and Environs. 1851
Dearborn's Guide through Mount Auburn. 1857
Engraving is the practice of incising a design onto a hard, usually flat surface by cutting grooves into it with a burin. The result may be a decorated object in itself, as when silver, gold, steel, or glass are engraved, or may provide an intaglio printing plate, of copper or another metal, for printing images on paper as prints or illustrations; these images are also called "engravings". Engraving is one of the oldest and most important techniques in printmaking. Wood engraving is a form of relief printing and is not covered in this article.
Engraving was a historically important method of producing images on paper in artistic printmaking, in mapmaking, and also for commercial reproductions and illustrations for books and magazines. It has long been replaced by various photographic processes in its commercial applications and, partly because of the difficulty of learning the technique, is much less common in printmaking, where it has been largely replaced by etching and other techniques.
"Engraving" is also loosely but incorrectly used for any old black and white print; it requires a degree of expertise to distinguish engravings from prints using other techniques such as etching in particular, but also mezzotint and other techniques. Many old master prints also combine techniques on the same plate, further confusing matters. Line engraving and steel engraving cover use for reproductive prints, illustrations in books and magazines, and similar uses, mostly in the 19th century, and often not actually using engraving. Traditional engraving, by burin or with the use of machines, continues to be practised by goldsmiths, glass engravers, gunsmiths and others, while modern industrial techniques such as photoengraving and laser engraving have many important applications. Engraved gems were an important art in the ancient world, revived at the Renaissance, although the term traditionally covers relief as well as intaglio carvings, and is essentially a branch of sculpture rather than engraving, as drills were the usual tools.
Terms
An assortment of hand engraving tools
Other terms often used for printed engravings are copper engraving, copper-plate engraving or line engraving. Steel engraving is the same technique, on steel or steel-faced plates, and was mostly used for banknotes, illustrations for books, magazines and reproductive prints, letterheads and similar uses from about 1790 to the early 20th century, when the technique became less popular, except for banknotes and other forms of security printing. Especially in the past, "engraving" was often used very loosely to cover several printmaking techniques, so that many so-called engravings were in fact produced by totally different techniques, such as etching or mezzotint. "Hand engraving" is a term sometimes used for engraving objects other than printing plates, to inscribe or decorate jewellery, firearms, trophies, knives and other fine metal goods. Traditional engravings in printmaking are also "hand engraved", using just the same techniques to make the lines in the plate.
Process
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At an engravers workshop: Miniature engraving on a Louis George watch movement: Smallest engraving of the royal Prussian eagle on a watch movement. It takes about 100 passes to create the figure.
Ecce Homo by Jan Norblin, original print (left) and copper plate (right) with composition reversed (National Museum in Warsaw).
Each graver is different and has its own use. Engravers use a hardened steel tool called a burin, or graver, to cut the design into the surface, most traditionally a copper plate.[1] However, modern hand engraving artists use burins or gravers to cut a variety of metals such as silver, nickel, steel, brass, gold, titanium, and more, in applications from weaponry to jewellery to motorcycles to found objects. Modern professional engravers can engrave with a resolution of up to 40 lines per mm in high grade work creating game scenes and scrollwork. Dies used in mass production of molded parts are sometimes hand engraved to add special touches or certain information such as part numbers.
In addition to hand engraving, there are engraving machines that require less human finesse and are not directly controlled by hand. They are usually used for lettering, using a pantographic system. There are versions for the insides of rings and also the outsides of larger pieces. Such machines are commonly used for inscriptions on rings, lockets and presentation pieces.
Tools and gravers or burins
Gravers come in a variety of shapes and sizes that yield different line types. The burin produces a unique and recognizable quality of line that is characterized by its steady, deliberate appearance and clean edges. The angle tint tool has a slightly curved tip that is commonly used in printmaking. Florentine liners are flat-bottomed tools with multiple lines incised into them, used to do fill work on larger areas or to create uniform shade lines that are fast to execute. Ring gravers are made with particular shapes that are used by jewelry engravers in order to cut inscriptions inside rings. Flat gravers are used for fill work on letters, as well as "wriggle" cuts on most musical instrument engraving work, remove background, or create bright cuts. Knife gravers are for line engraving and very deep cuts. Round gravers, and flat gravers with a radius, are commonly used on silver to create bright cuts (also called bright-cut engraving), as well as other hard-to-cut metals such as nickel and steel. Square or V-point gravers are typically square or elongated diamond-shaped and used for cutting straight lines. V-point can be anywhere from 60 to 130 degrees, depending on purpose and effect. These gravers have very small cutting points. Other tools such as mezzotint rockers, roulets and burnishers are used for texturing effects. Burnishing tools can also be used for certain stone setting techniques.
Musical instrument engraving on American-made brass instruments flourished in the 1920s and utilizes a specialized engraving technique where a flat graver is "walked" across the surface of the instrument to make zig-zag lines and patterns. The method for "walking" the graver may also be referred to as "wriggle" or "wiggle" cuts. This technique is necessary due to the thinness of metal used to make musical instruments versus firearms or jewelry. Wriggle cuts are commonly found on silver Western jewelry and other Western metal work.
Tool geometry
Stone engraving
Tool geometry is extremely important for accuracy in hand engraving. When sharpened for most applications, a graver has a "face", which is the top of the graver, and a "heel", which is the bottom of the graver; not all tools or application require a heel. These two surfaces meet to form a point that cuts the metal. The geometry and length of the heel helps to guide the graver smoothly as it cuts the surface of the metal. When the tool's point breaks or chips, even on a microscopic level, the graver can become hard to control and produces unexpected results. Modern innovations have brought about new types of carbide that resist chipping and breakage, which hold a very sharp point longer between resharpening than traditional metal tools.
Tool sharpening
Sharpening a graver or burin requires either a sharpening stone or wheel. Harder carbide and steel gravers require diamond-grade sharpening wheels; these gravers can be polished to a mirror finish using a ceramic or cast iron lap, which is essential in creating bright cuts. Several low-speed, reversible sharpening systems made specifically for hand engravers are available that reduce sharpening time. Fixtures that secure the tool in place at certain angles and geometries are also available to take the guesswork from sharpening to produce accurate points. Very few master engravers exist today who rely solely on "feel" and muscle memory to sharpen tools. These master engravers typically worked for many years as an apprentice, most often learning techniques decades before modern machinery was available for hand engravers. These engravers typically trained in such countries as Italy and Belgium, where hand engraving has a rich and long heritage of masters.
Artwork design
Preparatory drawing by Hans von Aachen for a print with effigy of Emperor Rudolph II, National Library of Poland[2] and Aegidius Sadeler's print from 1603, Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Design or artwork is generally prepared in advance, although some professional and highly experienced hand engravers are able to draw out minimal outlines either on paper or directly on the metal surface just prior to engraving. The work to be engraved may be lightly scribed on the surface with a sharp point, laser marked, drawn with a fine permanent marker (removable with acetone) or pencil, transferred using various chemicals in conjunction with inkjet or laser printouts, or stippled. Engraving artists may rely on hand drawing skills, copyright-free designs and images, computer-generated artwork, or common design elements when creating artwork.
Handpieces
Originally, handpieces varied little in design as the common use was to push with the handle placed firmly in the center of the palm. With modern pneumatic engraving systems, handpieces are designed and created in a variety of shapes and power ranges. Handpieces are made using various methods and materials. Knobs may be handmade from wood, molded and engineered from plastic, or machine-made from brass, steel, or other metals. The most widely known hand engraving tool maker, GRS Tools in Kansas is an American-owned and operated company that manufacture handpieces as well as many other tools for various applications in metal engraving.
Cutting the surface
Master engraver ennobling a watch movement. Top level engravers work under a stereo microscope.
The actual engraving is traditionally done by a combination of pressure and manipulating the work-piece. The traditional "hand push" process is still practiced today, but modern technology has brought various mechanically assisted engraving systems. Most pneumatic engraving systems require an air source that drives air through a hose into a handpiece, which resembles a traditional engraving handle in many cases, that powers a mechanism (usually a piston). The air is actuated by either a foot control (like a gas pedal or sewing machine) or newer palm / hand control. This mechanism replaces either the "hand push" effort or the effects of a hammer. The internal mechanisms move at speeds up to 15,000 strokes per minute, thereby greatly reducing the effort needed in traditional hand engraving. These types of pneumatic systems are used for power assistance only and do not guide or control the engraving artist. One of the major benefits of using a pneumatic system for hand engraving is the reduction of fatigue and decrease in time spent working.
Hand engraving artists today employ a combination of hand push, pneumatic, rotary, or hammer and chisel methods. Hand push is still commonly used by modern hand engraving artists who create "bulino" style work, which is highly detailed and delicate, fine work; a great majority, if not all, traditional printmakers today rely solely upon hand push methods. Pneumatic systems greatly reduce the effort required for removing large amounts of metal, such as in deep relief engraving or Western bright cut techniques.
Finishing
Finishing the work is often necessary when working in metal that may rust or where a colored finish is desirable, such as a firearm. A variety of spray lacquers and finishing techniques exist to seal and protect the work from exposure to the elements and time. Finishing also may include lightly sanding the surface to remove small chips of metal called "burrs" that are very sharp and unsightly. Some engravers prefer high contrast to the work or design, using black paints or inks to darken removed (and lower) areas of exposed metal. The excess paint or ink is wiped away and allowed to dry before lacquering or sealing, which may or may not be desired by the artist.
Modern hand engraving
Hand Engraving Tool Example
Because of the high level of microscopic detail that can be achieved by a master engraver, counterfeiting of engraved designs is well-nigh impossible, and modern banknotes are almost always engraved, as are plates for printing money, checks, bonds and other security-sensitive papers. The engraving is so fine that a normal printer cannot recreate the detail of hand engraved images, nor can it be scanned. In the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, more than one hand engraver will work on the same plate, making it nearly impossible for one person to duplicate all the engraving on a particular banknote or document.
The modern discipline of hand engraving, as it is called in a metalworking context, survives largely in a few specialized fields. The highest levels of the art are found on firearms and other metal weaponry, jewellery, and musical instruments.
In most commercial markets today, hand engraving has been replaced with milling using CNC engraving or milling machines. Still, there are certain applications where use of hand engraving tools cannot be replaced.
Machine engraving
In some instances, images or designs can be transferred to metal surfaces via mechanical process. One such process is roll stamping or roller-die engraving. In this process, a hardened image die is pressed against the destination surface using extreme pressure to impart the image. In the 1800s pistol cylinders were often decorated via this process to impart a continuous scene around the surface.
Computer-aided machine engraving
Computerized engraving on Corian.
Engraving machines such as the K500 (packaging) or K6 (publication) by Hell Gravure Systems use a diamond stylus to cut cells. Each cell creates one printing dot later in the process. A K6 can have up to 18 engraving heads each cutting 8.000 cells per second to an accuracy of .1 µm and below. They are fully computer-controlled and the whole process of cylinder-making is fully automated.
It is now common place for retail stores (mostly jewellery, silverware or award stores) to have a small computer controlled engrave on site. This enables them to personalise the products they sell. Retail engraving machines tend to be focused around ease of use for the operator and the ability to do a wide variety of items including flat metal plates, jewelry of different shapes and sizes, as well as cylindrical items such as mugs and tankards. They will typically be equipped with a computer dedicated to graphic design that will enable the operator to easily design a text or picture graphic which the software will translate into digital signals telling the engraver machine what to do. Unlike industrial engravers, retail machines are smaller and only use one diamond head. This is interchangeable so the operator can use differently shaped diamonds for different finishing effects. They will typically be able to do a variety of metals and plastics. Glass and crystal engraving is possible, but the brittle nature of the material makes the process more time-consuming.
Retail engravers mainly use two different processes. The first and most common 'Diamond Drag' pushes the diamond cutter through the surface of the material and then pulls to create scratches. These direction and depth are controlled by the computer input. The second is 'Spindle Cutter'. This is similar to Diamond Drag, but the engraving head is shaped in a flat V shape, with a small diamond and the base. The machine uses an electronic spindle to quickly rotate the head as it pushes it into the material, then pulls it along whilst it continues to spin. This creates a much bolder impression than diamond drag. It is used mainly for brass plaques and pet tags.
With state-of-the-art machinery it is easy to have a simple, single item complete in under ten minutes. The engraving process with diamonds is state-of-the-art since the 1960s.
Today laser engraving machines are in development but still mechanical cutting has proven its strength in economical terms and quality. More than 4,000 engravers make approx. 8 Mio printing cylinders worldwide per year.
History
For the printing process, see intaglio (printmaking). For the Western art history of engraved prints, see old master print and line engraving
Gérard Audran after Charles LeBrun, Alexander Entering Babylon, original print first published 1675, engraving
The first evidence for humans engraving patterns is a chiselled shell, dating back between 540,000 and 430,000 years, from Trinil, in Java, Indonesia, where the first Homo erectus was discovered.[3] Hatched banding upon ostrich eggshells used as water containers found in South Africa in the Diepkloof Rock Shelter and dated to the Middle Stone Age around 60,000 BC are the next documented case of human engraving.[4] Engraving on bone and ivory is an important technique for the Art of the Upper Paleolithic, and larger engraved petroglyphs on rocks are found from many prehistoric periods and cultures around the world.
In antiquity, the only engraving on metal that could be carried out is the shallow grooves found in some jewellery after the beginning of the 1st Millennium B.C. The majority of so-called engraved designs on ancient gold rings or other items were produced by chasing or sometimes a combination of lost-wax casting and chasing. Engraved gem is a term for any carved or engraved semi-precious stone; this was an important small-scale art form in the ancient world, and remained popular until the 19th century.
Battle of Engravers, satirical etching by George Cruikshank, showing hypothetical battle between the engravers, including William Hogarth, Antoine Masson, William Woollett, Jean-Joseph Balechou, Albrecht Dürer and Marcantonio Raimondi.
However the use of glass engraving, usually using a wheel, to cut decorative scenes or figures into glass vessels, in imitation of hardstone carvings, appears as early as the first century AD,[5] continuing into the fourth century CE at urban centers such as Cologne and Rome,[6] and appears to have ceased sometime in the fifth century. Decoration was first based on Greek mythology, before hunting and circus scenes became popular, as well as imagery drawn from the Old and New Testament.[6] It appears to have been used to mimic the appearance of precious metal wares during the same period, including the application of gold leaf, and could be cut free-hand or with lathes. As many as twenty separate stylistic workshops have been identified, and it seems likely that the engraver and vessel producer were separate craftsmen.[5]
In the European Middle Ages goldsmiths used engraving to decorate and inscribe metalwork. It is thought that they began to print impressions of their designs to record them. From this grew the engraving of copper printing plates to produce artistic images on paper, known as old master prints, in Germany in the 1430s. Italy soon followed. Many early engravers came from a goldsmithing background. The first and greatest period of the engraving was from about 1470 to 1530, with such masters as Martin Schongauer, Albrecht Dürer, and Lucas van Leiden.
Modern impression of Rembrandt's 1639 self-portrait, with the engraving plate.
Thereafter engraving tended to lose ground to etching, which was a much easier technique for the artist to learn. But many prints combined the two techniques: although Rembrandt's prints are generally all called etchings for convenience, many of them have some burin or drypoint work, and some have nothing else. By the nineteenth century, most engraving was for commercial illustration.
Before the advent of photography, engraving was used to reproduce other forms of art, for example paintings. Engravings continued to be common in newspapers and many books into the early 20th century, as they were cheaper to use in printing than photographic images.
Many classic postage stamps were engraved, although the practice is now mostly confined to particular countries, or used when a more "elegant" design is desired and a limited color range is acceptable.
Buffalo nickels, coins customised with engraving tools
Modifying the relief designs on coins is a craft dating back to the 18th century and today modified coins are known colloquially as hobo nickels. In the United States, especially during the Great Depression, coin engraving on the large-faced Indian Head nickel became a way to help make ends meet. The craft continues today, and with modern equipment often produces stunning miniature sculptural artworks and floral scrollwork.[7]
During the mid-20th century, a renaissance in hand-engraving began to take place. With the inventions of pneumatic hand-engraving systems that aided hand-engravers, the art and techniques of hand-engraving became more accessible.
Music engraving
Main article: Music engraving
The first music printed from engraved plates dates from 1446 and most printed music was produced through engraving from roughly 1700–1860. From 1860 to 1990 most printed music was produced through a combination of engraved master plates reproduced through offset lithography.
The first comprehensive account is given by Mme Delusse in her article "Gravure en lettres, en géographie et en musique" in Diderot's Encyclopedia. The technique involved a five-pointed raster to score staff lines, various punches in the shapes of notes and standard musical symbols, and various burins and scorers for lines and slurs. For correction, the plate was held on a bench by callipers, hit with a dot punch on the opposite side, and burnished to remove any signs of the defective work. The process involved intensive pre-planning of the layout, and many manuscript scores with engraver's planning marks survive from the 18th and 19th centuries.[8]
By 1837 pewter had replaced copper as a medium, and Berthiaud gives an account with an entire chapter devoted to music (Novel manuel complet de l'imprimeur en taille douce, 1837). Printing from such plates required a separate inking to be carried out cold, and the printing press used less pressure. Generally, four pages of music were engraved on a single plate. Because music engraving houses trained engravers through years of apprenticeship, very little is known about the practice. Fewer than one dozen sets of tools survive in libraries and museums.[9] By 1900 music engravers were established in several hundred cities in the world, but the art of storing plates was usually concentrated with publishers. Extensive bombing of Leipzig in 1944, the home of most German engraving and printing firms, destroyed roughly half the world's engraved music plates.
Applications today
Ars moriendi engraving by Master ES, circa 1450
Examples of contemporary uses for engraving include creating text on jewellery, such as pendants or on the inside of engagement- and wedding rings to include text such as the name of the partner, or adding a winner's name to a sports trophy. Another application of modern engraving is found in the printing industry. There, every day thousands of pages are mechanically engraved onto rotogravure cylinders, typically a steel base with a copper layer of about 0.1 mm in which the image is transferred. After engraving the image is protected with an approximately 6 µm chrome layer. Using this process the image will survive for over a million copies in high speed printing presses. Engraving machines such as GUN BOW (one of the leading engraving brands) are the best examples of hand engraving tools, although this type of machine is typically not used for fine hand engraving. Some schools throughout the world are renowned for their teaching of engraving, like the École Estienne in Paris.
Creating tone
Sudarium of Saint Veronica by Claude Mellan (1649), a famous showpiece where the image is formed by a single continuous line, starting on the tip of Christ's nose.
In traditional engraving, which is a purely linear medium, the impression of half-tones was created by making many very thin parallel lines, a technique called hatching. When two sets of parallel-line hatchings intersected each other for higher density, the resulting pattern was known as cross-hatching. Patterns of dots were also used in a technique called stippling, first used around 1505 by Giulio Campagnola. Claude Mellan was one of many 17th-century engravers with a very well-developed technique of using parallel lines of varying thickness (known as the "swelling line") to give subtle effects of tone (as was Goltzius) – see picture below. One famous example is his Sudarium of Saint Veronica (1649), an engraving of the face of Jesus made from a single spiraling line that starts at the tip of Jesus's nose.
Biblical references
The earliest allusion to engraving in the Bible may be the reference to Judah's seal ring (Ge 38:18), followed by (Ex 39.30). Engraving was commonly done with pointed tools of iron or even with diamond points. (Jer 17:1).
Each of the two onyx stones on the shoulder-pieces of the high priest's ephod was engraved with the names of six different tribes of Israel, and each of the 12 precious stones that adorned his breastpiece was engraved with the name of one of the tribes. The holy sign of dedication, the shining gold plate on the high priest's turban, was engraved with the words: "Holiness belongs to Adonai." Bezalel, along with Oholiab, was qualified to do this specialized engraving work as well as to train others.—Ex 35:30–35; 28:9–12; 39:6–14, 30.
Noted engravers
See also: List of printmakers
St Michael Slaying the Dragon, 1584, Hieronymus Wierix
Prints:
Jacopo de' Barbari (active 1500–1515)
William Blake (1757–1827)
Theodore de Bry (1528–1598)
Jacques Callot (1592–1635)
Giulio Campagnola (active c.1505–1515)
Paul Gustave Doré (1832–1883)
Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528)
Maso Finiguerra (1426–1464)
Hendrick Goltzius (c.1558–1617)
Francisco de Goya (1746–1828)
William Hamlin (1772–1869)
Stanley William Hayter (1901–1988)
William Hogarth (1697–1764)
Mauricio Lasansky (1914–2012)
Lucas van Leyden (1494–1533)
Andrea Mantegna (c.1431–1506)
Master ES (active c.1450–1470)
Israhel van Meckenem (c.1445–1501)
Claude Mellan (1598–1688)
Matthäus Merian (1593–1650)
Willem Panneels (c.1600–c.1634)
Alardo de Popma, (1617–1641)
José Guadalupe Posada (1852–1913)
Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720-1778)
Paulus Pontius (1603 – 1658)
Rembrandt (1606–1669)
Jan Saenredam (1565–1607)
Nikolaos Ventouras (1899–1990)
Georg Matthäus Vischer (1628–1696)
Lucas Vorsterman (1595–1675)
Anthonie Wierix (1552–1624)
Hieronymus Wierix (1553–1619)
Don Quixote engraving by Paul Gustave Doré
Of gems:
Pyrgoteles, Alexander's gem-engraver
Theodorus of Samos, Polycrates' gem-engraver
Of guns:
Malcolm Appleby
Geoffroy Gournet
Of coins:
Thomas Hugh Paget
Leonard Charles Wyon
William Wyon
Of postage stamps:
Czesław Słania
Leonard Charles Wyon
William Wyon
Of pins:
Godfrey Lundberg (1879–1933)
See also
Drypoint
Laser engraving
Letter cutting
List of stationery topics
Mezzotint
Louis Daniel Nimschke
Photogravure
Toreutics
A design is a plan or specification for the construction of an object or system or for the implementation of an activity or process, or the result of that plan or specification in the form of a prototype, product or process. The verb to design expresses the process of developing a design. In some cases, the direct construction of an object without an explicit prior plan (such as in craftwork, some engineering, coding, and graphic design) may also be considered to be a design activity. The design usually has to satisfy certain goals and constraints, may take into account aesthetic, functional, economic, or socio-political considerations, and is expected to interact with a certain environment. Major examples of designs include architectural blueprints, engineering drawings, business processes, circuit diagrams, and sewing patterns.[1]
The person who produces a design is called a designer, which is a term generally used for people who work professionally in one of the various design areas—usually specifying which area is being dealt with (such as a fashion designer, product designer, web designer or interior designer), but also others such as architects and engineers. A designer's sequence of activities is called a design process, possibly using design methods. The process of creating a design can be brief (a quick sketch) or lengthy and complicated, involving considerable research, negotiation, reflection, modeling, interactive adjustment and re-design.
Art
Today, the term design is generally used for what was formerly called the applied arts. The new term, for a very old thing, was perhaps initiated by Raymond Loewy and teachings at the Bauhaus and Ulm School of Design in Germany during the 20th century.
The boundaries between art and design are blurred, largely due to a range of applications both for the term 'art' and the term 'design'. Applied arts can include industrial design, graphic design, fashion design, and the decorative arts which traditionally includes craft objects. In graphic arts (2D image making that ranges from photography to illustration), the distinction is often made between fine art and commercial art, based on the context within which the work is produced and how it is traded.
Some methods for creating work, such as employing intuition, are shared across the disciplines within the applied arts and fine art. Mark Getlein, writer, suggests the principles of design are "almost instinctive", "built-in", "natural", and part of "our sense of 'rightness'."[29] However, the intended application and context of the resulting works will vary greatly.
A monogram or wenzel (Polish: Węzeł, "knot") is a motif made by overlapping or combining two or more letters or other graphemes to form one symbol. Monograms are often made by combining the initials of an individual or a company, used as recognizable symbols or logos. A series of uncombined initials is properly referred to as a cypher (e.g. a royal cypher) and is not a monogram.[1]
History
The "AD" monogram that Albrecht Dürer used as a signature
Monograms first appeared on coins, as early as 350BC. The earliest known examples are of the names of Greek cities which issued the coins, often the first two letters of the city's name. For example, the monogram of Achaea consisted of the letters alpha (Α) and chi (Χ) joined together.[2]
Monograms have been used as signatures by artists and craft workers on paintings, sculptures and pieces of furniture, especially when guilds enforced measures against unauthorized participation in the trade. A famous example of a monogram serving as an artist's signature is the "AD" used by Albrecht Dürer.
Christograms
Main article: Christogram
The Chi-Rho, a monogram of the first two letters of the Greek word for Christ
Over the centuries, monograms of the name of Jesus Christ have been used as Christian symbols. The IX monogram consists of the initial Greek letters of the name "Jesus Christ," "I" for Ιησούς, (Jesus in Greek) and "X" for Χριστος (Christ in Greek). The "IHS" Christogram, denoting the first three letters of the Greek name of Jesus, is usually written as a cypher, but sometimes as a monogram.
Perhaps the most significant Christogram is the Chi Rho, formed from the first two letters of Χριστος. The symbol was used by the Roman emperor Constantine I (r. 306–337) as part of a military standard.
Royal monograms
Main article: Royal cypher
Karolus – The cross-signature of Charlemagne
Signum manus (sometimes also known as Chrismon) refers to the medieval practice, current from the Merovingian period until the 14th century in the Frankish Empire and its successors, of signing a document or charter with a special type of monogram or royal cypher.
Monograms of the names of monarchs are used as part of the insignia of public organizations in kingdoms, such as on police badges. This indicates a connection to the ruler. However, the royal cypher, so familiar on pillar boxes, is not technically a monogram, since the letters are not combined.
Royal monograms often appear on coins, frequently surmounted by a crown. Countries that have employed this device in the past include Bulgaria, Great Britain, Russia, Sweden and many German states. Today, several Danish coins carry the monogram of Margrethe II, while the current Norwegian 1 Krone coin has the "H5" monogram of Harald V on the obverse.[3] The only countries using the Euro to have a royal monogram as their national identifying mark are Belgium and Monaco.[4] In Thailand, royal monograms appear on the individual flag for each major royal family member.
Individual monograms
Dress shirt monogram locations
An individual's monogram may appear in stylized form on stationery, luggage, clothing, or other personalized items. These monograms may have two or three letters.
A basic 3-letter monogram has the initial of the individual's last name (surname) set larger, or with some special treatment in the center, while the first name initial appears to the left of it and the middle name initial appears to the right of it. There is a difference in how this is written for men and women. For example, if the individual's name is Mary Ann Jones, and Jones is the surname, then the arrangement of letters would be thus: MJA, with the surname initial set larger in the center, the M for Mary to the left and the A for Ann to the right.[5] Traditionally, individual monograms for men[6] are based on the order of the name. The name Kyle George Martin would be written (KGM).
Married or engaged couples may use two-letter monograms of their entwined initials, for example on wedding invitations. Married couples may also create three-letter monograms incorporating the initial of their shared surname. For example, the monogram MJA might be used for Michael and Alice Jones.[5] However, monogramming etiquette for the married couple varies according to the item being monogrammed. Linens, for example, typically list the woman's given initial first, followed by the couple's shared surname initial and then the man's given initial (AJM). Monograms can often be found on custom dress shirts where they can be located in a number of different positions.
Some personal monograms have become famous symbols in their own right and instantly recognizable to many, such as J.R.R. Tolkien's monogram.
Other monograms
The University of Texas monogram
See also: Logo
Some companies and organizations adopt a monogram for a logo, usually with the letters of their acronym. For example, as well as having an official seal, and the Texas Longhorns logo, the University of Texas at Austin uses a "UT" monogram (in the same color as the Longhorns logo, burnt orange). The New York Yankees baseball team also uses a monogram on their ball cap insignia. The Consolidated Edison logo, with a rounded "E" nested inside a "C," has been described as a "classic emblem."[7]
The "VOC" monogram logo of the Dutch East India Company ("Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie" in Dutch) was possibly the first globally recognized corporate logo.[8]
Many fashion companies have a monogram for a logo, including Louis Vuitton and Fendi. The connected "CC" company logo, created by Coco Chanel, is one of the most recognizable monograms internationally.
Athletes have also been known to brand merchandise with their monogram logo; notably Tiger Woods and Roger Federer.[9]
Resistance symbols in wartime
Polska Walcząca – "Fighting Poland"
A notable example of a royal monogram is the H7 monogram of King Haakon VII of Norway. While in exile during World War II, Haakon VII spearheaded the Norwegian resistance to the German occupation, and H7 became a symbol used by the Norwegian populace to mark solidarity and loyalty to the King, and adherence to the Norwegian resistance movement. The act of drawing or creating a H7 symbol in German-occupied Norway was punishable by imprisonment.[10]
Similarly, in Poland during the war, the "PW" monogram was used as a resistance symbol, known as 'The Anchor' (Polish: Kotwica), due to its characteristic shape. Its meaning varied, as the initials were useful for many different slogans, such as 'Poland Fights', 'Warsaw Uprising', 'Polish Army', and others. Like the Norwegian example above, its use was punished by the Nazi occupation authorities.
Japanese
Main article: Japanese rebus monogram
A Japanese rebus monogram is a monogram in a particular style, which spells a name via a rebus, as a form of Japanese wordplay or visual pun. Today they are most often seen in corporate logos or product logos.
See also
Siglum
Signum manus
Interrobang
Huaya
Ligature
Varsity letter
Nicolas Verrien, 17th-century French monogram designer
Sigil (magic)
Tughra
In architecture and decorative art, ornament is a decoration used to embellish parts of a building or object. Large figurative elements such as monumental sculpture and their equivalents in decorative art are excluded from the term; most ornaments do not include human figures, and if present they are small compared to the overall scale. Architectural ornament can be carved from stone, wood or precious metals, formed with plaster or clay, or painted or impressed onto a surface as applied ornament; in other applied arts the main material of the object, or a different one such as paint or vitreous enamel may be used.
A wide variety of decorative styles and motifs have been developed for architecture and the applied arts, including pottery, furniture, metalwork. In textiles, wallpaper and other objects where the decoration may be the main justification for its existence, the terms pattern or design are more likely to be used. The vast range of motifs used in ornament draw from geometrical shapes and patterns, plants, and human and animal figures. Across Eurasia and the Mediterranean world there has been a rich and linked tradition of plant-based ornament for over three thousand years; traditional ornament from other parts of the world typically relies more on geometrical and animal motifs.
Chinese flask decorated with a dragon, clouds and some waves, an example of Jingdezhen porcelain
In a 1941 essay,[1] the architectural historian Sir John Summerson called it "surface modulation". The earliest decoration and ornament often survives from prehistoric cultures in simple markings on pottery, where decoration in other materials (including tattoos) has been lost. Where the potter's wheel was used, the technology made some kinds of decoration very easy; weaving is another technology which also lends itself very easily to decoration or pattern, and to some extent dictates its form. Ornament has been evident in civilizations since the beginning of recorded history, ranging from Ancient Egyptian architecture to the assertive lack of ornament of 20th century Modernist architecture.
Ornament implies that the ornamented object has a function that an unornamented equivalent might also fulfill. Where the object has no such function, but exists only to be a work of art such as a sculpture or painting, the term is less likely to be used, except for peripheral elements. In recent centuries a distinction between the fine arts and applied or decorative arts has been applied (except for architecture), with ornament mainly seen as a feature of the latter class.[citation needed]
History
Various architectural ornaments on the façades of the Louvre
The history of art in many cultures shows a series of wave-like trends where the level of ornament used increases over a period, before a sharp reaction returns to plainer forms, after which ornamentation gradually increases again. The pattern is especially clear in post-Roman European art, where the highly ornamented Insular art of the Book of Kells and other manuscripts influenced continental Europe, but the classically inspired Carolingian and Ottonian art largely replaced it. Ornament increased over the Romanesque and Gothic periods, but was greatly reduced in Early Renaissance styles, again under classical influence. Another period of increase, in Northern Mannerism, the Baroque and Rococo, was checked by Neoclassicism and the Romantic period, before resuming in the later 19th century Napoleon III style, Victorian decorative arts and their equivalents from other countries, to be decisively reduced by the Arts and Crafts movement and then Modernism.
The detailed study of Eurasian ornamental forms was begun by Alois Riegl in his formalist study Stilfragen: Grundlegungen zu einer Geschichte der Ornamentik (Problems of style: foundations for a history of ornament) of 1893, who in the process developed his influential concept of the Kunstwollen.[2] Riegl traced formalistic continuity and development in decorative plant forms from Ancient Egyptian art and other ancient Near Eastern civilizations through the classical world to the arabesque of Islamic art. While the concept of the Kunstwollen has few followers today, his basic analysis of the development of forms has been confirmed and refined by the wider corpus of examples known today.[3] Jessica Rawson has recently extended the analysis to cover Chinese art, which Riegl did not cover, tracing many elements of Chinese decoration back to the same tradition; the shared background helping to make the assimilation of Chinese motifs into Persian art after the Mongol invasion harmonious and productive.[4]
Styles of ornamentation can be studied in reference to the specific culture which developed unique forms of decoration, or modified ornament from other cultures. The Ancient Egyptian culture is arguably the first civilization to add pure decoration to their buildings. Their ornament takes the forms of the natural world in that climate, decorating the capitals of columns and walls with images of papyrus and palm trees. Assyrian culture produced ornament which shows influence from Egyptian sources and a number of original themes, including figures of plants and animals of the region.
The Ancient Greek civilization created many new forms of ornament, which were diffused across Eurasia, helped by the conquests of Alexander the Great, and the expansion of Buddhism, which took some motifs to East Asia in somewhat modified form.[5] In the West the Ancient Roman latinized forms of the Greek ornament lasted for around a millennium, and after a period when they were replaced by Gothic forms, powerfully revived in the Italian Renaissance and remain extremely widely used today.
Ornament prints and pattern books
Khmer lintel in Preah Ko, (east of Angkor, Cambodia) style, late 9th century, reminiscent of later European scrollwork styles
Examples of ornament in various styles. From left to right and from up to down: a festoon with a putto standing on it, an acanthus leaf, palmettes, a cartouche, a mascaron, and a trophy of musical instruments
18th-century Rococo balcony, Bavaria. The form is itself ornamental, and further decorated in painted plasterwork
Renaissance Revival ornaments above a door in the Dimitrie Sturdza House from Bucharest (Romania), each door having the same thing above them
The relief of Diana at the Amalienburg, in Munich (Germany)
Ornament print by Sebald Beham, Centaurs fighting with mounted men
Baroque ornament in a Venetian palace
A typical variety of ornamental motifs on a Greek vase of c. 530 BC.
A few medieval notebooks survive, most famously that of Villard de Honnecourt (13th century) showing how artists and craftsmen recorded designs they saw for future use. With the arrival of the print, ornament prints became an important part of the output of printmakers, especially in Germany, and played a vital role in the rapid diffusion of new Renaissance styles to makers of all sorts of object. As well as revived classical ornament, both architectural and the grotesque style derived from Roman interior decoration, these included new styles such as the moresque, a European adaptation of the Islamic arabesque (a distinction not always clear at the time).
As printing became cheaper, the single ornament print turned into sets, and then finally books. From the 16th to the 19th century, pattern books were published in Europe which gave access to decorative elements, eventually including those recorded from cultures all over the world. Andrea Palladio's I quattro libri dell'architettura (Four Books on Architecture) (Venice, 1570),[6] which included both drawings of classical Roman buildings and renderings of Palladio's own designs utilizing those motifs, became the most influential book ever written on architecture. Napoleon had the great pyramids and temples of Egypt documented in the Description de l'Egypte (1809). Owen Jones published The Grammar of Ornament in 1856 with colored illustrations of decoration from Egypt, Turkey, Sicily and Spain. He took residence in the Alhambra Palace to make drawings and plaster castings of the ornate details of the Islamic ornaments there, including arabesques, calligraphy, and geometric patterns. Interest in classical architecture was also fueled by the tradition of traveling on The Grand Tour, and by translation of early literature about architecture in the work of Vitruvius and Michelangelo.
During the 19th century, the acceptable use of ornament, and its precise definition became the source of aesthetic controversy in academic Western architecture, as architects and their critics searched for a suitable style. "The great question is," Thomas Leverton Donaldson asked in 1847, "are we to have an architecture of our period, a distinct, individual, palpable style of the 19th century?".[7] In 1849, when Matthew Digby Wyatt viewed the French Industrial Exposition set up on the Champs-Elysées in Paris, he disapproved in recognizably modern terms of the plaster ornaments in faux-bronze and faux woodgrain:[8]
Both internally and externally there is a good deal of tasteless and unprofitable ornament... If each simple material had been allowed to tell its own tale, and the lines of the construction so arranged as to conduce to a sentiment of grandeur, the qualities of "power" and "truth," which its enormous extent must have necessarily ensured, could have scarcely fail to excite admiration, and that at a very considerable saving of expense.
Contacts with other cultures through colonialism and the new discoveries of archaeology expanded the repertory of ornament available to revivalists. After about 1880, photography made details of ornament even more widely available than prints had done.
Modern ornament
18th century illustration of a woman made of ornaments and elements of Classical architecture
Modern millwork ornaments are made of wood, plastics, composites, etc. They come in many different colours and shapes. Modern architecture, conceived of as the elimination of ornament in favor of purely functional structures, left architects the problem of how to properly adorn modern structures.[9] There were two available routes from this perceived crisis. One was to attempt to devise an ornamental vocabulary that was new and essentially contemporary. This was the route taken by architects like Louis Sullivan and his pupil Frank Lloyd Wright, or by the unique Antoni Gaudí. Art Nouveau, popular around the turn of the 20th century, was in part a conscious effort to evolve such a "natural" vocabulary of ornament.
A more radical route abandoned the use of ornament altogether, as in some designs for objects by Christopher Dresser. At the time, such unornamented objects could have been found in many unpretending workaday items of industrial design, ceramics produced at the Arabia manufactory in Finland, for instance, or the glass insulators of electric lines.
This latter approach was described by architect Adolf Loos in his 1908 manifesto, translated into English in 1913 and polemically titled Ornament and Crime, in which he declared that lack of decoration is the sign of an advanced society. His argument was that ornament is economically inefficient and "morally degenerate", and that reducing ornament was a sign of progress.[10] Modernists were eager to point to American architect Louis Sullivan as their godfather in the cause of aesthetic simplification, dismissing the knots of intricately patterned ornament that articulated the skin of his structures.
With the work of Le Corbusier and the Bauhaus through the 1920s and 1930s, lack of decorative detail became a hallmark of modern architecture and equated with the moral virtues of honesty, simplicity, and purity. In 1932 Philip Johnson and Henry-Russell Hitchcock dubbed this the "International Style". What began as a matter of taste was transformed into an aesthetic mandate. Modernists declared their way as the only acceptable way to build. As the style hit its stride in the highly developed postwar work of Mies van der Rohe, the tenets of 1950s modernism became so strict that even accomplished architects like Edward Durrell Stone and Eero Saarinen could be ridiculed and effectively ostracized for departing from the aesthetic rules.[citation needed]
At the same time, the unwritten laws against ornament began to come into serious question. "Architecture has, with some difficulty, liberated itself from ornament, but it has not liberated itself from the fear of ornament," John Summerson observed in 1941.[11]
The very difference between ornament and structure is subtle and perhaps arbitrary. The pointed arches and flying buttresses of Gothic architecture are ornamental but structurally necessary; the colorful rhythmic bands of a Pietro Belluschi International Style skyscraper are integral, not applied, but certainly have ornamental effect. Furthermore, architectural ornament can serve the practical purpose of establishing scale, signaling entries, and aiding wayfinding, and these useful design tactics had been outlawed. And by the mid-1950s, modernist figureheads Le Corbusier and Marcel Breuer had been breaking their own rules by producing highly expressive, sculptural concrete work.
The argument against ornament peaked in 1959 over discussions of the Seagram Building, where Mies van der Rohe installed a series of structurally unnecessary vertical I-beams on the outside of the building, and by 1984, when Philip Johnson produced his AT&T Building in Manhattan with an ornamental pink granite neo-Georgian pediment, the argument was effectively over. In retrospect, critics have seen the AT&T Building as the first Postmodernist building.[citation needed]
See also
Applied arts
Work of art
Bronze and brass ornamental work
Brocade
Typographic ornaments: Dingbats
A crest is a component of a heraldic display, consisting of the device borne on top of the helm. Originating in the decorative sculptures worn by knights in tournaments and, to a lesser extent, battles, crests became solely pictorial after the 16th century (the era referred to by heraldists as that of "paper heraldry").
A normal heraldic achievement consists of the shield, above which is set the helm, on which sits the crest, its base encircled by a circlet of twisted cloth known as a torse. The use of the crest and torse independently from the rest of the achievement, a practice which became common in the era of paper heraldry, has led the term "crest" to be frequently but erroneously used to refer to the arms displayed on the shield, or to the achievement as a whole.
Origin
Sir Geoffrey Luttrell, with fan crests displaying his arms on both his helmet and his horse's head. From the Luttrell Psalter, c. 1330.
The word "crest" derives from the Latin crista, meaning "tuft" or "plume", perhaps related to crinis, "hair".[1] Crests had existed in various forms since ancient times: Roman officers wore fans of feathers or horsehair, which were placed longitudinally or transversely depending on the wearer's rank,[2] and Viking helmets were often adorned with wings and animal heads.[3] They first appeared in a heraldic context in the form of the metal fans worn by knights in the 12th and 13th centuries. These were primarily decorative, but may also have served a practical purpose by lessening or deflecting the blows of opponents' weapons (perhaps why their edges came to be serrated).[4] These fans were generally of one colour, later evolving to repeat all or part of the arms displayed on the shield.
The fan crest was later developed by cutting out the figure displayed on it, to form a metal outline; this evolved in the late 13th and early 14th centuries into a three-dimensional sculpture.[5] These were usually made of cloth, leather or paper over a wooden or wire framework,[6] and were typically in the form of an animal; also popular were wings, horns, human figures, and panaches of feathers. These were probably worn only in tournaments, not battle: not only did they add to the already considerable weight of the helm, they could also have been used by opponents as a handle to pull the wearer's head down.[7]
Laces, straps, or rivets were used to affix the crest to the helm,[8] with the join being covered by a circlet of twisted cloth known as a torse or wreath, or by a coronet in the case of high-ranking nobles.[9] Torses did not come into regular use in Britain until the 15th century,[10] and are still uncommon on the Continent, where crests are usually depicted as continuing into the mantling.[11] Crests were also sometimes mounted on a furred cap known as a chapeau, as in the royal crest of England.
Later development
By the 16th century the age of tournaments had ended, and physical crests largely disappeared. Their illustrated equivalents consequently began to be treated as simply two-dimensional pictures. Many crests from this period are physically impossible to bear on a helm, e.g. the crest granted to Sir Francis Drake in 1581, which consisted of a disembodied hand issuing from clouds and leading a ship around the globe (representing God's guidance).[12]
In the same period, different helms began to be used for different ranks: sovereigns' and knights' helms faced forwards (affronté), whereas those of peers and gentlemen faced to the right (dexter). In the medieval period crests would always have faced the same way as the helm, but as a result of these rules, the directions of the crest and the helm might be at variance: a knight whose crest was a lion statant, would have the lion depicted as looking over the side of the helm, rather than towards the viewer.[13] Torses also suffered artistically, being treated not as silken circlets, but as horizontal bars.
Heraldry in general underwent something of a renaissance in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and many of the illogicalities of previous centuries were discarded. Crests are now generally not granted unless they could actually be used on a physical helm,[14] and the rules about directions of helms are no longer rigidly observed.
Usage
Arms of the Margrave of Brandenburg-Ansbach, with fifteen crested helms.
The use of crests was once restricted to those of 'tournament rank', i.e. knights and above,[8] but in modern times nearly all personal arms include crests.[14] They are not generally used by women (with the exception of reigning queens) and clergymen, as they did not participate in war or tournaments and thus would not have helms on which to wear them. Some heraldists are also of the opinion that crests, as personal devices, are not suited for use by corporate bodies, but this is not widely observed.[14]
In continental Europe, particularly Germany, crests have a far greater significance than in Britain, and it is common for one person to display multiple crests with his arms; certain high-ranking noblemen are entitled to as many as seventeen.[15] This practice did not exist in Britain until the modern era, and arms with more than one crest are still rare. In contrast to Continental practice, where a crest is never detached from its helm, a Briton with more than one crest may choose to display only one crested helm, and have the other crests simply floating in space.[16] Though usually adopted through marriage to an heiress, examples exist of secondary crests being granted as augmentations: after defeating the Americans at the Battle of Bladensburg, Robert Ross was granted, in addition to his original crest, the crest of an arm holding the US flag with a broken flagstaff.[17]
Crest-badge of a member of the house of Douglas.
British crests in an 1817 book.
After the 16th century, it became common for armigers to detach the crest and wreath from the helm, and use them in the manner of a badge, displayed on crockery, carriage doors, stationery, etc. This led to the erroneous use of the term "crest" to mean "arms", which has become widespread in recent years. Unlike a badge, which can be used by any amount of relatives and retainers, a crest is personal to the armiger, and its use by others is considered usurpation. In Scotland, however, a member of a clan or house is entitled to use a "crest-badge", which consists of the chief's crest encircled by a strap and buckle inscribed with the chiefly motto.[18]
Marks of cadency are generally not used with crests, though it is not incorrect to do so, and the British royal family continue this practice.[19] It is, however, widely observed in England that no two families may use the same crest. This is in contrast to Scottish practice, in which crests are less significant, and are often borne in the same form by a great many unrelated people. As a result of this lack of need for differentiation, Scottish crests tend to be less ornamental than their English counterparts.[20]
The usual torse around the crest is frequently replaced by some kind of coronet, known as a "crest-coronet". The standard form is a simplified ducal coronet, consisting of three fleurons on a golden circlet; these are not, however, indications of rank, though they are not generally granted nowadays except in special circumstances.[21] In some modern examples, the crest features both a crest-coronet and a torse,[21] though this practice is deprecated by purists.
Orders of chivalry
Perhaps the only places physical crests are still seen are the chapels of Britain's orders of chivalry: the Order of the Garter's St George's Chapel, the Order of the Thistle's Thistle Chapel, and the Order of the Bath's Henry VII Chapel. Within each chapel are rows of stalls for use by the knights; above these stalls are placed each knight's sword and crested helm. These are carved out of lime wood and painted and gilded by Ian Brennan, the official sculptor to the royal household.[22]