The use of transparent sheets (linseed oil-soaked parchment or paper) for tracing and transferring images from one support to another is recommended in treatises from as early as the fifteenth century. Nevertheless, very few examples of drawings on carta lucida survive, probably because relatively few collectors were interested in collecting such mechanical and impersonal artworks. Such a versatile, multifunctional tool must have been used daily in the workshop, for the training of apprentices, as well as for designing and replicating stock figures or individual details. In fact, visual evidence for the use of tracing paper can be found by studying the design process for drawings, engravings, panel paintings, and frescos. This essay discusses the use of carta lucida found through visual evidence, with examples such as underdrawing (detected by infrared reflectography), incised lines and sinopie in panel and wall paintings by Italian Renaissance painters, such as Perugino, Mantegna, Paolo Uccello, Domenico Veneziano and Andrea del Castagno. In particular, it stresses the function of transparent paper as a workshop tool for producing symmetrical images, and for transferring preparatory drawings from one support to another, specifically in fresco painting, when transferring the sinopia from the arriccio to the intonaco.
Visual evidence for the use of carta lucida in the Italian Renaissance workshop
GALASSI, MARIA CLELIA
2013-01-01
Abstract
The use of transparent sheets (linseed oil-soaked parchment or paper) for tracing and transferring images from one support to another is recommended in treatises from as early as the fifteenth century. Nevertheless, very few examples of drawings on carta lucida survive, probably because relatively few collectors were interested in collecting such mechanical and impersonal artworks. Such a versatile, multifunctional tool must have been used daily in the workshop, for the training of apprentices, as well as for designing and replicating stock figures or individual details. In fact, visual evidence for the use of tracing paper can be found by studying the design process for drawings, engravings, panel paintings, and frescos. This essay discusses the use of carta lucida found through visual evidence, with examples such as underdrawing (detected by infrared reflectography), incised lines and sinopie in panel and wall paintings by Italian Renaissance painters, such as Perugino, Mantegna, Paolo Uccello, Domenico Veneziano and Andrea del Castagno. In particular, it stresses the function of transparent paper as a workshop tool for producing symmetrical images, and for transferring preparatory drawings from one support to another, specifically in fresco painting, when transferring the sinopia from the arriccio to the intonaco.
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