Drawing with charcoal: historical techniques of 19th century France
About this video
Charcoal, made from charred wood, gives dark, velvety, easily reworked tones, but its large particles don't stick well, so finished charcoal artworks only became possible once artists could fix it in the 18th and 19th centuries. Timothy Mayhew demonstrates 19th-century French techniques: laying in broad tones, blending with cloths, feathers and stumps, lifting highlights with brushes, bread and stumps, and fixing the drawing from the back.
You'll be able to
- explain why finished charcoal drawings were rare before the 18th and 19th centuries.
- describe how 19th-century artists added, blended and removed charcoal.
- explain how artists protected charcoal drawings.
- describe how charcoal drawing styles changed later in the century.
Key words
- charcoal
- A drawing material made from charred pieces of wood that makes dark, soft, easily reworked marks.
- fixative
- A resin-based solution used to bind loose charcoal to the paper so it doesn't smudge away.
- stump
- Tightly rolled paper or leather with a tapered end, used to blend or lift charcoal.
- highlight
- A light area in a drawing, often made by removing charcoal to let the paper show.
- tone
- How light or dark an area of a drawing is.
Transcript
Dark. Velvety. Grainy. Soft. These are some of the intrinsic qualities of charcoal that artists are drawn to. Charcoal comes from charred pieces of wood, capable of producing a range of tones that are easily reworked. But because charcoal particles are large, they don't readily adhere to a surface.
And so finished works of art could not be made with the medium until the 18th and 19th centuries, when artists had the means to bind or fix it to paper--producing a golden glow. Timothy Mayhew demonstrates the techniques used by French artists who fell in love with charcoal...
among them Maxime Lalanne, whose "Castle Overlooking a River" exemplifies their methods. Working outdoors, the artist brings an easel and a portable frame covered with stretched paper, which resembles a painter's canvas. The paper itself is textured--ideal for holding charcoal.
The artist also brings a variety of drawing tools and materials. Using the side of a stick of charcoal, he puts down large areas of tone--the foreground, middle ground, and sky. He blends these broad strokes with a cloth or a feather, to soften them. Another way to apply the medium smoothly is with a brush dipped into a powdery form of charcoal.
To make marks, 19th-century artists typically used a pencil-like holder for charcoal, which they handled like a small paintbrush. The key is to apply everything lightly, so that the luminous white of the paper shows through, and marks are easy to erase. Drawing with charcoal also involves selectively removing it, to create highlights.
Various tools can be used, including a brush. Artists of the past often used kneaded bread just like an eraser. Tightly rolled paper or leather with a tapered end, called a stump, also works well. Stumps or a finger can be used for blending. A charcoal drawing emerges over time through layers of soft tones and selectively placed darker ones.
19th-century artists typically protected their drawings by brushing a resin-based fixative solution across the back of the paper. In 1850s France, artists produced soft, ethereal-looking landscapes with charcoal. Only a few decades later, darker-toned drawings were more in vogue, typically representing somber subjects or night scenes.
Artists began working not just with charcoal, but with similar powdery materials--black chalk, conte crayon, pastel--or they combined them. Experimentation emphasized the medium itself as integral to a work of art.
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