charcoal drawing

charcoal drawing

 use of charred sticks of wood to make finished drawings and preliminary studies. The main characteristic of charcoal as a medium is that, unless it is fixed by the application of some form of gum or resin, it is impermanent, easily erased or smudged. This characteristic determined its early use as a means of tracing the outline of a mural—either directly onto the wall or on a cartoon (caricature and cartoon) (full-sized drawing for transferring a design to a mural)—and its use as a means of roughing in the outline of a large painting on canvas to be completed in a more permanent medium such as oil. Artists also often produce small charcoal drawings as a means of working out preliminary ideas quickly.

      Because of the softness of its drawing edge, charcoal tends to favour broad, vigorous draftsmanship, with an emphasis on mass and movement rather than on linear precision. A large number of such drawings have survived, including important work of Albrecht Dürer (Dürer, Albrecht), Paulus Potter (Potter, Paulus), and a variety of Italian artists of the 16th and 17th centuries. Charcoal drawings continued to be created throughout the 19th and 20th centuries and into the 21st. There are many noteworthy examples by such 19th- and 20th-century French artists as Édouard Manet (Manet, Édouard), Edgar Degas (Degas, Edgar), and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (Toulouse-Lautrec, Henri de), as well as the Germans Ernst Barlach (Barlach, Ernst) and Käthe Kollwitz (Kollwitz, Käthe).

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Universalium. 2010.

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Look at other dictionaries:

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  • Charcoal — Char coal , n. [See {Char}, v. t., to burn or to reduce to coal, and {Coal}.] 1. Impure carbon prepared from vegetable or animal substances; esp., coal made by charring wood in a kiln, retort, etc., from which air is excluded. It is used for fuel …   The Collaborative International Dictionary of English

  • Charcoal blacks — Charcoal Char coal , n. [See {Char}, v. t., to burn or to reduce to coal, and {Coal}.] 1. Impure carbon prepared from vegetable or animal substances; esp., coal made by charring wood in a kiln, retort, etc., from which air is excluded. It is used …   The Collaborative International Dictionary of English

  • Charcoal point — Charcoal Char coal , n. [See {Char}, v. t., to burn or to reduce to coal, and {Coal}.] 1. Impure carbon prepared from vegetable or animal substances; esp., coal made by charring wood in a kiln, retort, etc., from which air is excluded. It is used …   The Collaborative International Dictionary of English

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  • charcoal — Synonyms and related words: air brush, alcohol, art paper, ash, ashes, benzine, black and white, blackening, blacking, blackwash, brand, briquette, brouillon, brush, burnable, burnt cork, butane, calx, camera lucida, camera obscura, canvas,… …   Moby Thesaurus

  • drawing — Synonyms and related words: adductive, alluring, alphabet, appealing, art, aspiration, attracting, attraction, attractive, attrahent, avulsion, bewitching, bingo, black and white, bleeding, bloodletting, blueprint, broaching, brouillon,… …   Moby Thesaurus

  • charcoal — I. noun Etymology: Middle English charcole Date: 14th century 1. a dark or black porous carbon prepared from vegetable or animal substances (as from wood by charring in a kiln from which air is excluded) 2. a. a piece or pencil of fine charcoal… …   New Collegiate Dictionary

  • charcoal — char·coal || tʃɑːkəʊl n. carbon prepared by imperfect burning; piece of charcoal used for drawing; charcoal drawing …   English contemporary dictionary

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