A Natural Stone Arch Beside the Sea, Carlo Ferrario
Pencil on paper; roughly 8 x 12 inches (21 x 31 cm); in the collection of the Morgan Library and Museum, NY.
19th century artist Carlo Ferrario is known for his drawings for the designs of operatic stage sets. This drawing is a natural scene, possibly from life, and was meant to be part of a set of 27 drawings.
I love his confident delineation of the rocky shapes, his alternately bold and sensitive pencil marks and his wonderful control of value.
Link: A Natural Stone Arch Beside the Sea, Morgan Library
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Graphite drawings from the Metropolitan Museum of Art
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Eye Candy for Today: Carlo Ferrario ink drawing
Graphite drawings from the Metropolitan Museum of Art
this is awesome! great job!
Yes, lovely work. Always a fine line between putting in what was there, and leaving out anything unnecessary.
Having admired ‘rocks in art’ for years, two weeks ago I finally actually saw REAL rocks for the first time, in the south of Harris (Outer Hebrides, Scotland) , and now I really GET it!
Here in New Zealand, with a new, mostly volcanic landscape, there’s a paucity of hard rocks that would support an arch like this.
A pencil painting if I ever saw one!
Bill
I didn’t realize New Zealand was mostly volcanic. Interesting to think how the geology of their area affects artists.
Pencil graphite is composed of the same substance as diamonds – carbon. In graphite, the atoms are arranged in sheet-like layers, with weak attraction between the sheets. Because these layers are not tightly bonded, the graphite is easily manipulated, which allows the graphite in a pencil to roll onto paper easily. Carbon atoms in diamonds, in contrast, are arranged in very strong three-dimensional bonds, making diamonds the hardest substance on earth. And thanks to its atomic structure, a pencil line drawn on a piece of paper can conduct electricity – which a diamond can’t.
Source: readersdigest.com.au
Thanks, AElle. Here is my 2006 article on graphite and pencils.
Thanks, Charley.
Excerpt from the book Graphite: Its Properties, Occurrence, Refining and Uses
The word graphite appears to have been first used by the well known mineralogist A. G. (Abraham Gottlob) Werner (1750 – 1817) and it has been generally accepted since that time.