Hatching—Technique and Unique Calligraphy

Vincent Van Gogh, Portrait of Joseph Roulin, 1888. Reed and quill pens and brown ink and black chalk, 12 5/8 x 9 5/8 in. The J. Paul Getty Museum.
Vincent Van Gogh, Portrait of Joseph Roulin, 1888. Reed and quill pens and brown ink and black chalk, 12 5/8 x 9 5/8 in. The J. Paul Getty Museum.

“To speak of great drawing is, by implication, to refer to the art of hatching,” writes Jerry N. Weiss. “It’s a technique born of a practical consideration: how best to translate three-dimensional imagery to paper.” In the Fall 2014 issue of Drawing, Weiss reviews Hatched: Creating Form with Line, an exhibition of twenty-two Old Master drawings at the J. Paul Getty Museum this summer (preview PDF here).

Frans Crabbe van Espleghem, Esther Before Ahasuerus, ca. 1525. Pen-and-dark-brown-ink with touches of gray-brown wash over black chalk, 9 5/16 x 7 5/8 in. The J. Paul Getty Museum.
Frans Crabbe van Espleghem, Esther Before Ahasuerus, ca. 1525. Pen-and-dark-brown-ink with touches of gray-brown wash over black chalk, 9 5/16 x 7 5/8 in. The J. Paul Getty Museum.

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