Paper marbling - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Paper marbling is a method of aqueous surface design, which can produce patterns similar to smooth marble

Marble

Marble is a metamorphic rock composed of recrystallized carbonate minerals, most commonly calcite or dolomite.Geologists use the term "marble" to refer to metamorphosed limestone; however stonemasons use the term more broadly to encompass unmetamorphosed limestone.Marble is commonly used for...

or other stone. The patterns are the result of color floated on either plain water or a viscous solution known as size

Sizing

Sizing or size is any one of numerous specific substances that is applied to or incorporated in other material, especially papers and textiles, to act as a protecting filler or glaze....

, and then carefully transferred to an absorbent surface, such as paper

Paper

Paper is a thin material mainly used for writing upon, printing upon, drawing or for packaging. It is produced by pressing together moist fibers, typically cellulose pulp derived from wood, rags or grasses, and drying them into flexible sheets....

or fabric. Through several centuries, people have applied marbled materials to a variety of surfaces. It is often employed as a writing surface for calligraphy

Calligraphy

Calligraphy is a type of visual art. It is often called the art of fancy lettering . A contemporary definition of calligraphic practice is "the art of giving form to signs in an expressive, harmonious and skillful manner"...

, and especially book covers and endpapers in bookbinding

Bookbinding

Bookbinding is the process of physically assembling a book from a number of folded or unfolded sheets of paper or other material. It usually involves attaching covers to the resulting text-block.-Origins of the book:...

and stationery

Stationery

Stationery has historically meant a wide gamut of materials: paper and office supplies, writing implements, greeting cards, glue, pencil case etc.-History of stationery:...

. Part of its appeal is that each print is a unique monotype.

Procedure

There are several methods for making marbled paper

Paper

s. A shallow tray filled with water, and various kinds of ink or paint colors are carefully applied to the surface with an ink brush

Brush

A brush is a tool with bristles, wire or other filaments, used for cleaning, grooming hair, make up, painting, surface finishing and for many other purposes. It is one of the most basic and versatile tools known to mankind, and the average household may contain several dozen varieties...

. Various additives or surfactant

Surfactant

Surfactants are compounds that lower the surface tension of a liquid, the interfacial tension between two liquids, or that between a liquid and a solid...

chemicals are used to help float the colors. A drop of "negative" color made of plain water with the addition of surfactant

Surfactant

Surfactants are compounds that lower the surface tension of a liquid, the interfacial tension between two liquids, or that between a liquid and a solid...

is used to drive the drop of color into a ring. The process is repeated until the surface of the water is covered with concentric rings.

The floating colors are then carefully manipulated either by blowing on them directly or through a straw, fanning the colors, or carefully using a human hair to stir the colors. In the 19th century, the Kyoto

Kyoto

is a city in the central part of the island of Honshū, Japan. It has a population close to 1.5 million. Formerly the imperial capital of Japan, it is now the capital of Kyoto Prefecture, as well as a major part of the Osaka-Kobe-Kyoto metropolitan area.-History:...

master Tokutaro Yagi developed a method for using a split piece of bamboo

Bamboo

Bamboo is a group of perennial evergreens in the true grass family Poaceae, subfamily Bambusoideae, tribe Bambuseae. Giant bamboos are the largest members of the grass family....

to gently stir the colors, resulting in concentric spiral designs. Finally, a sheet of washi

Washi

is a type of paper made in Japan. Washi is commonly made using fibers from the bark of the gampi tree, the mitsumata shrub , or the paper mulberry, but also can be made using bamboo, hemp, rice, and wheat...

paper is carefully laid onto the water surface to capture the floating design. The paper, which is often made of kozo (Paper Mulberry

Paper Mulberry

The Paper Mulberry is a tree in the family Moraceae, native to eastern Asia. Other names include Dak, Halibun, Kalivon, Kozo, and Tapacloth tree.It is a deciduous tree growing to tall...

or Broussonetia papyrifera), must be unsized

Sizing

Sizing or size is any one of numerous specific substances that is applied to or incorporated in other material, especially papers and textiles, to act as a protecting filler or glaze....

, and strong enough to withstand being immersed in water without tearing.

Another method of marbling more familiar to Europeans and Americans is made on the surface of a viscous mucilage, known as size or sizing in English. This method is commonly referred to as "Turkish

Turkey

Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...

" marbling, although ethnic Turkic peoples

Turkic peoples

The Turkic peoples are peoples residing in northern, central and western Asia, southern Siberia and northwestern China and parts of eastern Europe. They speak languages belonging to the Turkic language family. They share, to varying degrees, certain cultural traits and historical backgrounds...

were not the only practitioners of the art, as Persian

Persian people

The Persian people are part of the Iranian peoples who speak the modern Persian language and closely akin Iranian dialects and languages. The origin of the ethnic Iranian/Persian peoples are traced to the Ancient Iranian peoples, who were part of the ancient Indo-Iranians and themselves part of...

Tajiks and people of India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

n origin also made these papers. The term "Turkish" was most likely used as a reference to the fact that many European

European ethnic groups

The ethnic groups in Europe are the various ethnic groups that reside in the nations of Europe. European ethnology is the field of anthropology focusing on Europe....

s first encountered the art in Istanbul

Istanbul

Istanbul , historically known as Byzantium and Constantinople , is the largest city of Turkey. Istanbul metropolitan province had 13.26 million people living in it as of December, 2010, which is 18% of Turkey's population and the 3rd largest metropolitan area in Europe after London and...

.

Historic forms of marbling used pure pigments mixed with water for colors, and sizes were traditionally made from gum tragacanth (Astragalus

Astragalus

Astragalus is a large genus of about 3,000 species of herbs and small shrubs, belonging to the legume family Fabaceae, subfamily Faboideae. The genus is native to temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere...

spp.), gum karaya, guar gum

Guar gum

Guar gum, also called guaran, is a galactomannan. It is primarily the ground endosperm of guar beans. The guar seeds are dehusked, milled and screened to obtain the guar gum. It is typically produced as a free-flowing, pale, off-white-colored, coarse to fine ground powder.-Production:Guar gum is an...

, fenugreek

Fenugreek

Fenugreek is a plant in the family Fabaceae. Fenugreek is used both as a herb and as a spice . The leaves and sprouts are also eaten as vegetables...

(Trigonella foenum-graecum), fleabane

Fleabane

Fleabane is a common name for some flowering plants in the family Asteraceae.Most are in the subfamily Asteroideae:* Conyza * Erigeron * Inula...

, and psyllium

Psyllium

Psyllium , or Ispaghula , is the common name used for several members of the plant genus Plantago whose seeds are used commercially for the production of mucilage.-History:...

. Since the late 19th century, the carrageenan-rich alga known as Irish moss (Chondrus crispus), has been employed for sizing.

Today, many marblers use powdered carrageenan

Carrageenan

Carrageenans or carrageenins are a family of linear sulfated polysaccharides that are extracted from red seaweeds. There are several varieties of carrageen used in cooking and baking. Kappa-carrageenan is used mostly in breading and batter due to its gelling nature...

, extracted from various seaweeds. But buying and cooking briefly in water the emptied packages of carrageen moss sold in Ireland for eating at breakfast is far cheaper and just as effective. Another plant-derived mucilage

Mucilage

Mucilage is a thick, gluey substance produced by most plants and some microorganisms. It is a polar glycoprotein and an exopolysaccharide.It occurs in various parts of nearly all classes of plant, usually in relatively small percentages, and is frequently associated with other substances, such as...

is made from sodium alginate. In recent years, a synthetic size made from hydroxypropyl methylcellulose, a common ingredient in instant wallpaper paste

Wallpaper paste

Wallpaper adhesive or wallpaper paste is a specific adhesive, based on modified starch or methylcellulose, used to fix wallpaper to walls.Wallpaper pastes have a typical shear thinning viscosity and a high wet adhesive tack...

, is often used as a size for floating acrylic

Acrylic paint

Acrylic paint is fast drying paint containing pigment suspension in acrylic polymer emulsion. Acrylic paints can be diluted with water, but become water-resistant when dry...

and oil paint

Oil paint

Oil paint is a type of slow-drying paint that consists of particles of pigment suspended in a drying oil, commonly linseed oil. The viscosity of the paint may be modified by the addition of a solvent such as turpentine or white spirit, and varnish may be added to increase the glossiness of the...

s.

In the sized-based method, colors made from pigments are mixed with a surfactant

Surfactant

Surfactants are compounds that lower the surface tension of a liquid, the interfacial tension between two liquids, or that between a liquid and a solid...

such as ox gall

Ox gall

Ox gall is gall, usually obtained from cows, that is mixed with alcohol and used as the wetting agent in marbling, engraving, lithography, and watercolor painting. It is a greenish-brown liquid mixture containing cholesterol, lecithin, taurocholic acid, and glycoholic acid....

. These are then spattered or dropped onto the size, one color after another, until there is a dense pattern of several colors. Straw from the broom corn was used to make a kind of whisk for sprinkling the paint, or horsehair

Horsehair

Horsehair is the long, coarse hair growing on the manes and tails of horses. It is used for various purposes, including upholstery, brushes, the bows of musical instruments, a hard-wearing fabric called haircloth, and for horsehair plaster, a wallcovering material formerly used in the construction...

to create a kind of drop-brush. Each successive layer of pigment

Pigment

A pigment is a material that changes the color of reflected or transmitted light as the result of wavelength-selective absorption. This physical process differs from fluorescence, phosphorescence, and other forms of luminescence, in which a material emits light.Many materials selectively absorb...

spreads slightly less than the last, and the colors may require additional surfactant

Surfactant

Surfactants are compounds that lower the surface tension of a liquid, the interfacial tension between two liquids, or that between a liquid and a solid...

to float and uniformly expand.

Once the colors are laid down, various tools and implements such as rakes or combs, are used in a series of movements to create more intricate patterns. Paper or cloth, often mordanted

Mordant

A mordant is a substance used to set dyes on fabrics or tissue sections by forming a coordination complex with the dye which then attaches to the fabric or tissue. It may be used for dyeing fabrics, or for intensifying stains in cell or tissue preparations. The term mordant comes from the Latin...

beforehand with aluminium sulfate

Aluminium sulfate

Aluminium sulfate, alternatively spelt aluminum sulfate, aluminium sulphate, or aluminum sulphate; is a chemical compound with the formula Al23...

(alum) is gently laid onto the floating colors (some traditional methods such as Turkish ebru do not require mordanting beforehand). The colors are thereby transferred to the surface of the paper or material.

If necessary, excess bleeding colors and sizing can be rinsed off, and then the paper or fabric is allowed to dry. Not mentioned in books, but observed among Florentine paper marblers is the method of dragging the sheet of paper over a rod to draw off the excess carrageen moss base. After the print is made, any color residues are carefully skimmed off of the surface of the size, in order to clear it before starting a new pattern.

Contemporary marblers employ a variety of modern materials, some in place of or in combination with the more traditional ones. A wide variety of colors are used today in place of the historic pigment colors. Plastic broom straw can be used instead of broom corn, as well as bamboo sticks, plastic pipettes, and eye droppers to drop the colors on the surface of the size. Ox gall

Ox gall

is still commonly used as a surfactant

Surfactant

Surfactants are compounds that lower the surface tension of a liquid, the interfacial tension between two liquids, or that between a liquid and a solid...

for watercolors and gouache

Gouache

Gouache[p], also spelled guache, the name of which derives from the Italian guazzo, water paint, splash or bodycolor is a type of paint consisting of pigment suspended in water. A binding agent, usually gum arabic, is also present, just as in watercolor...

, but synthetic surfactants are used in conjunction with acrylic, PVA, and oil-based paints.

History in East Asia

An intriguing reference which some think may be a form of marbling is found in a compilation completed in 986 CE entitled 文房四谱 Wen Fang Si Pu or "Four Treasures of the Scholar's Study" edited by the 10th century scholar-official 蘇易簡 Su Yijian (957-995 CE). This compilation contains information on inkstick, inkstone, ink brush

Ink brush

Ink brushes are used in Chinese calligraphy. They are also used in Chinese painting and descendant brush painting styles. The ink brush was invented in China, believed to be around 300BCE...

, and paper in China

China

Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...

, which are collectively called the four treasures of the study

Four Treasures of the Study

Four Treasures of the Study, Four Jewels of the Study or Four Friends of the Study is an expression used to denote the brush, ink, paper and ink stone used in Chinese and other East Asian calligraphic traditions...

. The text mentions a kind of decorative paper called 流沙箋 liu sha jian meaning “drifting-sand” or “flowing-sand notepaper" that was made in what is now the region of Sichuan

Sichuan

' , known formerly in the West by its postal map spellings of Szechwan or Szechuan is a province in Southwest China with its capital in Chengdu...

(Yijian 4: 7a-8a).

This paper was made by dragging a piece of paper through a fermented flour paste mixed with various colors, creating a free and irregular design. A second type was made with a paste prepared from honey locust pods, mixed with croton

Croton

-In plants:* Croton , a plant genus of the family Euphorbiaceae* Crotoneae, a tribe of the subfamily Crotonoideae* Codiaeum variegatum, a plant commonly called a "Croton"...

oil, and thinned with water. Presumably both black and colored inks were employed. Ginger

Ginger

Ginger is the rhizome of the plant Zingiber officinale, consumed as a delicacy, medicine, or spice. It lends its name to its genus and family . Other notable members of this plant family are turmeric, cardamom, and galangal....

, possibly in the form of an oil or extract, was used to disperse the colors, or “scatter” them, according to the interpretation given by Dr. T.H. Tsien. The colors were said to gather together when a hair-brush was beaten over the design, as dandruff

Dandruff

Dandruff is the shedding of dead skin cells from the scalp . Dandruff is sometimes caused by frequent exposure to extreme heat and cold. As it is normal for skin cells to die and flake off, a small amount of flaking is normal and common; about 487,000 cells/cm2 get released normally after...

particles was applied to the design by beating a hairbrush over top. The finished designs, which were thought to resemble human figures, clouds, or flying birds, were then transferred to the surface of a sheet of paper. An example of paper decorated with floating ink has never been found in China

China

. Whether or not the above methods employed floating colors remains to be determined (Tsien 94-5).

Su Yijian was an Imperial scholar-official and served as the chief of the Hanlin Academy

Hanlin Academy

The Hanlin Academy was an academic and administrative institution founded in the eighth century Tang dynasty China by Emperor Xuanzong.Membership in the academy was confined to an elite group of scholars, who performed secretarial and literary tasks for the court. One of its main duties was to...

from about 985-993 CE. He compiled the work from a wide variety of earlier sources, and was familiar with the subject, given his profession. Yet it is important to note that it is uncertain how personally acquainted he was with the various methods for making decorative papers that he compiled. He most likely reported information given to him, without having a full understanding of the methods used. His original source may have predated him by several centuries. Until the original sources that he quotes are more precisely determined, can it be possible to ascribe a firm date for the production of the papers mentioned by Su Yijian.
墨流し suminagashi, which means "floating ink" in Japanese is the oldest method of decorative paper made with floating colors that is known today. Author Einen Miura states that the oldest reference to suminagashi papers are in the waka poems of Shigeharu, (825-880 CE), a son of the famed Heian era poet Narihira (Muira 14). Various claims have been made regarding the origins of suminagashi. Some think that it may have originally come from China (Wolfe 6). Others have proposed that it may have derived from an early form of ink divination. Another theory is that the process may have derived from a form of popular entertainment at the time, in which a freshly painted sumi painting was immersed into water, and the ink slowly dispersed from the paper and rose to the surface, forming curious designs.

One individual has been often been claimed as the inventor of suminagashi. According to legend, Jizemon Hiroba felt he was divinely inspired to make suminagashi paper after he offered spiritual devotions at the Kasuga Shrine

Kasuga Shrine

is a Shinto shrine in the city of Nara, in Nara Prefecture, Japan. Established in 768 AD and rebuilt several times over the centuries, it is the shrine of the Fujiwara family...

in Nara Prefecture

Nara Prefecture

is a prefecture in the Kansai region on Honshū Island, Japan. The capital is the city of Nara.-History:The present-day Nara Prefecture was created in 1887, making it independent of Osaka Prefecture....

. It is said that he then wandered the country looking for the best water with which to make his papers. He arrived in Echizen

Echizen

Echizen may refer to:* Echizen Province, an old province of Japan* Echizen, Fukui, a city in Fukui Prefecture* Echizen, Fukui , a town adjacent to said city, in Fukui Prefecture* Nomura's jellyfish, also known as Echizen jellyfish...

, Fukui Prefecture

Fukui Prefecture

is a prefecture of Japan located in the Chūbu region on Honshū island. The capital is the city of Fukui.- Prehistory :The Kitadani Dinosaur Quarry, on the Sugiyama River within the city limits of Katsuyama, has yielded the Fukuiraptor kitadaniensis and Fukuisaurus tetoriensis as well as an unnamed...

where he found the water especially conducive to making suminagashi. So he settled there, and his family carried on with the tradition to this day. The Hiroba Family claims to have made this form of marbled paper since 1151 CE for 55 generations (Narita 14).

History in Central Asia and the Islamic World

In the 15th century the method of floating colors on the surface of mucilaginous sizing

Sizing

Sizing or size is any one of numerous specific substances that is applied to or incorporated in other material, especially papers and textiles, to act as a protecting filler or glaze....

is thought to have emerged in Central Asia

Central Asia

Central Asia is a core region of the Asian continent from the Caspian Sea in the west, China in the east, Afghanistan in the south, and Russia in the north...

. It is believed to have appeared during the end of the Islamic Timurid Dynasty

Timurid Dynasty

The Timurids , self-designated Gurkānī , were a Persianate, Central Asian Sunni Muslim dynasty of Turko-Mongol descent whose empire included the whole of Iran, modern Afghanistan, and modern Uzbekistan, as well as large parts of contemporary Pakistan, North India, Mesopotamia, Anatolia and the...

, whose final capital was in the city of Herat

Herat

Herāt is the capital of Herat province in Afghanistan. It is the third largest city of Afghanistan, with a population of about 397,456 as of 2006. It is situated in the valley of the Hari River, which flows from the mountains of central Afghanistan to the Karakum Desert in Turkmenistan...

, located in Afghanistan

Afghanistan

Afghanistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located in the centre of Asia, forming South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. With a population of about 29 million, it has an area of , making it the 42nd most populous and 41st largest nation in the world...

today. Other sources suggest it emerged during the subsequent Shaybanid dynasty, in the cities of Samarqand or Bukhara

Bukhara

Bukhara , from the Soghdian βuxārak , is the capital of the Bukhara Province of Uzbekistan. The nation's fifth-largest city, it has a population of 263,400 . The region around Bukhara has been inhabited for at least five millennia, and the city has existed for half that time...

, in what is now modern Uzbekistan

Uzbekistan

Uzbekistan , officially the Republic of Uzbekistan is a doubly landlocked country in Central Asia and one of the six independent Turkic states. It shares borders with Kazakhstan to the west and to the north, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan to the east, and Afghanistan and Turkmenistan to the south....

. Whether or not this method was somehow related to earlier Chinese

China

or Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

ese methods mentioned above has never been concretely proven.

This Islamic method came to be known as kâghaz-e abrî (كاغذ ابرى), although often the simplified form of abrî (ابرى), is also found in several historic texts. This was translated by the late scholar Dr. Annemarie Schimmel

Annemarie Schimmel

Annemarie Schimmel, SI, HI, was a well known and very influential German Orientalist and scholar, who wrote extensively on Islam and Sufism. She was a professor at Harvard University from 1967 to 1992.-Early life:...

to mean "clouded paper" in Persian. Certain Turkish

Turkey

Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...

writers have suggested that the word may be of Turkish

Turkish language

Turkish is a language spoken as a native language by over 83 million people worldwide, making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. Its speakers are located predominantly in Turkey and Northern Cyprus with smaller groups in Iraq, Greece, Bulgaria, the Republic of Macedonia, Kosovo,...

origin related to the word abreh ابره meaning "colorful" or "variegated", though this specific term has never been concretely proven to have been used in relation to the art. It may have been the case that both Persian

Persian language

Persian is an Iranian language within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. It is primarily spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and countries which historically came under Persian influence...

and Turkish

Turkish language

meanings were simultaneously understood by artisans, many of which were conversant in both languages at that time, and even enjoyed as an expression of poetic nuance. Most historical Persian

Persian language

and Turkish

Turkish language

texts known that refer to this kind of paper use
the word abrî alone. Today in Iran

Iran

Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...

it is often called abrû-bâd (ابرو باد), meaning "cloud and wind".

The art developed in Safavid Persia

Iran

and Ottoman

Ottoman Empire

The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...

Turkey

Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...

, as well as Mughal

Mughal Empire

The Mughal Empire ,‎ or Mogul Empire in traditional English usage, was an imperial power from the Indian Subcontinent. The Mughal emperors were descendants of the Timurids...

and the Deccan Sultanates

Deccan sultanates

The Deccan sultanates were five Muslim-ruled late medieval kingdoms—Bijapur, Golkonda, Ahmadnagar, Bidar, and Berar—of south-central India. The Deccan sultanates were located on the Deccan Plateau, between the Krishna River and the Vindhya Range. These kingdoms became independent during the breakup...

in India

India

. Within these regions, various methods emerged in which colors were made to float on the surface of a bath of viscous liquid mucilage or size, made from various plants. These include katheera or kitre- gum tragacanth (Astragalus

Astragalus

often used as a binder by apothecaries in making tablets), shambalîleh or methi- fenugreek

Fenugreek

Fenugreek is a plant in the family Fabaceae. Fenugreek is used both as a herb and as a spice . The leaves and sprouts are also eaten as vegetables...

seed (an ingredient in curry mixtures), and sahlab or salep

Salep

Salep is a flour made from grinding the dried tubers of the orchid genus Orchis . These tubers contain a nutritious starch-like polysaccharide called glucomannan. Salep flour is consumed today in beverages and desserts, primarily in Turkey and in places that were formerly part of the Ottoman...

(the roots of "Orchis mascula", which is commonly used to make a popular beverage). A method of manipulating colors evolved that employed various tools including rakes, combs, and other apparatus, utilized in a series of movements, resulted in incredibly elaborate, intricate, and mesmerizing designs. In India, the abri technique was eventually combined with aks, which are various methods of resist or stencils, to create unique and very rare form of miniature painting

Miniature painting

Miniature painting may refer to:* Miniature * Persian miniature* Ottoman miniature* Portrait miniature* Painting miniature figures used in wargaming or role-playing games...

. These are commonly associated with the Deccan region today, and especially the city of Bijapur

Bijapur, Karnataka

Bijapur Urdu:بیجاپور city is the district headquarters of Bijapur District of Karnataka state. Bijapur city is well known for its historical monuments of architectural importance built during the rule of Adil Shahi dynasty...

in particular, under Adil Shahi

Adil Shahi

The Adil Shahi or Adilshahi dynasty ruled the Sultanate of Bijapur in the Western area of the Deccan region of Southern India from 1490 to 1686. Bijapur had been a province of the Bahmani Sultanate , before its political decline in the last quarter of the 15th century and eventual break-up in 1518...

dynasty patronage in the 17th century. The topic of marbling in India

India

is understudied and conclusive determinations have yet to be made, especially in light of discoveries made in the last 20 years.

In Turkey

Turkey

Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...

, the art is widely known as ebru today, and continues to be very popular. The usage of this term appears in the late 19th century. The earliest examples of Ottoman Ebru are thought to be a copy of the Hâlnâmah حالنامه by the poet Arifi, popularly known as the Guy-i Çevgan or "Ball and Polo-stick". The text of this manuscript was rendered in a delicate cut paper découpage calligraphy by Mehmed bin Gazanfer and completed in 1540, and features many marbled and decorative paper borders. One early master by the name of Shebek is mention posthumously in the earliest Ottoman text on the art known as the Tertib-i Risâle-i Ebrî (ترطیبِ رسالۀ ابری), which is dated based on internal evidence to after 1615. Several recipes in the text are accredited to this master. Another famous 18th century master by the name of Hatip
Mehmed Effendi (d. 1773) is accredited with developing motif and perhaps early floral designs, although evidence from India appears to contradict some of these claims. Despite this, marbled motifs are commonly referred to as "Hatip" designs today in Turkey.

The current Turkish tradition of ebru dates to the mid 19th century, with a series of masters associated with a branch of the Naqshbandi

Naqshbandi

Naqshbandi is one of the major Sufi spiritual orders of Sufi Islam. It is considered to be a "Potent" order.The Naqshbandi order is over 1,300 years old, and is active today...

Sufi order based at what is known as the Özbekler Tekkesi, located in Sultantepe

Sultantepe, Istanbul

Sultantepe is a neighborhood in the municipality of Üsküdar on the Asian side of Istanbul, Turkey. The name Sultantepe means "sultan hill."...

, near Üsküdar

Üsküdar

Üsküdar is a large and densely populated municipality of Istanbul, Turkey, on the Anatolian shore of the Bosphorus. It is bordered on the north by Beykoz, on the east by Ümraniye, on the southeast by Ataşehir, on the south by Kadıköy, and on the west by the Bosphorus, with the areas of Beşiktaş,...

. The founder of this line is accredited to Sadık Effendi (d. 1846). It is said that he learned the art in Bukhara and taught it to his sons Edhem and Salıh. Based upon this, many Turkish marblers have stated that the art was perpetuated by Sufis for centuries, although evidence for this claim is has never been concretely established. "Hezarfen" Edhem Effendi (d. 1904) is attributed with developing the art as a kind of cottage industry for the tekke, to supply Istanbul's burgeoning printing industry with the decorative paper. It is said that the papers were tied into bundles and sold by weight. Many of these papers were of the neftli design, made with turpentine, an equivalent to what is called stormont in English.

The premier student of Edhem Effendi was Necmeddin Okyay (1885-1976). He was the first to teach the art at the Fine Arts Academy in Istanbul. He is famous for the development of floral styles of marbling, in addition to yazılı ebru a method of writing traditional calligraphy using a gum-resist method in conjunction with ebru. Okyay's premier student was Mustafa Düzgünman (1920-1990), the teacher of many contemporary marblers in Turkey today. He is known for codifying the traditional repertoire of patterns, to which he only added a floral daisy design, in the manner of his teacher.

History in Europe

In the 17th century European

European ethnic groups

The ethnic groups in Europe are the various ethnic groups that reside in the nations of Europe. European ethnology is the field of anthropology focusing on Europe....

travelers to the Middle East

Middle East

The Middle East is a region that encompasses Western Asia and Northern Africa. It is often used as a synonym for Near East, in opposition to Far East...

collected examples of these papers and bound them into alba amicorum, which literally means "books of friendship" in Latin, and is a forerunner of the modern autograph

Autograph

An autograph is a document transcribed entirely in the handwriting of its author, as opposed to a typeset document or one written by an amanuensis or a copyist; the meaning overlaps with that of the word holograph.Autograph also refers to a person's artistic signature...

album. Eventually the technique for making the papers reached Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

, where they became a popular covering material not only for book covers and end-papers, but also for lining chests, drawers, and bookshelves. The marbling of the edges of books was also a European adaptation of the art.

The unique methods of marbling attracted the curiosity of early scientists during the Renaissance

Renaissance

The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...

. While the earliest published account was written in German by Daniel Schwenter

Daniel Schwenter

Daniel Schwenter was a German Orientalist, mathematician, inventor, poet, and librarian. He was professor of oriental languages and mathematics at the University of Altdorf...

, it wasn't published in his Delicæ Physico-Mathematicæ until 1671 (Wolfe, 16). A brief description of the art by Athanasius Kircher

Athanasius Kircher

Athanasius Kircher was a 17th century German Jesuit scholar who published around 40 works, most notably in the fields of oriental studies, geology, and medicine...

, published in Ars Magna Lucis et Umbræ in Rome in 1646, rapidly spread throughout Europe. (ibid) A thorough overview of the art with illustrations of marblers at work, and images of the tools of the trade was published in the Encyclopédie
Encyclopédie
Encyclopédie, ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers was a general encyclopedia published in France between 1751 and 1772, with later supplements, revised editions, and translations. It was edited by Denis Diderot and Jean le Rond d'Alembert...

of Denis Diderot

Denis Diderot

Denis Diderot was a French philosopher, art critic, and writer. He was a prominent person during the Enlightenment and is best known for serving as co-founder and chief editor of and contributor to the Encyclopédie....

and Jean le Rond d'Alembert

Jean le Rond d'Alembert

Jean-Baptiste le Rond d'Alembert was a French mathematician, mechanician, physicist, philosopher, and music theorist. He was also co-editor with Denis Diderot of the Encyclopédie...

.
The art became a popular handicraft in the 19th century after the English

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

maker Charles Woolnough published his The Art of Marbling (1853). In it, he describes how he adapted a method of marbling onto book-cloth, which he exhibited at the Crystal Palace Exhibition in 1851. (Wolfe, 79) Further developments in the art were made by Josef Halfer, a bookbinder of German origin, who lived in Budakeszi

Budakeszi

Budakeszi is a town in Pest County, in the Budapest metropolitan area, Hungary. It is located beyond the Jánoshegy hill at the western city limits of Budapest, about west of the Zero Kilometre Stone in the city centre...

, in Hungary. It was Halfer who discovered a method for preserving carrageenan, and his methods superseded earlier ones in Europe and the US.

Marbled paper is still made today, and the method is now applied to fabric and three-dimensional surfaces, as well as paper. Aside from continued traditional applications, artists now explore using the method as a kind of painting technique, and as an element in collage

Collage

A collage is a work of formal art, primarily in the visual arts, made from an assemblage of different forms, thus creating a new whole....

. In the last two decades, marbling has been the subject of international symposia and museum exhibitions. An active international group can be found on Yahoo! Groups, as well as the Society of Marbling, an organization of practicing marblers.

Further References

Videos demonstrating various marbling techniques.

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.