Stone rubbing is the practice of creating an image of surface features of a stone on paper. The image records features such as natural textures, inscribed patterns or lettering. By rubbing hard rendering materials over the paper, pigment is deposited over protrusions and on edges; depressions remain unpigmented since the pliable paper moves away from the rendering material. Common rendering materials include rice paper, charcoal, wax, graphite or inksticks. Over time, the practice of stone rubbing can cause permanent damage to cultural monuments due to abrasion. [citation needed] For an artist, stone rubbings can become an entire body of creative work that is framed and displayed.
Rubbings are commonly made by visitors to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.[1] Visitors use pencil and paper to capture the name of a family member or friend who died during the Vietnam War as it appears on the wall. The rubbing forms a type of souvenir.
Technique
A stone rubbing (graphite on paper) for documentation of a petroglyph
The paper that has been used by Chinese scholars to transfer the calligraphy from stones is made from plant fiber. It can be used in two ways to retrieve the calligraphy. One way requires the paper to be dry and then adhered to the stone through a paste made with water and a starch that is made from rice or wheat. The paper is then tamped into the engravings on the stone. The other technique requires the paper to be wet and tamped into the engravings without a paste.[2]
After doing either of these techniques, an ink, created through grinding an ink stick and adding water one drop at a time to achieve the ideal consistency, is used to retrieve the calligraphy. The ink is stippled on with a cloth filled with the ink. The ink covers the paper without sinking into the engravings. When the paper is peeled off, the calligraphy engravings come out white, while everything else is black from the ink.[2]
More commonly, people use butcher paper to create stone rubbings. The butcher paper is usually taped on to the stone or grave, which contains the inscription desired, with either masking or paint tape. Then, usually, charcoal or crayon is rubbed over the stone or grave, leaving the engravings untouched by the crayon. When the butcher paper is removed, the inscriptions should be readable because they are not marked with the crayon.[3]
It can be helpful to clean the stone beforehand, to ensure optimum results. A soft brush and water is usually what works best to cleanse the stones. One should not use stiff or hard brushes, as they can scratch the stone. Also, one should not use cleaning solutions or mild detergents on the stones, as they can damage the stone.[4]
When stone rubbing, one should be careful with stones that are deteriorating, as they can collapse under pressure.[4]
Gravestone rubbing
Gravestone rubbing also applies this technique to gravestones, often as a method of retrieving and conserving information about genealogy. For a genealogist, a gravestone rubbing may become a permanent record of death when a gravestone is rapidly deteriorating.
Gravestone rubbing can be used to teach about local history. The stone's condition, art, and inscription can tell what was going on in an area at a specific time. Studying multiple gravestones in one specific area can give even more information about history.[4]
Stone rubbing of anthropomorphic stele no 10, Sion, Petit-Chasseur necropolis, Neolithic
Stone rubbing of anthropomorphic stele no 20, Sion, Petit-Chasseur necropolis, Neolithic
Stone rubbing of anthropomorphic stele no 18, Sion, Petit-Chasseur necropolis, Neolithic
Stone rubbing of anthropomorphic stele no 15, Sion, Petit-Chasseur necropolis, Neolithic
1 2 Perkins, Dorothy. “stone rubbings, Chinese.” Encyclopedia of China: The Essential Reference to China, Its History and Culture. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 1998. Ancient and Medieval History Online. Facts On File, Inc. 28 Jan. 2010 <>.
Printmaking is the process of creating artworks by printing, normally on paper, but also on fabric, wood, metal, and other surfaces. "Traditional printmaking" normally covers only the process of creating prints using a hand processed technique, rather than a photographic reproduction of a visual artwork which would be printed using an electronic machine ; however, there is some cross-over between traditional and digital printmaking, including risograph.
Calligraphy is a visual art related to writing. It is the design and execution of lettering with a pen, ink brush, or other writing instrument. Contemporary calligraphic practice can be defined as "the art of giving form to signs in an expressive, harmonious, and skillful manner".
Woodcut is a relief printing technique in printmaking. An artist carves an image into the surface of a block of wood—typically with gouges—leaving the printing parts level with the surface while removing the non-printing parts. Areas that the artist cuts away carry no ink, while characters or images at surface level carry the ink to produce the print. The block is cut along the wood grain. The surface is covered with ink by rolling over the surface with an ink-covered roller (brayer), leaving ink upon the flat surface but not in the non-printing areas.
Drypoint is a printmaking technique of the intaglio family, in which an image is incised into a plate with a hard-pointed "needle" of sharp metal or diamond point. In principle, the method is practically identical to engraving. The difference is in the use of tools, and that the raised ridge along the furrow is not scraped or filed away as in engraving. Traditionally the plate was copper, but now acetate, zinc, or plexiglas are also commonly used. Like etching, drypoint is easier to master than engraving for an artist trained in drawing because the technique of using the needle is closer to using a pencil than the engraver's burin.
Stationery refers to commercially manufactured writing materials, including cut paper, envelopes, writing implements, continuous form paper, and other office supplies. Stationery includes materials to be written on by hand or by equipment such as computer printers.
Sion is a Swiss town, a municipality, and the capital of the canton of Valais and of the district of Sion. As of December 2020 it had a population of 34,978.
A stele, or occasionally stela when derived from Latin, is a stone or wooden slab, generally taller than it is wide, erected in the ancient world as a monument. The surface of the stele often has text, ornamentation, or both. These may be inscribed, carved in relief, or painted.
Chinese calligraphy is the writing of Chinese characters as an art form, combining purely visual art and interpretation of the literary meaning. This type of expression has been widely practiced in China and has been generally held in high esteem across East Asia. Calligraphy is considered one of the four most-sought skills and hobbies of ancient Chinese literati, along with playing stringed musical instruments, the board game "Go", and painting. There are some general standardizations of the various styles of calligraphy in this tradition. Chinese calligraphy and ink and wash painting are closely related: they are accomplished using similar tools and techniques, and have a long history of shared artistry. Distinguishing features of Chinese painting and calligraphy include an emphasis on motion charged with dynamic life. According to Stanley-Baker, "Calligraphy is sheer life experienced through energy in motion that is registered as traces on silk or paper, with time and rhythm in shifting space its main ingredients." Calligraphy has also led to the development of many forms of art in China, including seal carving, ornate paperweights, and inkstones.
The Lantingji Xu, or Lanting Xu, is a piece of Chinese calligraphy work generally considered to be written by the well-known calligrapher Wang Xizhi (303–361) from the Eastern Jin dynasty (317–420).
In the Sinosphere, seals (stamps) can be applied on objects to establish personal identification. They are commonly applied on items such as personal documents, office paperwork, contracts, and art. They are used similarly to signatures in the West. Unlike in the West, where wax seals are common, Sinosphere seals are used with ink.
The Great Mosque of Xi'an is one of the largest premodern mosques in China. Although the mosque was first built in the year 742 AD during the Tang dynasty, its current form was largely constructed in 1384 AD during Emperor Hongwu's reign of the Ming dynasty, as recorded by the Records of Xi'an Municipality (西安府志).
A writing implement or writing instrument is an object used to produce writing. Writing consists of different figures, lines, and or forms. Most of these items can be also used for other functions such as painting, drawing and technical drawing, but writing instruments generally have the ordinary requirement to create a smooth, controllable line.
The Gwanggaeto Stele is a memorial stele for the tomb of Gwanggaeto the Great of Goguryeo, erected in 414 by his son Jangsu. This monument to Gwanggaeto the Great is the largest engraved stele in the world. It stands near the tomb of Gwanggaeto in the present-day city of Ji'an along the Yalu River in Jilin Province, Northeast China, which was the capital of Goguryeo at that time. It is carved out of a single mass of granite, stands approximately 6.39m tall and has a girth of almost four meters. The inscription is written exclusively in Classical Chinese.
A rubbing (frottage) is a reproduction of the texture of a surface created by placing a piece of paper or similar material over the subject and then rubbing the paper with something to deposit marks, most commonly charcoal or pencil but also various forms of blotted and rolled ink, chalk, wax, and many other substances. For all its simplicity, the technique can be used to produce blur-free images of minuscule elevations and depressions on areas of any size in a way that can hardly be matched by even the most elaborate, state-of-the-art methods. In this way, surface elevations measuring only a few thousandths of a millimeter can be made visible.
The history of printing starts as early as 3000 BCE, when the proto-Elamite and Sumerian civilizations used cylinder seals to certify documents written in clay tablets. Other early forms include block seals, hammered coinage, pottery imprints, and cloth printing. Initially a method of printing patterns on cloth such as silk, woodblock printing for texts on paper originated in China by the 7th century during the Tang dynasty, leading to the spread of book production and woodblock printing in other parts of Asia such as Korea and Japan. The Chinese Buddhist Diamond Sutra, printed by woodblock on 11 May 868, is the earliest known printed book with a precise publishing date. Movable type was invented by Chinese artisan Bi Sheng in the 11th century during the Song dynasty, but it received limited use compared to woodblock printing. However, the use of copper movable types was documented in a Song-era book from 1193, and the earliest printed paper money using movable metal type to print the identifying codes were made in 1161. The technology also spread outside China, with the oldest extant printed book using metal movable type being the Jikji, printed in Korea in 1377 during the Goryeo era.
Cliff inscriptions are inscriptions on mountainsides of Chinese characters, often done by famous people on special occasions or as decorations. They are of tremendous historic importance as both evidence of the presence of certain people, such as famous writers, or events as well as of the Chinese script's regional, temporal, or personal variations. Being in stone they are less prone to destruction than paper and so preserve the time in which they were made offering posterity unique glimpses into the past. Additionally, along with Chinese calligraphy, they are an art form meriting study and part of a highly specialized field within art which requires both skills in calligraphy and stone carving. The methods are likely similar to calligraphy stele or 碑 bēi, such as can be found in Xi'an's Stele Forest.
The visual arts are art forms such as painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, ceramics, photography, video, filmmaking, comics, design, crafts, and architecture. Many artistic disciplines, such as performing arts, conceptual art, and textile arts, also involve aspects of the visual arts as well as arts of other types. Also included within the visual arts are the applied arts, such as industrial design, graphic design, fashion design, interior design, and decorative art.
Le Petit Chasseur is the name of a megalithic site in Sion, Valais, Switzerland. Discovered in 1961, it consists of three dolmen, dated to between 2900 and 2200 BC. It is associated with the Saône-Rhône culture, part of the local late Chalcolithic phase . The younger parts of the site are associated with the Bell Beaker horizon, including a cemetery with the remains of about 90 individuals.
The Shaolin Monastery Stele is a tablet inscribed front and back to obtain two faces of continuous text in Chinese characters. The total engravable surface is about 10 m2 (110 sq ft). The name was in use by later scholars studying the Tang dynasty (618–907), who understood the tablet to be an important primary source on early Tang dynasty events. It is being presented by many writers of the current times as the first source indicating that the professedly pacific monks did in fact participate in dynastic wars.
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