Bull's Head and Mermaid - The Bernstein Project - Österreichische ...
Bull's Head and Mermaid - The Bernstein Project - Österreichische ...
Bull's Head and Mermaid - The Bernstein Project - Österreichische ...
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Ill. 2: Schematized rendering of a papermaking mould (based on Piccard)<br />
Less paper pulp accumulates on the wires than in the free<br />
spaces between them. Likewise, the paper is more transparent<br />
where wire figures have been attached to the screen’s<br />
grid to create a watermark. It was noted by Piccard that<br />
strictly speaking two watermarks are produced when making<br />
paper: on one h<strong>and</strong> he is referring to the prints of the<br />
screen’s laid <strong>and</strong> chain-lines, which are a technical feature<br />
as well as the main characteristic of h<strong>and</strong>made paper, <strong>and</strong><br />
on the other h<strong>and</strong>, the transparent forms created by the<br />
deliberate fastening of wire figures to the screen, producing<br />
watermarks (Piccard spoke of ’paper marks’) in the usual<br />
sense of the word.<br />
When the mould is lifted out of the watery paper pulp in<br />
the dipping vat, the water flows off through suction <strong>and</strong><br />
the linen pulp (rag pulp) remains on the screen, forming a<br />
new material: a piece of paper (Ill. 3). It contains the watermark<br />
as well as a print of the chain-lines (warp wires), seen<br />
in the warp lines, <strong>and</strong> the laid-lines (ribbing wires), seen in<br />
the ribbed lines (Bannasch). Usually two workers are involved<br />
in the process of making paper: One is the vatman,<br />
who is responsible for dipping the mould into the vat filled<br />
with water <strong>and</strong> fibre pulp (the ’slurry’) <strong>and</strong> who carefully<br />
shakes the contents so that the pulp is spread evenly over<br />
the screen. <strong>The</strong> other is the couchman, who then takes the<br />
mould containing the paper pulp from the vatman. While<br />
the vatman repeats the first step with a new screen, the<br />
couchman lays a sheet of felt over the fibres in the mould<br />
<strong>and</strong> couches the fibres on the screen onto a ready piece of<br />
felt by turning the mould over. A second sheet of felt is laid<br />
over the wet sheet of paper so that the next piece of paper<br />
can be couched directly on top of it.<br />
Thus, for reasons of efficiency, two screens were used to<br />
work at one dipping vat, <strong>and</strong> consequently there were two<br />
wire figures forming watermarks. Sheets of paper that were<br />
made in this way therefore show two variants of a single<br />
watermark, a watermark pair. It was possible for two workers<br />
at one vat to make up to five thous<strong>and</strong> sheets of paper<br />
during a twelve-hour workday (Jaffé). As soon as a taller<br />
stack of fresh sheets of paper <strong>and</strong> the felt separating them<br />
had piled up, this ’post’ was pressed. In this way the weight<br />
could be reduced by nearly half. In a second pressing, after<br />
the felt was removed <strong>and</strong> the correspondingly smaller post<br />
of paper sheets was laid in the press, the dipping water<br />
was pressed out nearly completely. <strong>The</strong> paper was then<br />
brought to a drying attic to dry completely. <strong>The</strong>re the sheets<br />
were hung on lines with the help of a wooden cross. In a<br />
final step, each sheet of paper was coated with a layer of<br />
starch paste, smoothed out again <strong>and</strong> packed for transporting.<br />
Tschudin has estimated that a mould had a work life of<br />
maximum two years; larger moulds were considered more<br />
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