02-11-2008, 07:59 PM
Can't help you with archeological finds, but I have manageed to unearth a few depictions that may help if you can track them down (my camera's sick ATM).
A red-figure vase dating to c. 475-450 BC shows painters at work (on vases) using relatively short brushes. The handles are about twice the length of a handbreadth and the thickness of a finger, without noticeable taper. The tips have the typical 'pointy foxtail' shape today seen in hair paintbrushes (rather than the flat or conrtoured shape of bristle brushes) and look about two fingerbreaths long and a little thicker than a finger at the widest point. The painters are holding them with all fingers as though in a fist, loosely, not like the modern position held between thumb and index and resting on the middle finger. The image is from Die Arbeitswelt der Antike (Authors' Collective of the Martin-Luther-University Halle-WEittenberg, Leipzig 1983, p. 63 qand the original item is in the Milan Museum (no further details given)).
Another vase painting dating to c. 450-425 BC and attributed to the Komaris master also shows a painter at work with a similar brush. It is held in a similar position (in fist, thumb upwards, point down) and here the juncture between handle and hair is marked by a clear taper of the handle and two parallel lines that probably indicate binding with some kind of string. The image is Plate 40 from the same book and the original is in the Ashmolean museum (no further details given).
The author portrait of the Vienna Dioscurides (fol 5v) also ahows a painter at work, at a modern-looking easel. His brush is about the same length as the previously mentioned ones, but thin (only about half the thickness of a finger I guess) and seems to have a marked binding between the light wood of the handle and the dark hair, again with its characteristic foxtail shape. It is held in the 'modern' style between thumb and forefinger, point down.
A red-figure vase dating to c. 475-450 BC shows painters at work (on vases) using relatively short brushes. The handles are about twice the length of a handbreadth and the thickness of a finger, without noticeable taper. The tips have the typical 'pointy foxtail' shape today seen in hair paintbrushes (rather than the flat or conrtoured shape of bristle brushes) and look about two fingerbreaths long and a little thicker than a finger at the widest point. The painters are holding them with all fingers as though in a fist, loosely, not like the modern position held between thumb and index and resting on the middle finger. The image is from Die Arbeitswelt der Antike (Authors' Collective of the Martin-Luther-University Halle-WEittenberg, Leipzig 1983, p. 63 qand the original item is in the Milan Museum (no further details given)).
Another vase painting dating to c. 450-425 BC and attributed to the Komaris master also shows a painter at work with a similar brush. It is held in a similar position (in fist, thumb upwards, point down) and here the juncture between handle and hair is marked by a clear taper of the handle and two parallel lines that probably indicate binding with some kind of string. The image is Plate 40 from the same book and the original is in the Ashmolean museum (no further details given).
The author portrait of the Vienna Dioscurides (fol 5v) also ahows a painter at work, at a modern-looking easel. His brush is about the same length as the previously mentioned ones, but thin (only about half the thickness of a finger I guess) and seems to have a marked binding between the light wood of the handle and the dark hair, again with its characteristic foxtail shape. It is held in the 'modern' style between thumb and forefinger, point down.
Der Kessel ist voll Bärks!
Volker Bach
Volker Bach
