Detail of Hendrik Goltzius’ Vulcanus (1592), showing the dotted lozenge style of rendering tone
There are many drawing styles with long historical pedigrees of use (e.g. the return and hook strokes discussed in the earlier post, Passion in a Line), but one style that has virtually disappeared from use is the dotted lozenge (shown in the detail above). This distinctive style for rendering the effects of light and shade on a subject involves the artist in initially laying down a matrix of cross-hatched strokes (i.e. a set of parallel lines overlaid by another set of parallel lines aligned at an angle to the lines underneath as shown in the diagram below) and then inserting a dot in the centre of the diamond-shapes (lozenges) created in the cross-hatched matrix (see further below). The following discussion traces the evolution of this style and proposes some of the advantages for its use in the hope that the style may be revived with fresh applications for digital illustration.
Dotted lozenge style of rendering
(left) Durer's line and dot style of rendering
(right) Detail of Durer’s Adam and Eve, 1504
Even Durer’s style had it predecessors with engravers like the Master of the Playing Cards (active c.1425–50) who used parallel lines of varying length to represent tonal changes (see detail below of Saint Sebastian by the Master of the Playing Cards).
left) Master of the Playing Cards’ parallel lines of varying length style of rendering
(right) Detail of Master of the Playing Cards’ Saint Sebastian, c. 1425–50
(left) Campagnola’s dotted manner (stippling) of rendering
(right) Detail of Campagnola’s Venus Reclining in a Landscape, c.1508–09
(left) Master ES’ cross-hatching style
(right) Detail of Master ES’ The Visitation, c.1450
This style of cross-hatching then evolved with Martin Schongauer (c.1448–1491) whose prints were the first to feature curved lines lightly delineating the contours of the subject in the cross-hatched strokes (see diagram and detail below of Schongauer’s Christ as the Man of Sorrows between The Virgin Mary and St John).
(left) Schongauer’s curved cross-hatching style
(right) Detail of Schongauer’s Christ as the Man of Sorrows between The Virgin Mary and St John, c.1471–73
(left) Callot’s swelling style of line
(right) Detail of Callot’s The Nobleman with Fur coat, 1624
Detail of Goltzius’ Marcurius
Detail of Goltzius’ Marcurius
The flexibility of the dotted lozenge for showing the extremes of tone from the darkest shadows to brilliant light and its flexibility to express vitality by virtue of the swelling lines made the style popular with artists. This was especially true around the time of Goltzius as by 1585 there was strong interest in the expressive potential of theatrical exaggeration typifying the period style of Mannerism. For the Mannerists, such as Bartholomeus (Bartholomaeus) Spranger (1546–1611), whose paintings Goltzius translated into prints, the plasticity of modelling that the swelling line provided and the precision that the placement of the dots permitted lead to a new phrase in the art lexicon for describing the ultimate form of vitality: Sprangerism—a term exemplified by displays of voluminous muscles, contortion of the subject and bravura in laying closely aligned marks to render form.
Beyond providing the artists with a very adaptable style, there is another interesting outcome that has important ramifications when using the dotted lozenge: the placement of dots into the matrix of cross-hatching helps to prevent the formation of moiré patterns. These patterns arise when two sets of parallel lines are overlaid but they are most noticeable when the parallel lines in each set are spaced close together and the sets of lines are overlaid at very slight angle to each other.
Detail of Goltzius’ Vulcanus showing moiré patterns in the cross-hatched background
Dotted lozenge as bas-relief
Dotted lozenge with blur (upper image) and lens flare (lower image)
Dotted lozenge with transition from negative (white) lines to positive (black) lines