Digital BW, The Print

John,

I've heard a couple of things that relate to very old papers holding up
rather well.  First, as you noted, most were made from fibers that are
lignin free.  The use of trees to make paper is apparently relatively new --
some say a result of the massive amounts of paper needed for the newspaper
industry.

I've also heard that some of the papers that have held up best were
processed in water that had a relatively high calcium carbonate content.
So, the paper ended up being naturally buffered even though the people who
made the paper probably didn't have a clue that the water they were using
was particularly suitable for what they were doing.

I suspect the main weakness in the papers we use is the coating.  If that
coating pops off an archival cotton paper, the longevity of the cotton base
is irrelevant.  It's comforting that Wilhelm is now doing accelerated aging
of the paper as well as the fade testing of the inks.  However, accuracy of
accelerated aging is said by some to be even more questionable than that of
accelerated fading.

Paul
www.PaulRoark.com 

______________________

-----Original Message-----
From: john dean [mailto:deanwork2003@...] 
Sent: Sunday, October 03, 2004 9:28 AM
To: DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [Digital BW] Pauls Paper Insights



Thanks for the ideas about ob's, paper components, and lignin. I thought
Hahnemuhle was 
coming out with a Photo Rag that was OB free. The new one is not that.

I used to work in a museum where I was able to hold Rembrant etchings, 18th
Century 
European lithographs, and Durer renaissance engravings in my hands and look
at them 
closely. In the case of the Durer etchings, they were produced around 1500
and showed a 
little darkening, but not what I would describe as yellowing. The Rembrant's
were a very 
slight warmish value, possibly from the very beginnig, but also not what I
would describe 
as  yellowish. I assume these and the other hundreds of ink prints from that
collection 
were printed on a cotton based rag type paper, even in an era when almost
nothing was 
known about conservation. They held up very well indeed.

Similarly, in Asian art, the standard media was usually so called "rice
paper" which was 
usually made from bamboo stalks, and later mulberry tree fiber. There are
thousands of 
examples of prints in China and Japan done with carbon pigment in brush
calligraphy 
paintings that have held up extremely well, in many cases without real
staining, even in 
harsh, moist, and who knows what  revolutionary conditions for many
hundreds, if not 
thousands of years ( of course they didn't have the same air pollution that
we contend 
with.)

Wouldn't it  be nice if conservators could analyze the artworks from both
Western and 
Eastern sources that have survived well and outline for us what the
properties are that 
make some more stable than others. Storage conditions would certainly
contribute and 
would have to be factored in, as you suggest with your silver prints in the
drawer.

John






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