Art.
WE will now touch lightly on the subject of Art.
In the present day one of the most indispensable accessories to art is Paper.
It is a curious fact that we have no records as to the time when paper was first invented. The Egyptian papyrus we do not consider, as it was not paper in our sense of the word, although we have retained the name.
Paper is a vegetable fibre carefully disintegrated, made into a pulp with water, and then dried in thin sheets. As is the case with many arts, China seems to have taken the lead in paper manufacture, and we are even now indebted to that country for the “India Paper” on which the finest proofs of engravings are taken. This paper is made from the inner bark of the bamboo. “Rice Paper,” so called, is not paper at all, but only a kind of pith cut spirally, and flattened by pressure.
There is scarcely any vegetable fibre of which paper cannot be made, and various plants have been suggested for this purpose, such as the stinging-nettle, cabbage-stalks, hop-bines, the waste of sugar-cane, sawdust, &c. Straw has already been successfully used, and so has Esparto grass.
Some years ago, when there was a scarcity of material for paper-making, the well-known Grass-wrack of our shores (Zostera marina) was brought into partial use. I believe, however, that the experiment was not a successful one. The Chinese make their paper of bamboo, macerating and pounding it until it is reduced to a pulp, and then shaken into fibres in a mould.
With us, white paper, such as is used by the writer, printer, or artist, is made almost exclusively of cotton or linen rags. Upwards of a hundred and twenty thousand tons weight of rags are annually consumed in this country for the manufacture of paper. After being bleached, they are torn and ground into a pulp, which is then handed over to the actual maker.
The illustration represents paper-making by hand, a process which is now rarely used, except for special kinds of paper. Omitting technical details, the mode of paper-making by hand is as follows:—The pulp being prepared, the workman takes a “mould,” i.e. a frame with a bottom of closely woven wire. Having put into the mould a sufficient quantity of pulp, he shakes the mould so as to spread the pulp evenly over the surface. The water runs away between the wires, the sheet of pulp is transferred to a piece of felt, and when it is dry it becomes paper. If a sheet of ordinary note-paper be held up to the light, the marks of the wires are plainly perceptible. The so-called “water-mark” is due to wires twisted into the requisite shape.