Easel
October 17th, 2007 at 1:52 am (Shopping Services)
Easels are used to serve as support while you repair or create an object resting upon it. Most of the time, easels are being used as a stand to place the painting that an artist is working on. Easels should contain the right height and angle so that the artist will not have a hard time working on his or her work of art.
Just like any modern day tool, easel had its share of colorful history. It came from a very simple and practical tool used by men for their own comfort. Eventually, this simple tool evolved into the different types of easels that we use and know today.
The word easel came from an old German word that is synonymous to donkey. This is the only word with an equivalent for other languages that refers to either a donkey or an apparatus. For example, the Dutch equivalent word ezel means painter???s donkey.
Some historians believed that the use of easels could be traced from the days cavemen still exist. They believe that cavemen used trees to serve as their easels to get a better view of the scratches or doodles that they created.
Ancient Egyptians were also one the first group of people to use easels. It was believed that easels were used as a stand for their hieroglyphics. What???s more amazing is that ancient Egyptians used their own body to create their own easels. Aside from using easels for their hieroglyphics, tomb carvings show paintings with easel-like structures being used during speech, orations or any scholar-related work.
As man progresses, more and more versions of easels are seen. The feature and the physical traits of the easels are also improving. There are paintings showing women weaving using their version of easels.
During the ancient times, there are various ways of using easels. However, it is in the field of painting that easels were commonly used. There are more records proving that easels are widely used by painters. Usage of easels during painting gave birth to a term in art called easel painting.
Experts referred easel painting as a fine-arts form that allows a painter to continue with his work of art despite being indoors. They said that easels also gave them the idea that artwork such as paintings could be seen hanging on walls. It should be noted that during the early years, paintings are usually seen on murals and were not framed.
Modern day easels are usually made up of wood, steel or aluminum. There are two common designs for easels nowadays and these could be either the tripod designs or H-frame designs. The tripod designs are easels with three legs while the H-frame designs are easels with posts parallel to each other.
These days, usage of easels did not become limited for paintings only, despite the fact that it was widely used in that field. Aside from being usable as a chalkboard, podium or book stands, easels are also being seen in different restaurants as furniture.
