TOOLS AND EQUIPMENT 297
Manikin, a jointed figure of human shape but with only a general resemblance
to the human form, used by painters as models, particularly for arrangement of
costume and drapery. The manikin, as manufactured and sold today, is different
from the lay figure in having a much more mechanical appearance, being of wood
and openly jointed. There is no distinction of sex and no description of muscles
or of any superficial refinements of form. The modern commercially made manikin
for painters is of wood and varies in size from a height of about a foot to more
than five feet.
Although collections of ancient art show many jointed figures, particularly
those of small scale, there is no definite indication that these were ever used as
manikins. Meder (pp. 551 fF.) speaks of the use of manikins and refers to a wooden
female figure, carefully carved and so jointed that it was obviously used as a
manikin, made in the XVI century and now at Innsbruck. Another is shown in
a drawing by Adrian van Ostade. Michael Sweerts, active in the second quarter
of the .XVII century, made many paintings of studio interiors. One in the Cook
collection (Richmond, England) shows a student making a copy. Around him is an
assembly of paraphernalia, including what seems to be a life-size manikin.
Metal Point. The stylus of metal (figure 25) was a common tool for drawing
and for writing in ancient times, and the discovery that a metal point drawn over
an abrasive surface left a fine line, must have been made centuries before any
historical evidence appears for its general use. Drawing with a point of silver or of
lead, copper, or gold depends upon a surface which has been constructed in such
a way that it will abrade away and hold a small deposit of such a metal when that
is moved over it. A great variety of means has been found for producing surfaces
of this kind on wooden panels to be used for practice by apprentices, or on parch-
ment or paper for the work of their masters. Chalk and calcined bone bound with
a weak size and coated over such a surface were among the many in common use.
Some of the metals, particularly silver and copper, leave a mark that grows darker
with time as the abraded grains of the metal corrode. It is probable that the over-
whelming reference to silver point in descriptive literature gives it slightly too
great a prominence. Frequently there is no distinction among metals and drawing
with any one of them is referred to as silver point.
Miniver, a hair formerly used in brush making. The word has been connected
with the ermine, but apparently referred also to other plain white furs used in
trimmings of ceremonial costumes. Cennino Cennini (C. LXIIII, Thompson, p.
20) says, 'In our profession we have to use two kinds of brushes: minever brushes,
and hog's-bristle brushes.'
Mirror. Commonly employed by etchers in order to have a reflected image of
the model or landscape and so to avoid transposition in the final print from the
plate, the mirror is also used extensively by painters. It has the value of giving a
kind of distance and isolation to the work when a painting in progress is studied