What do the resistant fibers and delicate flowers of the plant have in common Hemp with painters such as Picasso, Rembrandt e Caravaggio?
The much maligned plant has always been part of our universe; as we have already said in a previous article, it was widely used in industry, in pharmacy, and as a recreational substance, but we have not yet mentioned its use in the arts, with which one can paint, create supports, and canvases but which has also been the protagonist: model for celebration, undisputed figure in art.
A large plant that has accompanied us for millennia, a unique, emblematic and wonderful case, even traces of it can be found in the Neolithic. Its use as a recreational substance dates back to the 17th century, when it was used mixed with tobacco, due to the high cost of the latter. Cannabis was easier to find and cost less, so a part of the population including sailors, soldiers and artists made it a popular pastime among the strata of Northern European society. In the museums of Amsterdam or Barcelona it is possible to admire many paintings by artists who specialized in the depiction of smokers, in "smokers' houses": the 17th century coffee houses. The Flemish painter Adriaen Brouwer (1606-1638) was known for his depictions of scenes of everyday life, his famous painting "The Smokers" is kept at Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City and shows the moment in which characters sitting at a table are intent on consuming mugs of beer and smoking.
Despite his early death, Brouwer's talent and taste for human comedy earned him the esteem of other artists and he had a lasting influence on genre painting. In this famous canvas, Brouwer himself (center foreground) plays one of his typical revelers, apparently surprised by the spectator's intrusion onto the scene. In addition to his comic genius, Brouwer masterfully displays an array of ephemeral effects, ranging from curling smoke to grimacing. The man on the right, dressed in black and white, is his friend Jan de Heem, who specialized in depicting still lifes.
Smoking was widespread, so much so Pope Urban VII he published the first ban, in 1950, shortly before his death, in which he announced that anyone who consumed smoking, eating or taking tobacco in or near a church risked excommunication. The government also threatened the gallows, but there were also convinced supporters of the time that smoking had a healing effect on body and soul.
Brouwer's depictions of the faces of gamblers or tavern hustlers, so close to the grotesque, caricatured and dramatic, were a major influence on his contemporaries in Antwerp and Haarlem, including David Teniers with the painting "Smoking in the hostel". Rubens and Rembrandt also praised Brouwer's work, of which only around sixty undated works have survived.
An inscription related to the Cannabis plant was found in a cave dating back to Neolithic, as at that time part of the Asian population emigrated from Korea to Japan, bringing with them shamanism, which was later transformed into Shintoism.
Returning to the modern era, a painting of Pierre Duval Le Camus entitled "Paysans occupès à prèparer le chanvre devant la porte d'une chaumière", depicts a mother with a child in her arms and other characters who use the "gremola": a wooden tool for breaking the woody stem of hemp. The artist too Theodore von Hormann (1840-1895) delighted in the depiction of this plant, and did so by painting a phase of the plant's processing, now disused: the immersion of the plant in water, title of the work: "Immersion du Chanvre".
This plant was not only designed, but was also used for build the canvases on which to then paint,
and also to make oil paints, there are many users of cannabis fiber Leonardo da Vinci, Caravaggio, Rembrandt, Van Gogh e Picasso.
The canvas on which to paint was once made up of intertwined linen, hemp or jute fibres, but today materials such as cotton or synthetic fiber are used. The different textures and weaves of the fabrics allow for different renderings of the painting, fine ones such as linen allow for meticulousness, while hemp and jute, on the other hand, are suitable for freer executions. Hemp is a resistant fiber that is the envy of many other less robust fibres. Hemp canvases have the ability to resist mould, humidity and impacts, and they also do not absorb light and therefore manage to keep a work of art intact with all its characteristics for a very long time. In painting it is therefore a truly important resource and many artists continue to choose it for their works, above all for its excellent durability over time and color resistance.
Michelangelo he used hemp as a base to paint the Sistine Chapel, the Last Judgment and also for their colors, which in fact are brighter and more resistant to the inexorable passage of time. This has allowed these works to cross the centuries to reach us.
In 1600 the great demand for canvases led to the creation of less expensive supports, the main production center was the city of Naples, where linen was replaced by hemp which remained the undisputed queen of fibers until the 19th century, where industrial production prevailed and new fibers such as wool or coconut were introduced.
Nowadays, hemp is certainly a textile fiber of vital importance, both cultural and material. Many artists prefer its use so that the work can survive longer and remain in excellent condition over time. In the United States, where the industrial sector relating to hemp is much more developed than in ours, an art gallery was born which only exhibits paintings made on hemp canvas, it is called the HART Gallery and it's in Oregon.
