Violin Forum/Message Board

[catbrain]

This is to Michael D.

I was looking at your violin construction blog.
The beauty of the pictures and the beauty of the woodwork moved me in the way that the greatest artwork like Michelangelo's David in marble !

I hope you have some apprentices. Your knowledge and skill should continue
for a long time. Like a national treasure like Mt. Rushmore.

Just want you to hear how your work moves peoples heart and soul.
Still seems like a beautiful instrument is somehow alive and has a soul.

Tim

[Michael Darnton]

Thanks. For 15 years I taught a three-week summer workshop in California that brought in quite a few people, 20 per class, so there's that group. Then before that I wrote a regular column and various articles (about 40 in all) for the Guild of American Luthiers, so there's that (those are reprinted in their Red Books, which are available at luth.org, I don't remember which one book has most of them). I've also had a big shop in Chicago for 20 years where a few people have been trained and gone on, or stayed. Along the way I've managed to make a few under 200 instruments. You may or may not have also seen the book I started when there was nothing like it and then paused on when others stepped in, so it's not needed. What there was is at violinmag.com, and then there's the also-dead blog on my web site, darntonviolins.com/blog

Recently I have primarily moved on to another all-consuming interest, but I think I did my part already, probably.

Thanks for the kind comments.
_________________
new blog at my site! http://darntonviolins.com/blog
my work sites: http://darntonviolins.com and http://darntonhersh.com

[catbrain]

I think saying that you have done your part is a gross understatement-- IMHO

Can you give us a hint as to what new area you mentioned that you have moved into ? Working for Elon Musk ????

Tim

[Michael Darnton]

I have always been interested in religion as an intellectual/cultural study, and as I have given myself more time off work I've had more time to read things I probably should have read years ago, and it's branched out considerably, into consciousness and stuff like that.
_________________
new blog at my site! http://darntonviolins.com/blog
my work sites: http://darntonviolins.com and http://darntonhersh.com

[rahap]

[Sophiana]

[Michael Darnton]

I spend a lot of time drawing. The various features are put together in a way that's not random, and a lot of the beauty comes from understanding the underlying visual rhythm. The beauty is a result of visual cohesiveness.

All makers do this to some extent but Stradivari was the best maker because he understood this and had solved every single little visual problem, so it's easy to point out these things everywhere. One of my favorite things about Cremonese making, for instance, is that the distance into the purfling, from the edge, is virtually always the same as the thickness of the edge (special rules apply in the c-bouts). This gives a kind of subtle balance to the edge (when you're looking at a clean example) that a more random treatment wouldn't have and is what makes it possible for the finished edge to resemble a clean semicircle instead of a random shape. On the Strad edge, as the thickness of the corner increases towards the tip, the outer bout purfling even drifts inwards to replicate this effect.

There are tidy circles all over a violin if you look. Rarely do you find a shape that's a random curve, not a section of circle. My computer analysis of Strad's forms shows that on the whole Strad outline there's only one short section that's not a perfect circle but was hand drawn (around 7-7:30 and 4:30-5 in the lower bout where the bout curve joins the block curve). It's all circles that join perfectly, not needing any blending at the joints. This gives a cohesive look that doesn't happen when it's not there.

There are similar examples of geometry and rhythm all over the Cremonese violin, especially in Stradivari's work, that a maker can't replicate if he doesn't know about them. Another is that on a Strad the top and bottom points of the f-hole are symmetrical equilateral triangles and the upper eye drips directly down from the hole above it like a hanging drpp of water, where the lower eye floats directly upwards like a balloon. On many other makers the holes often fall subtly sideways and often in four different directions, making the rhythm and natural balance even worse.

It's fun and a good exercise to look for this kind of thing. The bottom line is that the Cremonese violin is a cohesive artistic/drafting project, not a random form, and understanding this increases one's perception of the beauty of these objects.

You might find this interesting: https://violinmag.com/book/corner%20blocks.pdf
_________________
new blog at my site! http://darntonviolins.com/blog
my work sites: http://darntonviolins.com and http://darntonhersh.com