Decalcomania

Decalcomania (pronounced dih-kal-kuh-mey-nee-uh or dih-kal-kuh-meyn-yuh)

(1) The process of transferring designs from specially prepared paper to cardboard, paper, wood, metal, china, glass etc.

(2) A design so transferred (always rare).

1864: From the French décalcomanie, the construct being décalc- (representing décalquer (to trace, transfer (a design)) the construct being dé- (in the sense of “off”) + calquer (to press) + the interfix “-o-” + -manie (–mania).  Decalcomania is a noun; the noun plural is decalcomanias (the plural in French was decalcomania).  Disappointingly, the noun decalcomaniac is non-standard.

The French prefix dé- partly was inherited from the Middle French des-, from the Old French des-, from a conflation of Latin dis- (apart) (ultimately from the primitive Indo-European dwís).  In English, the de- prefix was from the Latin dē-, from the preposition dē (of, from (the Old English æf- was a similar prefix)).  It imparted the sense of (1) reversal, undoing, removing, (2) intensification and (3) derived from; of off.  In French the dé- prefix was used to make antonyms (as un- & dis- function in English) and was partially inherited from the Old and Middle French des-, from the Latin dis- (part), the ultimate source being the primitive Indo-European dwís and partially borrowed from Latin dē-.  In English de- became a most active word-forming element, used with many verbs in some way gained French or Latin.  The frequent use in Latin as “down, down from, from, off; down to the bottom & totally (hence “completely” (intensive or completive)) came to be reflected in many English words.  As a Latin prefix it was used also to “undo” or “reverse” a verb's action; it thus came to be used as a pure privative (ie “not, do the opposite of, undo”) and that remains the predominant function as a living prefix in English such as defrost (1895 and a symbol of the new age of consumer-level refrigeration), defuse (1943 and thus obviously something encouraged by the sudden increase in live bombs in civilian areas which need the fuses to be removed to render them safe) and de-escalate (1964, one of the first linguistic contributions of the political spin related to the war in Vietnam).  In many cases, there is no substantive difference between using de- or dis- as a prefix and the choice can be simply one of stylistic preference.  Calquer (to press) was from the Italian calcare, from the Latin calcāre (to tread on; to press (that sense derived from calx (heel)).

The suffix –mania was from the Latin mania, from the Ancient Greek μανία (mania) (madness).  In modern use in psychiatry it is used to describe a state of abnormally elevated or irritable mood, arousal, and/or energy levels and as a suffix appended as required.  In general use, under the influence of the historic meaning (violent derangement of mind; madness; insanity), it’s applied to describe any “excessive or unreasonable desire; a passion or fanaticism” which can us used even of unthreatening behaviors such as “a mania for flower arranging, crochet etc”.  As a suffix, it’s often appended with the interfix -o- make pronunciation more natural.  The use of the suffix “-mania” in “decalcomania” may appear a curious use of an element in a word describing a process in graphical or decorative art given usually it’s appended to reference a kind of obsession or madness (kleptomania, bibliomania, megalomania et al) but here it’s used in a more abstract way.  The “-manie” in the French décalcomanie was used to suggest a fad or craze (the latter in the sense of something suddenly widely popular) and was not related to the way “mania” is used by mental health clinicians.  So, it was metaphorical rather than medical rather as “Tulipmania” came to be used of the seventeenth century economic bubble in the Netherlands which was centred on the supply of and demand for tulip bulbs.

TeePublic’s Lindsay Lohan decals (page one).

The noun decal (pronounced dee-kal or dih-kal) was in use by at least 1910 as a clipping of decalcomania, a process which came into vogue in France as early as the 1840s before crossing the channel, England taking up the trend in the early 1860s.  As a noun it referred to (1) the prepared paper (or other medium) bearing a image, text, design etc for transfer to another surface (wood, metal, glass, etc) or (2) the picture or design itself.  The verb (“to decal” and also as decaled or decaling) described the process of applying or transferring the image (or whatever) from the medium by decalcomania.  The noun plural is decals.  In the US, the word came to be used of adhesive stickers which could be promotional or decorative and this use is now common throughout the English speaking world.  The special use (by analogy) in computer graphics describes a texture overlaid atop another to provide additional detailing.

Variants of the transfer technique which came to be called decalcomania would for centuries have been used by artists before it became popularized in the mid-eighteenth century.  The method was simply to spread ink or paint onto a surface and, before the substances dried, it was covered with material such as such as paper, glass, or metallic foil, which, when removed, transferred the pattern which could be left in that form or embellished.  Originally the designs were deliberate but the innovation of the Surrealists was to create imagery by chance rather than conscious control of the materials.  The artistic merits of that approach can be discussed but young children have long taken to it like ducks to water, splashing colors on one side of a piece of paper and then folding it in half so, once pressed together, the shape is “mirrored”, creating what is called a “butterfly print”, something like the cards used in the Rorschach tests.

Although an ancient practice, it is French engraver Simon François Ravenet (1706–circa 1774) who is crediting with give the technique its name because he called it décalquer (from the French papier de calque (tracing paper) and this coincided with painters in Europe experimenting with ink blots to add “accidental” forms of expression into their work.  Ravenet spent years working in England (where usually he was styled Simon Francis Ravenet) and was influential in the mid century revival of engraving although it was in ceramics decalcomania first became popular although the word didn’t come into wide use until adopted by the Spanish-born French surrealist Óscar Domínguez (1906–1957).  It was perhaps the German Dadaist and Surrealist Max Ernst (1891–1976) who more than most exemplified the possibilities offered decalcomania and it was US philosopher turned artist Robert Motherwell (1915–1991) who said of him: “Like every consequential modern painter, Max Ernst has enforced his own madness on the world.”  Motherwell was of the New York School (which also included the Russian-born Mark Rothko (1903–1970), drip painter Jackson Pollock (1912-1956) and the Dutch-American Willem de Kooning (1904–1997)) so he was no stranger to the observation of madness.  Condemned by the Nazis variously as an abstractionist, modernist, Dadaist and Surrealist, Ernst fled to Paris and after the outbreak of World War II (1939-1945) he was one of a number of artistic and political figures who enjoyed the distinction of being imprisoned by both the French and the Gestapo; it was with the help of US art patron and collector Peggy Guggenheim (1898–1979) he in 1941 escaped Vichy France and fled to the US.

That “help” involved their marriage, hurriedly arranged shortly after the pair landed in New York but although in the technical sense a “marriage of convenience”, she does seem genuinely to have been fond of Ernst and some romantic element wasn’t entirely absent from their relationship although it’s acknowledged it was a “troubled” marriage. A divorce was granted in 1946 but artistically, she remained faithful, his work displayed prominently in her New York gallery (Art of This Century (1942–1947)), then the city’s most significant centre of the avant-garde.  Through this exposure, although he never quite became integrated into the (surprisingly insular) circle of abstract expressionists, Ernst not only became acquainted with the new wave of American artists but contributed also to making European modernism familiar to Americans at a time when the tastes of collectors (and many critics) remained conservative.  He was an important element in her broader mission to preserve and promote avant-garde art despite the disruption of war.  So, the relationship was part patronage and part curatorial judgment and historians haven’t dwelt too much on the extent it was part love; even after their divorce, Guggenheim continued to collect pieces by Ernst and they remain in her famous “Venice Collection” at the Palazzo Venier dei Leoni.  As a wife she would have had opinions of her husband but as a critic she also classified and never said of Ernst as she said of Pollock: “...the greatest painter since Picasso.”

Untitled (1935), Decalcomania (ink transfer) on paper by André Breton.

For Ernst, the significance of decalcomania was not its utility as a tool of production (as it would appeal to graphic artists and decal-makers) but as something which would result in a randomness to excite his imagination.  What he did was use the oil paint as it ended up on canvas after being “pressed” as merely the starting point, onto which he built elements of realism, suggesting often mythical creatures in strange, unknown places but that was just one fork of decalcomania, Georges Hugnet (1906–1974) rendering satirical images from what he found while André Breton (1896–1966 and a “multi-media” figure decades before term emerged) used the technique to hone surrealism, truly decalcomania’s native environment.

Decalcomania in psychiatry and art: Three of the ink-blot cards (top row) included by Swiss psychiatrist Hermann Rorschach (1885-1922) in his Rorschach Test (1927), a projective psychological tool in which subjects' perceptions of inkblots are recorded and then analyzed with psychological interpretation or historical statistical comparison (and now, also AI (artificial intelligence)) and three images from the Pornographic Drawing series by Cornelia Parker (bottom row).

Nor has decalcomania been abandoned by artists, English installation specialist Cornelia Parker (b 1956) producing drawings which overlaid contemporary materials onto surfaces created with the decalcomania process, the best known of which was the series Pornographic Drawing (1996) in which an inky substance extracted from pornographic film material was applied to paper, folded in half and opened again to reveal the sexualised imagery which emerged through the intervention of chance.  Although it’s speculative, had Ms Parker’s work been available and explained to the Nazi defendants at the first Nuremberg Trial (1945-1946) when they were considering the Rorschach Test cards, their responses would likely have been different.  Rudolf Hess (1894–1987; Nazi Deputy Führer 1933-1941) would have been disgusted and become taciturn while Julius Streicher (1885–1946; Nazi Gauleiter of Franconia 1929-1940) would have been stimulated to the point of excitement.

Europe after the Rain II, 1940-1942 (Circa 1941), oil on canvas by Max Ernst.

Regarded as his masterpiece, Europe after the Rain II (often sub-titled “An Abstract, Apocalyptic Landscape”) was intended to evoke feelings of despair, exhaustion, desolation and a fear of the implications of the destructive power of modern, mechanized warfare.  It was a companion work to an earlier to the earlier Europe after the Rain I, (1933), sculpted from plaster and oil on plywood in which Ernst built on a decalcomania base to render an imaginary relief map of Europe.  It was in 1933 Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945) gained power in Germany.

Europe after the Rain I, (1933), oil & plaster on plywood by Max Ernst.

Even the physical base of Europe After the Rain I was a piece of surrealist symbolism, the plywood taken from the stage sets used for the film L'Âge d'or (1930) (The Age of Gold or the Golden Age depending on the translator's interpretation).  Directed by Spaniard Luis Buñuel (1900-1983), L'Âge d'or was a film focused on the sexual mores of bourgeois society and a critique of the hypocrisies and contradictions of the Roman Catholic Church's clerical establishment.  While one of France's first "sound films", it was, as was typical during what was a transitional era, told mostly with the use of title cards, the full-screen explanatory texts which appeared between scenes.

Snow Flowers (1929) oil on canvas by means of frottage & grattage by Max Ernst.

Technically, Ernst was an innovator in Decalcomania, in 1925 using the technique of frottage (laying a sheet of paper over a textured surface and rubbing it with charcoal or graphite).  The appeal of this was it imparted the quality of three dimensionality and Ernst liked textured surfaces as passages in a larger composition.  He also employed grattage (frottage’s sister technique) in which an object is placed under a piece of paper, which is then covered with a thin layer of pigment and once the pigment is scraped off, what is revealed is a colorful imprint of the object and its texture.

1969 Chrysler (Australia) VF Valiant Pacer 225 (left), 1980 Porsche 924 Turbo (centre) and cloisonné Scuderia Ferrari fender shield on 1996 Ferrari F355 Spider (right).

There was a time when decals or cars were, by some, looked down upon because they were obviously cheaper than badges made of metal.  That attitude changed for a number of reasons including their use on sexy, high-performance cars, the increasing use of decals on race cars after advertising became universally permitted after 1968 and the advent of plastic badges which, being cheaper to produce and install, soon supplanted metal on all but the most expensive vehicles.  By the mid 1970s even companies such as Porsche routinely applied decals and the Scuderia Ferrari fender shield, used originally on the cars run by the factory racing team, became a popular after-market accessory and within the Ferrari community, there was a clear hierarchy of respectability between thin, “stuck on” printed decals and the more substantial cloisonné items.

A video clip explaining why a Scuderia Ferrari fender shield costs US$14,000 if it's painted in the factory.

However, many of the cloisonné shields were non-authentic (ie not a factory part number), even the most expensive selling for less than US$1000 and there was no obvious way to advertise one had a genuine “made in Maranello” item.  Ferrari’s solution was to offer as a factory option a decalcomania, hand-painted by an artisan in a process said to take about eight hours.  To reassure its consumers (keen students of what the evil Montgomery Burns (of The Simpsons TV cartoon series) calls “price taggery”), the option is advertised (depending on the market) at around US$14,000.

Futtock

Futtock (pronounced fuht-uhk)

In nautical design and construction, any of a number of curved (and otherwise shaped) timbers forming the lower, more curved portion of the frame in a wooden hull; one of the ribs in the frame of a wooden vessel.

1605-1615: From the Middle English futtek & votek, of uncertain origin but possibly a compound of the Old English fōt + hōc, or fut +‎ -uc (analysed as foot-hook or footock (“-ock” the diminutive suffix)) or a construct of the Old Dutch vot or fuot + hoek, or from buttock (from the jargon of timber merchants, the construct being butt (in the sense of a cut of timber) +‎ -ock.  Alternatively it may have been influenced by the Middle Dutch voetkijn, diminutive of voet (foot), the construct deconstructed as foot +‎ -kin.  The words in Old English from which the Middle English forms emerged may have been from the Old Norse construct fótr or fett & futt (big) + ek (timbr), or øks which gave the Old Norse fót'ek, futtek or futtøks, the Norwegian equivalent Norwegian being fot haki, fett eik (tømmer), or fett øks; meaning foot hook, big oak (timber) , or bold axe.  Futtock is a noun; the noun plural is futtocks.

One theory with much support is it was simply the Old English fōtuc (foot) +‎ -ock.  Many boatbuilders seem convinced the origin of futtock must obviously have been an alteration of foothook (the ribs in a boat frame one could use to “hook one’s foot under for stability while on board”.  Those with experience of standing in small craft while in rough waters will likely also support this etymology and similarly formed words include baloney from bologna, and cockamamie (originally “a decal, a design that can be transferred to a surface” and later re-purposed to mean something or someone ridiculous or absurd) from decalcomania. (from the French décalcomanie (process of transferring designs onto surfaces using decals) although cockamamie was once suggested to have a Yiddish connection on the basis of a vague similarity to certain words in the Jewish vernacular; the idea has long been discredited.

The sequence: Although modular systems now exist, historically, frames were built from the floor up, the second and subsequent futtocks added after each lower unit was secured.

Futtocks are the separate pieces of timber which form a frame (the rib-like structure) in a wooden ship and historically there are usually three or four (there can be five) futtocks to a rib in a ship of moderate size.  Futtocks are solid pieces of compass timber several of which make up a built frame, extending from the floor to the top timber.  The one closest to the keel is known is the ground futtock or naval futtock, the remainder being the “upper” futtocks while futtock riders are the large, vertical timbers strengthening the inside of the hull below the waterline.  A bilge futtock is a specialized form of frame futtock which covers the sweep of the bilge.  In a wooden vessel, a floor futtock is the lowest of the futtocks from which a built frame is made, running transversely across the top of the hog and through which the keel bolts are fitted (the outer ends often of differing lengths and are known as “wrung heads” or “wring heads”).  Sistered Frames are frames constructed by paired futtocks laid side by side and cross bolted together with the butts between the various futtocks staggered.  The cross-bolting was to enhance structural stability and was required because vessels are subject to both lateral and longitudinal stresses; recognition of this was the reason internal combustion engine builders in the 1960s began using cross-bolting to secure the main-bearing caps supporting the crankshaft.

Cross-bolting describes the placement of bolts at angles (ie essentially vertical vs horizontal although futtocks being inherently curved pieces, bolts are often installed at angles which follow the curve).  What the cross-bolting does is better absorb and distribute stresses which in a vessel can be both and lateral and longitudinal.  Note that depending on the hull profile desired, some futtocks can actually be straight.  

Spirket blocks (also called spirket chocks) were “filling chocks” fitted (1) between the floor futtocks and (2) the top of the hog and the underside of the keelson; usually spirket blocks were dovetailed into the floor futtocks but this method of construction is long obsolete.  The general name usually given to the pieces of timber which compose the frame of a ship such as floor timbers, futtock timbers and top timbers as also the stem or head timbers and the stern timbers was (logically): “timbers”.  Sometimes, the carved, ornamental pieces upon the munions of stern windows in the stead of pilasters were called stern timbers although such use is now less common.  The timberhead is the top of the uppermost frame futtock extending above the covering board to form a stiffener to the bulwark and to which the berthing is attached.  The cap rail or main rail is attached to its tops by means of a mortise and tenon joint and depending on the builder or the type of vessel, it could be a piece of timber separate from the frame.  The top timber was the uppermost of the futtocks in a built frame and which stops just below the underside of the covering board (except in sistered frames when one futtock is extended through the deck to form the timberhead).  The wrunghead was the outer end of the floor futtocks in a built frame, a technique now obsolete.  When wrungheads were used, the wrunghead wale was an especially thick piece of skin planking run over the outer ends (ie the wrungheads) of the floor futtocks.  A futtock band was fitted usually around a mast and existed as a locating mechanism to which a futtock (or another fitting) could be attached; such was their utility they were used for other purposes.  Futtock head is an unusual term in that it seems not to have been in use until the 1860s (although it’s so obvious it may have even then have been shipwright’s slang).  The futtock head described the upper part of a futtock, that part which extends above the top of the frame and is fastened to the ship's planking, its most vital function being to ensure the strength of the structure.

It is futtocks which are the building blocks (more correctly spars) of the ribs which are part of a ship's frame and the components which give a vessel its distinctive shape.  In anatomy, they can be compared with the ribcage of humans and many other animals.  Lindsay Lohan on Melrose Avenue, Los Angeles, April 2009 (left) and a vessel during restoration (right) illustrate the similarities.  This image of Lindsay Lohan (during her "thin" phase) has long been popular on thinspo and other pro-ana sites.

A futtock hole is the opening in a frame through which the futtock is inserted and fastened to the ship's planking.  Futtock holes typically are located at the top of the frame, the point at which the futtock head secured.  Such are the possibilities “futtock hole” offers that it must have been one of a shipyard’s more re-purposed terms.  Futtock lines are the lines used to measure the curvature of the futtock, the purpose being to ensure the cut is properly shaped and fitted to the ship's frame.   Almost always, futtock lines are made of rope or wire and are attached to the futtock at various points along its length, the curvature determined by pulling the futtock lines taut and measuring the distance between the points where the lines are attached.  A futtock staff is a wooden or metal rod, used to measure the curvature of a futtock and fulfils the function of a template and whether a futtock staff or futtock lines are used depends on things such as the size of the fittings and their accessibility.  Futtock staffs are marked with measurements corresponding to the desired curvature, enabling a shipwright to determine where alterations are needed.  During the measurement process, a futtock staff is inserted into the futtock hole, the curvature determined by comparing the position of the staff to the markings.

Futtock shroud.

The somewhat misleadingly named futtock shroud is a rope or wire attached to the futtock.  It is not a locating mechanism but is used to provide additional support and stability to the futtock (a la the guy-wires used on land for radio masts and such) by limiting or even preventing any shifting during a ship’s movements.  Almost always, a shroud is attached to the futtock at one end and to the ship's mast or another part of the rigging at the other end.  Usually, a shroud runs from the futtock plates on the sides of the top, downwards and inwards to a futtock band around the mast or directly to the lower shroud's futtock stave.  The futtock stave consists of a served piece of rope across and lashed to a lower shroud, below the top and near the masthead.  As a general principle (there were variations and in some cases, complete departures), staves were attached at the same distance below the top as the masthead is above the top, the purpose being to reinforce the lower shroud where the futtock shrouds terminate.

A classic, simple square frame.

A futtock plank is a piece of timber curved to fit the shape of a ship's hull.  Futtock planks provide additional strength and support, required because the physics of such things mean the stresses in the construction are multiplied at the point of attachment and they’re attached in a series of layers, each fastened to the layer below it using nails or screws.  The layers often do more than merely emulate a single thicker piece of because shipwrights can align with the grain of the timbers running at right angles or even diagonally.  A futtock plate is a metal plate which connects the futtock to the frame; it provides additional strength and simplifies installation, compared with using pure timber construction.  Usually made from steel high-strength alloys, the plates are attached with bolts or marine coach screws.