sandr037

In my post on Goodhue last week, the vast majority of the drawings were vignettes, that is, drawings that trailed off before reaching the edge of the paper or border. In Wikipedia “vignette” is defined as ‘a word that originally meant "something that may be written on a vine-leaf"’.    The Compact Oxford English Dictionary* (2nd edition, 1989) agrees with the vine derivation, but traces it back to the French Vinet, “A running or trailing ornament or design in imitation of the branches, leaves or tendrils of the vine, employed in architectural   or decorative work.”    The specific definition in the Oxford English is “…any embellishment, illustration or picture uninclosed in a border, or having the edges shading off into the surrounding paper, …”. Vignettes have been around as long as humans have drawn on flat surfaces.   Paleolithic man did not worry about borders and edges when painting on the cave walls of Lascaux, and doodles have been found in the marg...