| By :
Martin Hofschroer
Art materials manufacturer Canson has links with a number of important historical events. The French firm are most famous for supplying fine art materials but few people would know that the canopy of the first ever hot air balloon built in 1782 was made with Canson manufactured paper. Canson was established in 1557 after a long association with Arches Mill, a paper mill was founded in Lorraine in 1492, which is not long after the first paper factories were constructed using converted grain mills. Brothers Joseph-Michel and Jacques-Etienne Montgolfier built the first hot air-powered balloon to carry passengers after first experimenting with unmanned balloons and previously attempting flights with animals. Canson have since immortalized the historical flight launch in their logo which consists of an artistically stylized hot air balloon. The brothers ancestors' Raymond and Michel Montgolfier married the daughters of Antoine Chelles who owned the Vidalon Paper Mills and the Montgolfier family subsequently ran the mills. Louis XVI, the last king of France, granted the name "Manufacture Royale" to the business in 1784, just nine years before found guilty of high treason, and executed by guillotine. Canson were registered as "Anciennes manufactures Canson & Montgolfier" in 1881 but that name was shortened to Canson in 2006 by current owner Arjo Wiggins. The International Photography Exhibition of 1892 would reward Canson for their invention of a system that made the photo printing process easier and less expensive and improved the quality of black tones. Inventions such as tracing paper, fine textured vellum paper and various paper making techniques are also reported to have had their origins with Canson. Famous artist such as Picasso, American printmaker Andy Warhol and Pierre Alechinsky have all used Canson papers in the twentieth century. Pablo Picasso was a Spanish painter who is best known for co-founding the Cubist movement and for the wide variety of styles embodied in his work, which brought him immense fortune. Warhol was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art and became famous for his work as a painter, filmmaker, record producer, author, and member of bohemian social circles. Alechinsky is an abstract expressionist who became professor of painting at the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts, Paris and his designs have previously been used on Belgian stamps. Art materials are expected to be popular this Halloween as parents and children set about creating costumes for parties and trick and treating.
|
![[Valid RSS feed]](http://www.articlesbacklink.com/images/icon_Rss.png "XML Feed For RSS"){kind=icon}
Category Rss Feed
Print This Article
Add To Favorites
