Historical definition ART du TRAIT
"The carpenter stretcheth out his rule; he marketh it out with a line; he fitteth it with planes, and he marketh it out with the compass, and maketh it after the figure of a man, according to the beauty of a man; that it may remain in the house." - Lauren Bastard
COMPAGNON
Beginning in the middle ages, when journeymen carpenters (Compagnons) applied their special skills (French Scribe) to building the major monuments of France, such as the gothic cathedrals at Chartres, Orleans, and Strasbourg. The workers' fraternal group offered apprenticeship, lodging, job placement, and general support in fighting oppressive labor rules. Despite disagreements with the church and crown, workers' strife and competition between crafts, and even the Industrial Revolution, the artisan' guilds have endured. These highly skilled artisans of France are known throughout the world for their magnificent monuments and buildings.
FRENCH SCRIBE SYSTEM
The French Scribe is a joinery system of construction beginning with the production of shop drawings, a process called Art du Trait. This process brings together the different graphic possibilities in use in France since the thirteenth century to express, with drawings of the greatest possible precision, the reality of a building’s volumes, how they fit together and the characteristics of the pieces of timber that frame them. It is taught in its own specific way, quite distinct from architectural theory and practice. Using this procedure during the prefabrication phase, the carpenter can identify on the ground all the constituent pieces, irrespective of their complexity, and can thus be sure that when the frame is assembled, even the most complex and voluminous elements will fall perfectly into place.
ART du TRAIT
This term, specific to the vocabulary of compagnonnage, designates a science relative to drawing, or more precisely, a way of representing volumes in depth. An art of stereotomy, the trait is also a kind of applied geometry practiced without the abstract formulas required by descriptive geometry. In more concrete terms, the notion of the trait encompasses a set of graphic techniques facilitating the production - at a reduced scale or full scale, on paper, on parchment, or even on the ground - of working drawings needed to complete structures in wood or stone.
Works by Patrick Moore
