What Is That Stick in the Painter's Other Hand? A Way to Stop Shaking

The object is a light rod, usually about a metre long, with a soft ball of leather or cloth on one end. The padded end rests against the edge of the canvas or on a dry part of the painting, the other end is held in the free hand, and the wrist of the painting hand rests on the shaft. The whole point is to support the working hand above wet paint without touching it. It converts an unsupported arm, which trembles noticeably over any distance, into a braced one, which does not.

Several problems are solved by the same simple arrangement:

• •An unsupported hand cannot hold a steady line for long
• •Resting directly on the canvas would smear wet paint
• •A large canvas puts the working point far from any edge
• •Fine detail demands precision the shoulder cannot supply
• •The bracing point can be moved as the work progresses
• •Fatigue over a long session is reduced considerably

The English word arrived from Dutch in the seventeenth century, when Dutch painting practice was being imitated across Europe, and it means painting stick fairly literally. Two spellings have competed ever since, one closer to the Dutch original and one anglicised, and both appear in artists' manuals through to the present. The tool is occasionally confused with a rest used by sign writers that hooks over the top of a board, and with the bridge used in billiards, both of which solve the same problem of supporting a hand at a distance by rather different means.

The tool appears constantly in painted self portraits and studio scenes, and spotting it is a reliable way to read what the artist wanted to claim about themselves. Holding one signals technical control and fine work rather than broad gestural handling, so it belongs to the tradition of smooth finish and invisible brushwork. Dutch seventeenth century painters show it frequently, as do academic painters of the nineteenth century. Its absence in a self portrait from the impressionist period onwards is equally deliberate, because the loose visible stroke that those painters wanted is exactly what bracing the hand does not produce.

Studio painting largely abandoned the tool as finishes became looser, and it survives wherever fine sustained detail is still required. Sign writers use one constantly, since lettering demands long controlled strokes. Miniature painters and restorers use short versions. Icon painters keep it as part of a tradition that never adopted loose handling. Modern versions exist in aluminium and carbon fibre, and airbrush and nail artists use small ones under other names. Anybody working on a vertical surface at arm's length eventually reinvents it, which is a good sign that the problem it solves is a real one.

A light rod with a padded end rests against the canvas so the painting hand can brace on the shaft without touching wet paint, turning a trembling unsupported arm into a steady one. Its presence in a self portrait advertises fine controlled finish, and its disappearance from impressionist studios was equally deliberate. Sign writers and restorers still use it daily.