Tracing board
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The tracing board is a painted or printed board sometimes displayed during a ritual (Degree) of Freemasonry. Its purpose is to illustrate the symbols that the initiate is informed about during lectures that succeed the ritual proper, and which in England are sometimes referred to as the "tracing board lecture".[citation needed]
The Masonic tracing board took several decades to develop into its pictorial form. Initially a drawing was made on the floor of the hired tavern room in which a Masonic Lodge had met, the work being executed either by the Tyler or Worshipful Master.[citation needed] Evidence suggests that a simple boundary in the shape of a square, rectangle (or "double square"), or a cross was drawn first, with various Masonic symbols of a geometric type (e.g., circle, pentagram, etc.) were drawn later, the former possibly being drawn by the Tyler and the latter by the Master. Later various objects, such as a (ladder, beehive, etc.,) were added.[citation needed]
By the second half of the eighteenth century the Masonic symbols were being painted on a variety of materials ranging from small marble slabs to canvas, though the various Grand Lodges were then generally hostile to the creation of physical representations of the Ritual and symbols of the Craft. prior to the development of the upright-standing tracing board such as is used today a "floor cloth" displaying a degree's symbols was common, and remains to some extent in the use of a cloth depicting the grave of Hiram Abiff and a sprigg of accacia in the third degree of Freemasonry.[citation needed]
In 1820 Bro. John Harris created tracing boards for the first three Degrees of the Craft, establishing them as an accepted, though unofficial part of Craft Freemasonry in England. The tracing board became a near-essential piece of equipment for Masonic Lodges in Britain, continental Europe, Australia and elsewhere. As different Masonic jurisdictions established official, or standard, Degree rituals the creation of new tracing boards by Freemasons waned and has since all but entirely disappeared. However, Lady Frieda Harris (1877 – May 11, 1962), who is best known for painting Aleister Crowley's Thoth tarot deck, produced one tracing board for each of the three Craft Masonic Degrees.
[edit] Notes
Dring, E. H. "The Evolution and Development of the Lodge or Tracing Board," A.Q.C. Vol., 29 (1916)
Haunch. T.O. "Tracing Boards–Their Development and Their Designers," A.Q.C., Vol. 75 (1962)
Millar, Angel. "Draftsmanship and the tracing Board," Transactions of the American Lodge of Research, Vol.
[edit] External links
- Article on the history of the tracing board at Phoenix Masonry
- An article on the history of the tracing board at the Masonic Trowel
- Article on the tracing board with examples by Angel Millar
- The Craft tracing boards of Lady Frieda Harris
- An example of a 19th century tracing board from Phoenix Masonry
