A trade in its own right
Unlike scenic decoration, painting usually does without a dedicated structure or volume: floorcloths are stretched over the existing stage floor, backdrops are hung from the fly bars. What is made here carries itself.
Scenic painting in our own paint shop
In our paint shop we paint formats of up to 20 × 20 m: backdrops, floorcloths, motifs in XXL format.
Where the motif begins
Decorative painting ages and patinates surfaces. Scenic painting goes further: baroque wing-and-border scenery, copies of paintings, figurative motifs - pictures for the stage.
Not a print, but a process
Large-format digital printing is fast and cheap today - scenic painting remains a category of its own. There is no need for a print-ready file, no question of resolution or file size: the painting process evolves as it goes, attuned to the artistic goal. A picture is finished when the art says so - not when the print comes out of the machine.
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FAQs on scenic painting
How big is the hertzer GmbH paint shop?
The paint shop offers up to 20 × 20 metres of space - large enough for oversized backdrops and floorcloths, painted in one piece and at full size rather than pieced together from sections.
What is a backdrop, and what is a floorcloth?
A backdrop is the painted surface at the back of the stage; a floorcloth is the painted surface the performance takes place on. Both are large-format and can be rolled up - and have to look right from thirty metres away just as much as from the front row.
How do you paint for effect at a distance?
Painting is done on the floor, with long handles, wide gestures and a sure sense of distance. What looks like a loose brushstroke close up comes together from the auditorium into a coherent image - alive, deep, atmospheric.
Which motifs and techniques are possible?
From photorealistic cloudscapes through architectural painting to graphic areas of colour and delicate gradients, our team’s artistic range is exceptionally wide. We work from the set designer’s reference, design or model.
Do the scenic painters work with the set builders?
Closely. Painting and construction happen in the same building, so scenery and paintwork can be conceived as one: painted where the effect calls for it, built where it needs to be three-dimensional.
Building culture since 1994.