Tip of the bow

[DocBop]

I've asked a couple people and no one seems to know the answer. The tip of the bows I've seen sticks out and is a bit of a hook shape to it. What if the reason for it, most say it is just tradition so bows are made that way. Half way joking I show people how I use it to turn pages in my Simandl book.

Is there a purpose for the hook shape or just one of those things always done that way so why stop?

[Basschair]

I don't have enough to document it, but I believe it was mainly an aesthetic thing, a bit of artistic flair that continues the slope and curve of the head/tip as a whole. If you look at bows historically, the beak comes in many subtle variations of size, shape, and length. I've never een a bow without one (at least, not one made that way...I've seen some broken off), and I've never heard of any beaks being made to perform a specific task such as page turning. Still, who knows?

[Machina]

From what I have always been told the tip of the bow serves just as an ornamentation. Having seen one with the tip broken off made me realize that not having the tip made for quite an eyesore. That being said... does anyone know if the tip of the bow is on bows from the Renaissance era also? Didn't ornamentations become quite popular in the Baroque? (That is, not just in music, but in architecture and painting also?)

[Basschair]

Originally Posted by Machina

From what I have always been told the tip of the bow serves just as an ornamentation. Having seen one with the tip broken off made me realize that not having the tip made for quite an eyesore. That being said... does anyone know if the tip of the bow is on bows from the Renaissance era also? Didn't ornamentations become quite popular in the Baroque? (That is, not just in music, but in architecture and painting also?)

The few bows that I've seen (published pics, not in person) from that general era (pre-classical) had long beaks, longer than modern bows. Still, there were those that had a reversed camber that had much larger tip/head as a whole with no beak. From memory, it looked more like a tip that the maker didn't carve into a beak but rather left rounded off, if that makes sense.