On 30 Aug, 2014 With
Sometime around the end of the seventeenth century, the painting methods so beloved of the old masters were mysteriously lost—how exactly, no one is really sure. Ever since then, artists have tried and fail to rediscover these techniques, which yielded the masterpieces of Titian, Rubens, Rembrandt and Velasquez. The origins of these techniques can be seen as well in the artists that came before them (Jan Van Eyck, Memling, Giovanni Bellini and others) in a more rudimentary form and always on a much smaller scale, being limited by a lack of proper canvas and materials. For reasons not yet known, something of the inherent magic of oil painting seemed to have dulled after the Renaissance, with a dampening (subtle…
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On 22 Jul, 2014 With
Rembrandt was so pleased with his innovation of glazing over dried impasto that he expanded the practice to other textures, devising a method that utilized different whites for impasto and smoother passages. His impasto white was very “lean” and had egg as an ingredient (meaning it must have dried quite quickly), ground glass, and also white lead, which was used as a binder. He generally applied it with increasing thickness in several stages, whereafter it was finished with transparent glazes and wiping, creating the lustre and dimension he is so well-known for. No other technique produces the same brilliance as Rembrandt’s. When he painted Lieutenant Ruytenburch’s uniform in “The Night Watch,” Rembrandt used this method to build up the dimensions…
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On 8 Jul, 2014 With
The underpainting was a core feature of the Venetian Method, and was often executed in opaque colour, rather than neutral greys. Many colour variations existed on this technique, such as Venetian Red and Flake White, with the only real limitation lying in the fact one ought limit one’s palette to lean paints (paints with a low rate of oil absorption) which are either opaque or very high in tinting strength. High tinting strength paints with a high oil absorption rate (fat paints) may be used only if mixed in minute quantities with very lean paints, so as to keep the underpainting leaner than the layers that will be applied above. Once the colour has dried, it can be modified with…
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On 1 Jul, 2014 With
“Glazing” in relation to the Venetian Method refers to the application of a darker transparent paint over a lighter area. Doing so causes light rays to pass through a transparent darker layer, bouncing off the lighter surface underneath, then returning to the viewer’s eyes, and was useful in creating subtle optical illusions. Only the Renaissance practice of glazing can produce this particular effect, one which results in the look of a warm glow and more saturated colours than the same pigment could achieve if applied more thickly and opaquely. Modern methods, with their more opaque results, lose a sense of distance when one is looking at shadows. Rembrandt’s glowing and rich dark browns owe their origins to this Venetian…
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On 24 Jun, 2014 With
Titian and Giorgione were foremost among the pioneers of what we now call the Venetian Method of oil painting. The Venetian Method, or Venetian Technique, borrowed heavily from the Flemish Method, which saw the application of transparent glazes for the shadows, greater contrast between dark and light areas, and opaque highlights. The Venetian Method, however, deviates in some key areas, adding its own take on the Flemish process. While the glossy finish of the Flemish Method was ideal for small wood panels, on large paintings it was distracting and decidedly “overkill”; ergo, Titian refined the painting process to produce a less reflective surface. Most probably, he cut out sheen-enhancers like polymerized oils, balsams, and resins, and replaced them with…
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On 17 Jun, 2014 With
Oil painting in its first form evolved from an earlier discipline known as , and was an attempt to overcome the severe limitations of that medium, such as a lacklustre finish and too-rapid drying time. Developed originally in Flanders, the method became known as the “Flemish Technique.” This method of painting requires a rigid surface on which to work, one that has been primed pure white, as well as a very precise line drawing. The line drawing was transferred to the white surface by perforating (tracing, in essence) the drawing along its lines. Once this transfer was complete, the resulting lines were enhanced with ink or viscous paint (using either a pen or finely pointed sable brush). The drawing was…
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On 10 Jun, 2014 With
Modern painting methods are far more rapid and direct than those used by the “old masters,” and as such, make replicating the works of these great artists a challenge, even when we render each colour and tone as closely as seems possible. The transparency and luminosity that was created by the heavily layered techniques of the old masters is found lacking regardless of one’s efforts to recreate colour and tone. This mysterious challenge invariably proves very frustrating when attempting to copy Renaissance art, with our current methods always producing something that appears heavy and overly opaque by contrast. Some have attributed the wondrous lustre and more translucent look of the old masters’ work to time, but that is not…
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On 16 May, 2012 With
The work in question is a 1538 painting by Girolamo de Romani, also known as Romanino, depicting an image of Jesus Christ in an unusual copper-colored robe, carrying the cross on his right shoulder while being dragged by a soldier. It was held in private collections by European families until 1914, when Gentili purchased it. When the Nazis marched into France, many of Gentili’s heirs fled — but weren’t able to take the family patriarch’s art collection and many other valuables. Vichy French authorities auctioned off the property, including more than 70 pieces of art, and barred the family from returning to claim the art work in 1941. The Romanino painting was acquired by the Italian government-run museum Pinacoteca di…
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On 8 May, 2012 With
The two men pulled up in the driveway of the two-star country hotel, looking for all the world like travelling salesmen stopping off for a night’s rest between appointments. But the rectangular package on the back seat of their car contained something rather more valuable than catalogues or brochures. Only once they were in the privacy of a locked room, the curtains firmly closed, did private detectives Robbie Graham and Jack Doyle dare to unwrap the treasure they had just rescued from the criminal underworld. And then they just sat and stared at it in wonder, scarcely able to believe what they were seeing. On that October night in 2007, they took snapshots of themselves posing next to it, using…
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On 1 May, 2012 With
STOLEN ARTWORKS TO BE RETURNED The Carabinieri art squad recovered 16 paintings stolen over a period of decades in the house of a Roman designer. The designer has been charged with receiving stolen goods. His collection is enormous. Police found 180 paintings from a variety of periods reportedly purchased in markets and fairs over the past 30 years. Authorities were tipped off to the collection by a would-be buyer. Unlike the accused, this collector, who was hoping to buy a 15th c. painting of the Sienese school, checked with the Carabinieri art squad to ensure the piece was legitimately owned by the seller. The squad looked into the collection and found one piece listed in their stolen art database: Suicide…
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