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Description: Seeing Through Paintings: Physical Examination in Art Historical Studies
We have long felt the need for a book introducing nonspecialists to the physical examination of easel paintings and to the historical and critical implications of such study. Knowledge of a paintings materials, techniques, and condition can contribute to a range of scholarly approaches: iconography, regional and colonial studies, examination of artistic intent, study of interactions among artistic schools, and the history of collecting and display. An extensive literature exists—largely by and …
PublisherYale University Press
https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00110.002
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Preface
We have long felt the need for a book introducing nonspecialists to the physical examination of easel paintings and to the historical and critical implications of such study. Knowledge of a paintings materials, techniques, and condition can contribute to a range of scholarly approaches: iconography, regional and colonial studies, examination of artistic intent, study of interactions among artistic schools, and the history of collecting and display. An extensive literature exists—largely by and for conservators and conservation scientists—but little reaches the audience we have in mind: art history students and their teachers, artists concerned with the work of their predecessors, collectors, dealers, and interested laymen. Even among curators, conservators, and scientists studying the same paintings communication may be limited by the scholars’ training, the languages of their disciplines, and the varying uses they make of the material.
Contributing to the problem is the fact that art history is increasingly taught from slides and photographic reproductions. These convey nothing of the finish, texture, or scale of a painting; the colors may be distorted and the borders cropped. Reproductions are unlikely even to raise the questions that might help a viewer understand a painting’s technique or condition, much less to point to the answers.
In this book we address European and American easel paintings, medieval through contemporary. These involve relatively invariant materials and techniques that can be dealt with in one volume. By contrast, the existing literature addresses such questions for sculpture, decorative arts, works on paper, manuscripts, and paintings integral to architecture. We emphasize that these questions contribute as much to the study of modernist as to old master paintings, which have received the most attention from technical examination.
We have taken great pains with the illustrations, with help from numerous museum colleagues who arranged photography for this volume. We were eager to illustrate several topics never before presented to a general art historical audience: the implications of craquelure, the visual results of treatments such as lining, and subtleties involved in varnishing—or not varnishing—modernist paintings. We were also eager to explain the reading of technical images, such as radiographs, which are frequently published in art historical literature but nowhere explicated. Even so, reproductions can only approximate the information gained from viewing the actual artwork or from studying the technical images in conservation files. It is our intention that the book will send readers to the literature, to museum files, and especially to the works. We have drawn from a number of public collections and included many paintings whose technique and condition can be studied in visible light—so that interested readers can confirm the observations themselves. We have also emphasized published examples throughout the book so that readers can follow up on their own.
A major part of our research was directed toward assembling an annotated bibliography. We gave preference to literature that is readily available in art history and general research libraries, is well illustrated, and is in English. We include the standard sources and reference works on artists’ materials and techniques, and we cite a selection of art historical studies that use technical information in varied and imaginative ways. Throughout the text we refer to additional and more scientific literature.
A number of previous studies inspired us. Gridley McKim-Smith, Greta Andersen-Bergdoll, and Richard Newman’s Examining Velázquez (1988) and Robert Herbert’s “Method and Meaning in Monet” (Art in America, 1979) demonstrate the larger art historical questions that develop in light of an increased understanding of a painter’s methods. McKim-Smith, Andersen-Bergdoll, and Newman trace a complex interaction between painting in different schools and periods and the writing it inspired. Not only must Spanish Baroque paintings be interpreted in light of the art theory of the day, but theoretical writings must be understood within a literary tradition and may not describe actual practice in all respects. Herbert’s close study of Monet’s complex layering and brushwork enabled him to dismantle the mythology of plein air painting and to refocus on the social implications of Monet’s subject matter. We hope that our book will point the next generation of art historians along similar paths.
Any student of painting materials is indebted to Rutherford J. Gettens and George L. Stout. Their Painting Materials: A Short Encyclopaedia (1942; reprinted in 1966) is a model of thoroughness and clarity, and its longevity is an inspiration. The flow of publications from the Conservation Department of the National Gallery, London, has been invaluable: National Gallery Technical Bulletin, catalogues to the Art in the Making series (Bomford, Brown, and Roy 1988 and Bomford et al. 1989, 1990), monographs on single paintings (the Making and Meaning series), the Pocket Guides, and generations of catalogues to the collections. A number of museums (notably the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., the Prado, and the Tate Gallery), as well articles published in Burlington Magazine, have consistently incorporated the physical examination of paintings into their art historical interpretation. We made extensive use of their information and examples.
A Note on the Illustrations
Media descriptions of the illustrations in this book are those given by the owners, and few have been subject to scientific examination. Museums frequently label paint media according to historical assumption: fifteenth-century panels are described as tempera, and seventeenth-century canvases are generally identified as oil. In the absence of analysis, more cautious owners describe the support but not the medium. We try to note cases in which testing was carried out.
It is sobering to write a book whose every part is subject to someone else’s greater expertise. Although we have received immense help from other art historians, artists, conservators, conservation scientists, and curators, mistakes of interpretation are our own.
We met in the Paintings Conservation Department of the Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University. Levenson was training in conservation and Kirsh was an undergraduate fresh from a seminar on materials and technique taught by Arthur K. Wheelock, Jr. An exemplary teacher and curator, Wheelock has offered advice and help throughout the books development. Joyce Hill Stoner made valuable suggestions at early stages of the project, generously sharing her experience as a conservator and leader in conservation training. Alfred Acres was our first and our ideal reader; we have relied on the judgment he brought as scholar, teacher, and friend. The annotations in the bibliography, as well as the list of videotapes, owe their existence to the counsel of Charles Rhyne, who encouraged us from the beginning of our research. Maureen Pelta reviewed the entire manuscript, and her generous criticism greatly improved its usefulness. Andrew Morrogh has been a rigorous critic and editor, as well as an ideal husband. Several other colleagues read drafts of chapters, significantly improving the text’s accuracy and usefulness: David Bomford, Leslie Carlyle, Harriet Irgang, Marcia Steele, and two anonymous readers for Yale University Press. We are deeply indebted to them all.
The scope of this volume is a testament to our optimism, matched only by the generosity of individuals and institutions worldwide. The Conservation Department at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., provided extraordinary access to photographic material, examination records, and staff expertise. We are profoundly grateful to Ross Merrill, Sarah Fisher, and their colleagues for their endless generosity, for photographs taken for this publication, and for providing a home base for the final stage of research. Ann Hoenigswald, in particular, supported our project as if it were her own. We regularly relied on aid from Elizabeth Walmsley and would also like to acknowledge help from Barbara Berrie, Lucy Bisognano, E. Melanie Gifford, Jay Krueger, and Michael Swicklik.
Several other conservation departments supported the book by arranging new photography specifically for us. For this as well, as for research assistance, we offer great thanks to Jim Coddington, Museum of Modern Art, New York; Stephen Gritt, the Courtauld Institute; Stephen Kornhauser, Wadsworth Atheneum; Andrew O’Connor, National Gallery of Ireland; J. William Shank and Dawn Steele Pullman, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Elizabeth Steele, the Phillips Collection; and Marcia Steele, Cleveland Museum of Art.
We are also grateful to colleagues at the following institutions who made published and unpublished technical photographs available and shared their research: David Bomford, the National Gallery, London; Ann Creager, National Museum of American Art; James Cuno, Harvard University Art Museums; Joseph Fronek, Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Carmen Garrido, Museo del Prado; Rica Jones, Tate Gallery; Susan Lake, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden; Mark Leonard, J. Paul Getty Museum of Art; Therese Lignelli and Mark Tucker, Philadelphia Museum of Art; Norman Muller, Art Museum, Princeton University; Nathalie Volle, Laboratoire de Recherche des Musées de France; Jørgen Wadum, Royal Cabinet of Paintings, the Hague; Frank Zuccari, the Art Institute of Chicago; and staffs at the Baltimore Museum of Art; Bayerischen Staatsgemäldesammlungen, Munich; Glasgow Museums; Hamilton Kerr Institute, University of Cambridge; and the Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen.
Keith Christiansen and Laurent Sozzani not only made their institutional resources available but also shared their enthusiasm for and extraordinary knowledge of the material. Many other colleagues eased access to institutional collections and records. We would like to acknowledge particular help from Guillermo Alonso, Kevin Avery, Claire Barry, Kenneth Bé, Peter Berkes, Steven Bonaides, Michael Conforti, Paula Di Cristofaro, Michael Desmond, Kerry Dixon, Barbara Heller, Nancy McGary, David Miller, Suzanne Penn, Martin Radicki, William Real, Daniel Schulman, George Shakelford, Suzanne Siano, Lowery Stokes Sims, Charles Stuckey, Peter Sutton, Jan Thurmann-Moe, Jim Wright, Fay Wrubel, and Eric Zaffran.
Staffs at both Rustin Levenson Art Conservation, New York, and Florida Conservation Associates, Miami, provided continuous support. Diana Dopson, Emily Hage, and Daisy Lackaff brought diligence and enthusiasm to their editorial and research assistance.
A number of scholars, colleagues, and friends were particularly generous with their research and expertise. We want to thank Joseph Baillio, Maria Balderrama, Lucy Belloli, Annette Blaugrund, Edgar Peters Bowron, Spike Bucklow, Marcus Burke, Judith Colton, Lizzie Sanchez Farrah, Gloria F. Giffords, Francis Glibbery, Reinhold Heller, Robert L. Herbert, Vojtech Jirat-Wasiutynski, Alexander Katlan, Michelle Kay, Martin Kemp, the late Michael Kitson, Barbara Krulik, Gridley McKim-Smith, Dorothy Mahon, John Maseman, H. Travers Newton, Francis V. O’Connor, Perri Lee Roberts, Sheila Schwartz, Alison B. Snyder, Leo Steinberg, Suzanne Stratton-Pruitt, Edward J. Sullivan, Sherri Tan, Helène Verougstraete, Steven Weintraub, and many others.
Research was conducted at several libraries and video archives, and we would like to acknowledge valuable assistance from their staffs: Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York) Department of Film and Media Services, Thomas J. Watson Library and Uris Library and Resource Center; Museum of Modern Art (New York) Film Study Center; National Gallery of Art (Washington, D.C.) Library and Conservation Department Library; New York University, Institute of Fine Arts Library and Conservation Center Library, with particular thanks to Margaret Holben Ellis and Robert Stacy; University of Oregon, Knight Library and School of Architecture and Allied Arts Library, with ongoing assistance from Kaia Esau, Sheila Klos, and Christine Sundt. Nadine Covert of the Program for Art on Film, Inc., c/o Pratt SILS, provided information used in assembling the list of videos in the Bibliography.
Rustin would particularly like to thank Randal, Moss, Cormac, and Geddes for their support. This book would not exist without the faith that our editor, Judy Metro, showed in the project from its inception. We deeply appreciate the skill and attention that Colin Campbell and Daphne Geismar brought to the books design, Heidi Downey to its editing, and Mary Mayer to its production.