As soon as I get an assignment for a painting documentation and examination, first thing, I look for published technical art examination material on that specific artist. Shooting multispectral images doesn’t make you an expert. One thing is to shoot a medical X-ray, another is to interpret the X-radiograph! Right? It’s probably pretty easy to operate a modern medical X-ray machine, I guess. Presumably, you just got to press a couple of buttons and you are done. A much different thing is to make a diagnosis from that X-radiograph! Same thing with technical art examination. As I showed you in my posts, shooting multispectral images is pretty easy. I do actually provide training in just a week. Interpreting the images, this is really another world! Here is where you really need years of experience. So, instead of being discouraged, just start to read and study hard what others have done. There are awesome technical art examination publications from which we can learn. Though, the less famous the artist the less material we are going to find. The goal is to collect references for the specific artist we are interested in. Indeed, we want to know what was the painting technique and the painting materials used by that artist. Finding this material could be a daunting task. I want to share here my bibliographic research on artists I’m working on, this would save you some time should you work on them too. So, I’m adding a new category to this blog, “Artists”.
A couple of weeks ago I was working on Thomas Gainsborough (1727-1788). This is the technical art examination material I found and used:
[1] S. Conrad “Thomas Gainsborough’s First Self-Portrait” British Art Journal, Vol. 12, No. 1, 2011. This paper makes a nice review of all the other technical art examination resources available in order to attribute a self-portrait.
[2] D. Bomford, A. Roy, D. Saunders ‘Gainsborough’s “Dr Ralph Schomberg”‘ National Gallery Technical Bulletin Vol 12, pp 44–57. 1988. This paper is actually the main source of the paper above.
[3] L. Paisley “Up Close and Illuminated: Artist’s Methods and Materials in the Manton Collection” Art Conservator, A publication of the Williamstown Art Conservation Center, Vol. 7, No. 2, 2012. This is specifically about Gainsborough’s drawing technique and materials.
[4] J. Mills, R. White “Analysis of paint media” National Gallery Technical Bulletin Vol. 11, 1987. Among other painters they also studied Gainsborough’s binding medium.
[5] M. Rosenthal, M. Myrone,” Thomas Gainsborough 1727-1788” edited by Harry N Abrams, 2003. Published in occasion of the exhibition at the Tate Britain in 2002, it has “Gainsborough in his painting room,” a technical art examination chapter contributed by Rica Jones, the most expert conservator on Gainsborough. Useful cross-sections.
[6] A. Sawicka, S. Lenk “A portrait of Thomas Gainsborough. The Courtauld Collections: Conservation and Art Historical Analysis.” Absolutely a well done report with a number of multispectral images.
Click to access Report-GainsboroughbyASawickaandSLenk.pdf
[7] A. Ribeiro, V. Pemberton-Pigott “The Earl and Countess Howe by Gainsborough” edited by Anne French, 1988. The only resource I found with examples of X-radiographs of Gainsborough.[/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]
