Abstract
This chapter shows how electromagnetic radiation entered the realm of art, and the screening of paintings with X-rays came to be an accepted practice. Developments in fields such as radiation physics, analytical chemistry, and scientific photography were perceived as demystifying forces that helped uncover hidden truths about the world—and also about art. New visual technologies invented in the nineteenth century could reveal crucial details, things previously barely seen or entirely invisible. The invisible, or rather the unseen, was at the centre of attention in scientific photography during the last third of the century. Faber not only reported these findings, but also included a scientific explanation for them, starting with an analogy: An oil painting is in this respect no different from a human body containing parts of varying degrees of penetrability to the X-rays—in our case paints.
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