20th Century Painting Research Articles

The anatomy of nature: geology & American landscape painting, 1825-1875

Geology was in vogue in 19th-century America. People crowded lecture halls to hear geologists speak, and parlour mineral cabinets signalled social respectability and intellectual engagement. This was also the heyday of the Hudson River School, and many prominent landscape painters avidly studied geology. Thomas Cole, Asher Durand, Federic Church, John F. Kensett, William Stanely Haseltine, Thomas Moran, and other artists read scientific texts, participated in geological surveys, and carried rock hammers into the field to collect fossils and mineral specimens. As they crafted their paintings, these artists drew on their geological knowledge to shape new vocabularies of landscape elements resonant with moral, spiritual, and intellectual ideas. This major study offers an account of the role of geology in 19th-century landscape painting. It should be of interest to art historians, Americanists, historians of science, and readers interested in the American natural landscape.

Imaging Microspectroscopic, Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometric and Electron Microscopic Studies on Discoloured and Partially Discoloured Smalt in Cross-sections of 16th Century Paintings

Paint cross-sections of five 16th century paintings with areas of discoloured smalt oil paint were investigated. Semi-quantitative SEM-EDX analysis revealed that potassium was relatively low in all discoloured smalts, while cobalt remained at an approximately steady level. Reflection light microscopy demonstrated the presence of partially discoloured smalt particles with a remaining blue core. Imaging SIMS demonstrated that cobalt has a uniform distribution in the glass particles. Potassium however shows relatively high levels in the oil paint matrix around the discoloured glass particles and an uneven distribution in smalt particles with a blue core. These blue cores always have a higher K level compared to the discoloured rim of the particle. The loss of potassium from smalt in oil paint is interpreted as a leaching process which lowers the basicity of the glass below a critical level for colour maintenance. The colour change of the smalt is thus an indicator of a change in alkalinity inside the glass. The critical level appears to be near a K:Co of about 1:1 in 16th century potash glass on the basis of semi-quantitative SEM-EDX data. The migrated K is thought to be accommodated on the many fatty acid groups of the mature oil network ionomer in the aged oil paint. Ca was observed in a number of blue remaining smalts which suggest a role in preservation of the blue glass or retardation of the leaching process. It is estimated that the colour change is an early phenomenon possibly related to the early stages of oxidation and hydrolysis of the cross-linking oil paint. The differences in potassium levels in the remaining blue part of the smalt particles point to variability in the quality of the base potash glass in the 16th century. Analysis of partially discoloured smalt from two panels of a triptych by Dirck Barendsz (1534–1592) demonstrated that he had access to two chemically different smalts.

Evaluation of a Principal Components-Based Searching Algorithm for Raman Spectroscopic Identification of Organic Pigments in 20th Century Artwork

The characterization of artists' materials is of great importance for the conservation and restoration of 20th century paintings, and it provides information which is of art-historical interest. The identification of modern organic pigments by Raman spectroscopy is hampered by the large amount of different synthetic materials that exist. Therefore, an extended database of reference spectra is needed. Besides this spectral library, there is need for an accurate and fast-searching algorithm for selecting the reference spectrum that best corresponds with the unknown spectrum. A principal components-based spectral searching algorithm is proposed that largely reduces the number of data points for each spectrum. By subsequent measurement of the Euclidian distance between the unknown and the reference spectra in the principal components space, the corresponding reference can be selected. The algorithm is tested by using the results of the Raman spectroscopic analysis of different colored pencils. Different qualities of matches for the identification protocol could be distinguished. The synthetic organic pigments in micro-samples of the painting “Faubourg” by Paul Delvaux could be identified by the proposed algorithm.

Realism in 20th century painting

This comprehensive survey the history of realist painting and argues that realism has had a continuous yet restlessly changing place in American and European painting throughout the 20th century. Artists discussed include Eakins, Bellows and Homer, Vuillard, Bonnard, Schiele, Morandi, Hopper and Giacometti, through to Balthus, Lucian Freud, and David Hockney. The author provides the historical, artistic and critical contexts in which painting has taken a realist turn, from the Ashcan School to Soviet Social realism, from painting of the Existentialist era to the time of Photorealism, to recent developments. He argues that the western tradition of pictorial realism has in fact been renewed and modified through the diverse influences of modernism, political conflict and new visual technologies.

Realism in 20th Century Painting

Realism in 20th Century Painting

Cleaning Painted Surfaces: Aqueous Methods

There is no layer of a painting where we are fully satisfied with our present understanding of its material structure, and its deterioration over time. Most research carried out today into the materials of paintings concentrates on a fuller understanding of properties, to further understanding of the consequences of conservation treatments, both immediate and long-term. This includes an understanding of the effects of earlier treatments. This book contributes significantly to the selection of appropriate and controllable cleaning methods for varnished and unvarnished paint surfaces. It is a distillation of practical experience over many years in formulating a cleaning treatment for a given object. While the case histories describe 19th- and 20th-century paintings and furniture exclusively, and may emphasise the cleaning of never-varnished surfaces to an extent unusual in some conservators'experience, the general principles are applicable to the surface cleaning of both traditional and modern paint media. These in fact, may be found on sculptures, ethnographic materials and even textile and paper supports, as well as on paintings, gilded surfaces and furniture. Aqueous methods are certainly be cleaned safely by the more traditonal methods based on the use of solvents. -- ICCROM

Stroganoff: the palace and collections of a Russian noble family

The Stroganoffs were among Imperial Russia's wealthiest and most influential families. This book, the companion to a major travelling exhibition, showcases items from their collection, from 16th-century icons and paintings by Botticelli, to rare antiques and decorative objects.

America: the New World in 19th-century painting

This is a survey of American art spannning a whole century, from the close of the 18th century until World War I. Classified by genre, these works demonstrate both the continuity and the breaks in the development of 19th-century American art and question the established art-historical narrative of American painting. In addition to beautiful reproductions of the paintings, ten essays by scholars from both sides of the Atlantic analyse topics ranging from landscape painting, European influences, the relationship between photography and painting , and American painters in Italy, to the art of the post-Civil War era. Illustrated biographies include a portrait and several other works by each artist, a chronology of historical, cultural and social events, maps, and a dictionary of American painting in the 19th century.

Raman spectroscopic database of azo pigments and application to modern art studies

The application of Raman spectroscopy to the examination of ancient art and the identification of mineral pigments used in antiquity has been demonstrated successfully hitherto. However, the examination of modern objects of art is hampered by the absence of a spectral library database of relatively modern organic pigments and dyestuffs, of which there are a large number. Azo pigments provide an example historically of a class of synthetic organic pigments which have been adopted by artists. The Raman spectra of 21 azo pigments were analysed and a protocol was established for their identification. Using this database, two azo pigments from 1 µg samples of 20th century paintings attributed to Picasso and Appel were characterized. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The Bretschneider albums: 19th-century paintings of life in China. By K. Y. Solonin, consultant, Frances wood, general editor, Vitaly Naumkin. pp. 170, 130 col. pl. Reading, Garnet Publishing, 1995. £65.00.

The Bretschneider albums: 19th-century paintings of life in China. By K. Y. Solonin, consultant, Frances wood, general editor, Vitaly Naumkin. pp. 170, 130 col. pl. Reading, Garnet Publishing, 1995. £65.00.

The Problematics of Collecting and Display, Part 2

Part of a special section on the problematics of collecting and display. A discussion of modern French painting and the art museum. In contrast to America, with some exceptions, in European museums, 19th-century French painting is either segregated from earlier art or is almost entirely absent. In the last generation, however, international scholarship on Impressionist and Postimpressionist French painting has tried to rethink, reattribute, redate, retitle, and research virtually every artist, medium, artistic movement, and critical stance in French art from 1850 to World War I. This has affected the permanent collections in British and American museums, leading, ironically, to a situation in which an art created in opposition to general art museums is no longer avant-garde. The writer examines the role of museums in the canonization of Impressionist and Postimpressionist painting and the need for art museums to reappraise their installation strategies.

Una convivenza difficile: Longhi e l'arte novecentesca

Longhi was one of the few Italian art historians who took a real interest in contemporary art. However, his output in the early and late periods of his long career clearly evidences a complete reversal of attitude on this subject: the young stalwart defender of Futurism is recast into the mature and equally stalwart reprover of all the post-1945 art movements. His whole-hearted endorsement in 1913-1914 of Futurism produced an Avant-Garde interpretation of 17th century art. Yet, only three years later, his sensitivity to the geometric and abstract form, previously the chief element in his outlook on the Caravaggio school, is gradually supplanted by a re-evaluation of colour values and the repudiation of the Avant-Garde movement. He also deeply and personally resented the rising tide of the rappel a l'ordre. A champion of Impressionism, he is, in the interwar period, an implacable enemy of the fashionable exaltation of Italian 19th-century painting and its nationalistic connotations. He favoured the work of painters such as Carr a and Morandi, capable of re-interpreting in a personal, non-academic way their rapport with tradition. After the II World War, Longhi remained faithful to his preference for realism in its broadest terms, judging severely the Abstract and Pop Art movements, as well as the overpowering influence of Picasso. He believed that art critics should only adironic towards those critics who interpreted art from an exclusively philosophical sociological point of view.

The perception of doors: A sociodynamic investigation of doors in 20th century painting

This paper presents a sociodynamic investigation of doors as boundary in 20th century painting. Within a phenomenological perspective, using paintings as viual semiotic reflections of psychological states, I explore meaning to penetrate and illuminate interpretations of space. Images of doors by mainters Georgia O'Keefe, Pierre Bonnard, Edward Hopper, Alice Neel, Elizabeth Layton, Ben Shahn and Mark Rothko are used to explore dimensions of the human being's relationship to the environment and to speculate about balance, intimacy, separation, limits and boundaries.

Sturgeon Glue for Painting Consolidation in Russia

AbstractSturgeon glue, prepared from the inner membrane of the air bladder of the fish, has long been used by Russian conservators as a consolidant and adhesive. It has recently become more accessible to Western conservators. It has greater tack and lower viscosity than comparable mammalian products like gelatin and rabbit-skin glue. The consolidation of badly tented paint on a 16th-century panel painting is described. Translated and adapted sections from the standard text of Russian conservators illustrate current techniques in Russia.

Textured Panels in 19th-Century American Painting

The practice of texturing the support or ground of panel paintings has been attributed in the literature to Gilbert Stuart. His purpose was supposedly to simulate his favorite English twilled canvas, which was in short supply due to an embargo preceding the War of 1812. Examples of textured ground and support by other artists indicate the practice was not limited to Stuart. As these examples date at least through the first four decades of the 19th century, the scarcity of imported canvas probably was not the rationale for texturing panels.

The Wanderers: Masters of 19th-Century Russian Painting

The Wanderers: Masters of 19th-Century Russian Painting

Textured Panels in 19th-Century American Painting

AbstractThe practice of texturing the support or ground of panel paintings has been attributed in the literature to Gilbert Stuart. His purpose was supposedly to simulate his favorite English twilled canvas, which was in short supply due to an embargo preceding the War of 1812. Examples of textured ground and support by other artists indicate the practice was not limited to Stuart. As these examples date at least through the first four decades of the 19th century, the scarcity of imported canvas probably was not the rationale for texturing panels.

The antiquity and origins of rheumatoid arthritis.

To the Editor. —The report by Dequeker and Rico 1 describing rheumatoidlike lesions in a mid 15th- to early 16th-century painting, parallels a similar report by Appelboom et al. 2 At that time, evidence was also presented to support the paleopathological evidence for rheumatoid arthritis well before the 15th to 17th centuries. 3 American Indian skeletal material from Dickson Mounds, Ill, has yielded a case of rheumatoid arthritis in an elderly man from the Mississippian period (700 to 1650 AD). 4 Rothschild et al 5 have also published convincing evidence for the New World presence of rheumatoid arthritis during the Late Archaic Period (3000 to 5000 years before the present). Other cases have been reported. 3 To date, published reports support the possibility that rheumatoid arthritis originated in the New World and entered the Old World after the 15th century. 5 The paleopathological evidence supports the presence of rheumatoid arthritis

Rheumatoid arthritis-like deformities in an early 16th-century painting of the Flemish-Dutch school

Rheumatoid arthritis-like deformities in an early 16th-century painting of the Flemish-Dutch school

Rheumatoid Arthritis—like Deformities in an Early 16th-Century Painting of the Flemish-Dutch School

Hand deformities resembling those of rheumatoid arthritis have been depicted in a painting by an anonymous artist of the Flemish-Dutch School, mid-15th to early 16th century. The painting is presently in the Escorial Museum near Madrid, Spain. This observation, like other earlier observations of rheumatoid deformities in paintings of the Middle Ages, suggests that rheumatoid arthritis is not a modern disease; it had, indeed, appeared several centuries before Landré-Beauvais' description in 1800.