History Of Painting Research Articles

Analysing Historical Paintings with Indian Regional Influences

Abstract: Indian paintings have a long and illustrious history that is firmly rooted in the history of Indian art. Even though there aren't many surviving early examples due to the difficult climate, the importance of paintings has persisted throughout the ancient, mediaeval, and modern periods. Indian paintings' origins can be traced back to the prehistoric era, starting with the age-old art of painting in caves. Ceramics, textiles, miniature paintings, and other media have all contributed to this rich legacy's evolution before ultimately finding expression in contemporary artistic forms. Indian painting's history, from the mysterious cave paintings to the fine details of miniature paintings, captures the spirit of the country's creative and cultural development and represents a significant trip through time. As evidenced by the remains found in caves and other textual sources, painting has been a popular art form in India since prehistoric times. The two main categories of Indian paintings are miniatures and murals. Books, paper, and linen are used for miniature paintings, whereas murals are massive pieces painted on walls and ceilings. The evolution of Indian art is a continuous process, resulting from the blending of various traditions. Indian painting has managed to hold onto its unique style while embracing contemporary trends.

Time-Domain-Filtered Terahertz Nanoscopy of Intrinsic Light-Matter Interactions.

Terahertz (THz) technology holds great potential across diverse applications, including biosensing and information communications, but conventional far-field techniques are limited by diffraction. Near-field optical microscopy overcomes this barrier through a sharp tip that concentrates incident THz waves into nanometric volumes, detecting scattered near-field to reveal nanoscale optical properties. However, owing to the large THz wavelengths, resonant surface waves arising on the tip and cantilever obscure the intrinsic response. Here we combine near-field microscopy with THz time-domain spectroscopy and implement time-domain filtering with an elongated cantilever to eliminate this artifact, achieving intrinsic nanospectroscopy and nanoimaging. By applying this technique, we distinguish and characterize historical pigments of an ancient sculpture, such as vermilion and red lead, on the nanoscale. We also unravel deep-subwavelength localized resonance modes in THz optical antennas, demonstrating capabilities for THz nanophotonics. Our work advances THz nanoimaging and nanospectroscopy techniques to probe intrinsic nanoscale THz light-matter interactions.

Terahertz time-domain investigation of atacamite: Spectral analysis and theoretical insights for cultural heritage applications

Spectroscopic methods based on terahertz (THz) radiation can represent an innovative approach in the Cultural Heritage field. Specifically, contemporary and historical pigments can exhibit unique fingerprints. However, despite the high selectiveness of terahertz technique, the origin of spectral characteristics is not often known. In this work, the characteristic terahertz-time-domain spectroscopy spectrum of atacamite is reported in the spectral range 0.1–3.7 THz along with ab initio calculation of lattice dynamics to assess the nature of experimental features. The obtained results enable the acquisition of reliable new data in Heritage sciences, which is essential for developing accurate reference pigment databases.

Contemporary Painting and Spiritual Landscape--Re-examination of the History and Theme of Shelf Paintings

This paper and the graduation piece continue the course of my research. By investigating the history and development of contemporary painting, of how painting going from representational to abstract, this paper and my graduation piece is aimed to find a new interpretation to integrate the ideas of painting; to achieve the "landscape of spirit" of artist and to interpret the expressive principle of art fully. Finally, combining the landscape of spirit and painting together, highlighting an important factor of creation-"spirit". This paper has taken the analysis from Chinese and Western to be the main content-from representational to abstract; from the West to the East; and from the combination of the East and the West. Of western artists, Picasso, Rothko was chosen to be the representative while the integration of Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism from the Wei and Jin Dynasty was chosen to represent the East. Whether it is the religion of the West of the philosophy or the East could be found in painting easily, this show that spirit is necessary in painting. Nowadays, the East and the West are closely linked, Chinese artist's self-study and the "landscape of spirit" could be easily seen. How to explain the "landscape of spirit" is also a problem. This paper tries to explain the "landscape of spirit" by combining art history, study of the connection and development of art and technology, and my own art.

Materials and Techniques of the Mural Paintings in the Church-Ossuary of the Rila Monastery, Bulgaria

This presented research examined the wall paintings in the Church-Ossuary Presentation of the Blessed Virgin, part of the most important Rila Monastery complex in Bulgaria, painted by the painters from Mount Athos in 1795. The painting materials used to create the unique murals were studied for the first time by optical microscopy (OM), attenuated total reflectance Fourier transform infrared (ATR–FTIR), scanning electron microscopy energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (SEM–EDS), and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). The vibrational and elemental analysis showed that the color palette of the paintings is composed of pigments traditional for Orthodox church wall paintings such as natural pigments, including yellow ochre, red ochre, green earth, and calcite, as well as other historical pigments of synthetic origin, including smalt, red lead, cinnabar, and verdigris. The analysis of the binders by the ATR–FTIR spectroscopy and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) analysis implied the use of the post-Byzantine egg tempera technique. Only the blue backgrounds in the murals were painted using a smalt-based paint mixed with a carbohydrate binder. Based on the current analysis and comparison with the successive paintings in the other churches of the Rila Monastery, it could be concluded that the technology of the painting process followed by the Athonite artists during the work in the Church-Ossuary became a point of reference for many Bulgarian icon-painters later.

Analyzing Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains from a Pictorial Perspective

From the perspective of iconography, this paper presents an in-depth analysis of Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains, a classic work of traditional Chinese landscape painting. This work has been highly respected since the Tang Dynasty and is regarded as one of the important representatives in the history of Chinese painting. Its rich connotation and artistic value have always been the focus of scholars' research. The thesis aims to deeply interpret the historical and cultural connotations and artistic symbolism embedded in Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains through the iconographic method, from the levels of ex-iconography, iconography and iconographic analysis, to reveal its important position and value in Chinese traditional art. Adopting the iconographic method, the analysis is divided into three main levels. First, through pre-imaginative analysis, we focus on the physical facts and visual representations on the surface of the work; second, we use imaginative analysis to explore the information of the specific objects in the work and explore their connections and themes; and finally, we carry out imaginative analysis to reveal the deeper historical and cultural connotations and symbolic meanings of the work. Through in-depth iconographic analysis, Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains demonstrates the core values of traditional Chinese landscape painting, presenting a fusion of natural landscapes and humanistic emotions. It is not only a work of art, but also a vivid expression of traditional Chinese culture and aesthetics. The findings of this dissertation will contribute to a better understanding of the profound historical and cultural connotations embedded in Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains, as well as its important position and value in the history of Chinese art.

Molecular Characterization of Adhesives (Glue Lining Pastes) Used in Restoration.

The molecular characterization of samples from works of art can provide valuable insights into the composition of ancient restoration materials and their conservation state. Here, we present a novel analytical protocol for the molecular characterization of a specific adhesive used in historical painting restoration, known as "glue lining pastes." Due to the high molecular complexity of these adhesives, we propose a multistep extraction protocol to recover and fractionate from a single microsample the three main classes of biomolecules contained in glue pastes (lipids, polysaccharides, and proteins). High-performance separation coupled with high-resolution mass spectrometry (MS) techniques were applied to the isolated fractions to identify specific components. The proposed method was optimized using test specimens of various traditional glue pastes applied to canvases and successfully applied to a historical glue paste sample from the 17th-century painting "La fuga in Egitto," part of the Pagliara collection at the University Suor Orsola Benincasa (Naples, Italy). The data collected in this work provide insights into the specific recipe used for adhesive preparation, supporting artistic and historical interpretations and contributing to a broader understanding of old restoration practices. Data are available via ProteomeXchange with the identifier PXD051480.

Rehearsal for Deep Song

Rehearsal for Deep Song recreates Martha Graham’s choreographic piece Deep Song, the last dance that she, as a mother of Modern Dance, performed alone in 1937 in response to the Spanish Civil War startling pictures of the performance reached the United States at the time, through different media. This project focuses on the analytical study, through pictorial mimesis, of the sequence of movements proposed by Graham in her choreography in order to deal with the Spanish conflict. Working with oil paint on long strips of canvas designed and prepared to represent sequences of movement in an exercise close to stop-motion, it develops a creative process based on an expanded concept of the idea of historical frieze. Its aim is not only to learn other ways to cope with the images of violence that news and social media are able to expose us to today but also to contribute to the renewal of the genre of historical painting through a working methodology that emphasizes the power of recreation (re-enactment) of the pictorial medium rather than restricting it to the mere realm of representation. Graham entitled her dance in reference to Federico García Lorca’s poem ‘Poema del Cante Jondo’ published in Madrid in 1931 and translated into English as ‘Poem of Deep Song’.

Overturning the Narrative: Steele and Goldie's Arrival of the Maoris in New Zealand, 1899

New Zealand’s best-known historical painting, Louis John Steele and Charles Frederick Goldie’s Arrival of the Maoris in New Zealand (1899), has influenced the way Māori history has been (mis)understood. Through a detailed examination of the historical, anthropological and artistic sources that informed the painting, a new understanding emerges. Rather than a generic imagined depiction of Māori arrival, a long-overlooked source for the narrative is found in the voyage of the Arawa waka and its encounter with the “throat of Te Parata.” The analysis gives new insight into the artists’ intent, enabling us to begin to address the uncomfortable place Arrival occupies in New Zealand art history and culture.

Painting the Past in the 19th Century: Materials, Methods, and Perspectives in Watercolour Replicas

This study focuses on the material characterisation of a collection of 19th-century watercolour replicas that reproduce ancient Egyptian mural paintings and illuminated decorations from medieval manuscripts. Non-contact analyses, including macro-X-ray fluorescence (MA-XRF), X-ray diffraction (XRD), and fibre-optic reflectance spectroscopy (FORS), were employed to examine the composition of the painting materials, particularly the pigments. The findings are contextualised through archival research into 19th-century technical sources on historical painting and illuminating practices, as well as contemporaneous pigment catalogues that reported commercial prices. Ultimately, this research aimed to explore whether 19th-century artists engaged with historical material practices beyond mere visual representation in their depictions of historical subjects. The results obtained from the replicas of medieval illuminations are groundbreaking, as they challenge prevailing scholarly assumptions. Notably, the use of pigments such as minium and ultramarine blue, which were held in high regard during the Middle Ages, along with the use of chalk in the preparation of the support, suggest that, in an industrialised world where engagement with material culture was increasingly driven by commercial profit, some academic circles still sought to explore and preserve selected historical material practices in the art of painting.

The Bastard Child of Historicism? Realisms Roots in History Painting

Summary In her classic 1974 study Realism, art historian Linda Nochlin claims that by the mid-nineteenth century, realism and realism esthetics so had permeated the art world that it also had affected the academic history painters. But what if this is wrong, if it wasn’t the history painters that were affected by the realists, but rather the other way around? In this article, I will make the case that Realism, the esthetical movement of the mid-nineteenth century, had its roots in the historicism of the early nineteenth century and that the realist claims to give a truthful, objective and impartial representation of the real world, based on meticulous observation, were already present in discussions of history and how to represent history in the arts from the years around 1800. Secondly, the study is also a contribution to the research concerning how the idea and concept of history changed in the early nineteenth century.

The artists’ colony of Ekensund

The Museumsberg Flensburg, a museum for art and culture at the northern border of Germany, collects especially objects of fine art made around the Flensburg Fjord. The landscape at this part of the Baltic Sea is characterized by sandy beaches, forests which grow directly at the brink of the water and smooth rising hills. The specific profile of the region became popular among landscape painters in the late nineteenth century. They founded an artists’ colony and their paintings created and spread the image of this place. Today, visitors can experience this image, which is a suggestion of maritime lifestyle and the mixture of German and Danish culture, in the picture gallery at the Museumsberg. Even tourist agencies still use photos, films and other media to advertise the fjord as an idyllic paradise for outdoor activities. Telling the history of landscape painting at the Flensburg Fjord and how these artworks became an integral part of a museum collection reveals how the image of this region was born 150 years ago and developed until today.

2 X Anna Korda - an Introspective Radiography of Two Historical Paintings. The Portraits of the Last Two Women of Their Kin

2 X Anna Korda - an Introspective Radiography of Two Historical Paintings. The Portraits of the Last Two Women of Their Kin

PAINTING HISTORY: PICTURE, WITNESS, AND ANCIENT HISTORIOGRAPHY

ABSTRACTThis article treats an analogy that is used persistently in the history of historiography: the equation of historiography with painting and the identification of the historiographer with the painter. In examining the conceptual stakes of this (auto)identification, the article mobilizes the analogy in order to explore larger issues of historical theory and, through the prism of historical painting, reflects on the problem of representation and narrativist approaches to history as text. The article argues that the historiographic desire surfacing in a comparison with painting does not concern painting's ability to capture the past; rather, it concerns its ability to capture the viewer. Opening with a brief survey of the ut pictura historia analogy in the history of historiography, the article makes this claim by analyzing historiographical engagements with the analogy in antiquity (turning to Herodotus and Polybius) and by exploring ancient history painting itself (offering pride of place to the Alexander Mosaic). In thus engaging with the theory of historiography via concrete historical material, the article leverages a historical episode of interaction between textual media and visual media to find that they are structured by the same simple desire that continues to exert its force today: the desire to see for oneself.

Memorialising Keats: Severn, Headstones and Hyperion

For obvious reasons, Keats's biographers have focused primarily on the last five months of the poet’s life and on the making of his reputation in the later nineteenth century. They have spent very little time, however, on the two uncertain years that followed the poet’s death when his legacy, largely in the hands of Brown, Taylor and Severn, hung in the balance. As Severn was recovering from Keats's death, he fought to establish his own livelihood as a painter and find an adequate means of memorialising his friend. He was preoccupied with two works of art, The Death of Alcibiades and the headstone for Keats's grave. I argue that these artworks represent complex expressions of Severn's grief and in this sense are both memorials, though Alcibiades disguises its aims in a conventional historical painting. In the strong reading of Hyperion embedded in the picture, Severn finds a way of coming to terms with the traumatic aftermath of Keats's death as well as the critical attacks on his poetry. My recent rediscovery of two key manuscript letters of this time by members of the Keats Circle lends support to the argument.

Vasily Surikov: the Power of the Unexperienced

The article is devoted to the work of the outstanding Russian painter V.I. Surikov. The author reveals the meaning of historical painting, which is usually associated with the artist. Surikov is not the one who addresses history as the past, but the one who explores the pain points of our self-awareness through history. Surikov is among the artists who transformed Russian painting, by analogy with Russian iconography, into our «thinking in colors», that is, into our philosophy, which develops beyond the boundaries of philosophy proper. In this sense, Surikov’s painting is of interest not only from the point of view of aesthetics, but from the point of view of studying the specifi cs of the Russian mindset. The article examines in detail the principal paintings of Surikov, such as “Boyarina Morozova”, “The Conquest of Siberia by Ermak Timofeevich”, “Suvorov’s Crossing the Alps”, etc., and shows that they represent an attempt to formalize the Russian consciousness.

The artistic tradition of Russian Academism in Mongolian contemporary art (a study of the historical paintings by Mongolian artist B. Otgontuvden)

The artistic tradition of Russian Academism in Mongolian contemporary art (a study of the historical paintings by Mongolian artist B. Otgontuvden)

Digital 3D models for medieval heritage: diachronic analysis and documentation of its architecture and paintings

In this paper, we discuss the requirements and technical challenges within the EHEM project, Enhancement of Heritage Experiences: The Middle Ages, an ongoing research program for the acquisition, analysis, documentation, interpretation, digital restoration, and communication of medieval artistic heritage. The project involves multidisciplinary teams comprising art historians and visual computing experts. Despite the vast literature on digital 3D models in support of Cultural Heritage, the field is so rich and diverse that specific projects often imply distinct, unique requirements which often challenge the computational technologies and suggest new research opportunities. As good representatives of such diversity, we describe the three monuments that serve as test cases for the project, all of them with a rich history of architecture and paintings. We discuss the art historians’ view of how digital models can support their research, the expertise and technological solutions adopted so far, as well as the technical challenges in multiple areas spanning geometry and appearance acquisition, color analysis and digital restitution, as well as the representation of the profound transformations due to the alterations suffered over the centuries.

ColorNetVis: An Interactive Color Network Analysis System for Exploring the Color Composition of Traditional Chinese Painting.

In the field of digital humanities, color research aims to discover explanations for painting history and color usage habits. However, researchers analyzing color relationships is challenging and time-consuming, as it requires color extraction and a detailed review of many painting images for reference and comparison of color relationships. In our work, we propose ColorNetVis, an interactive color network analysis tool that enables researchers to explore color relationships through color networks. The core of ColorNetVis is a bipartite network model that establishes a bipartite relationship between colors and Chinese painting within a scope based on color difference measurement. It constructs a one-mode color network through projection algorithms and similarity calculation methods to discover the relationship between colors. We propose a coordinated set of views to demonstrate the combination of determined color networks with painting types and real-world attributes. We use color space view, color attribute distribution view, and single color query components to assist researchers in conducting detailed color analysis and validation. Through case studies, researcher reviews, and user studies, we demonstrate that ColorNetVis can effectively help researchers discover knowledge of color relationships and potential color research directions.

Historical Pigments and Paint Layers: Raman Spectral Library with 852 nm Excitation Laser

Raman spectroscopy (RS), for its robust analytical capabilities under constant development, is a powerful method for the identification of various materials, in particular pigments in cultural heritage. Characterization of the artist’s palette is of fundamental importance for the correct formulation of restoration intervention as well as for preventive conservation of artworks. Here we examine the number and variability of research studies exploiting Bravo handheld Raman spectrophotometer relying on the excitation of Raman signal with temperature-shifted diode lasers emitting at 852 and 785 nm. To this end, we explore the spectral features of common historical pigments examined as powders and in the paint layer. We show that some materials may exhibit slightly different spectra as concerns especially the relative intensity of Raman lines with 852 nm laser excitation wavelength as compared to the standard 785 nm. The aim is to provide the research community with a reference spectral database that facilitates the identification of unknown pigments using the 852 nm excitation source.