Art History

by Dana Arnold

  The support is usually a soft wood such as poplar or basswood. Tempera paint requires a slightly absorbent ground, or base, because of the relatively weak binding strength of the egg. The usual chalk gesso ground that gives the smooth surface on which to apply the paint is relatively inflexible and requires a rigid support.

  The mixture of pigment and yolk is diluted with water and applied thinly. Impasto, or textured, effects are not possible as the paint would crack and peel off. Instead, the paint surface is very flat and the tonal values of the pigments remain largely unmodulated in each application of paint. For this reason, it can be seen that the use of tempera in the representation of the Virgin and Child (Fig. 20) is in keeping with the purpose and aesthetics of Byzantine icons. The stiffness of the image is not due to lack of artistic ability or the limitations of technique – just a different set of priorities. However, underpaint could be used to achieve modelling and tone, for instance a green underpaint was used for flesh – this has often worn away with time, resulting, for example, in many faces painted in tempera having a greenish tinge that now looks very unnatural. White could be mixed with the colour and applied in successive or adjacent applications, so making it possible to achieve relatively naturalistic representations of drapery, with the darkest tone of the pigment providing the shadows.

  Egg tempera was also a popular medium for the artists of the Early Renaissance in Italy. The technique was described in great detail by the Early Renaissance artist Cennino Cennini in his Craftsman’s Handbook (1437). This was translated into English in 1899 by Christiana J. Herringham, which prompted a revival of interest in the technique, and tempera remains in use today.

  Oil painting

  Oil painting involves mixing pigment with drying oils – commonly linseed oil, which acts as a varnish to seal pictures and protect them from water. From as early as the 13th century, oil was used for painting details over tempera pictures. Cennino Cennini discusses the use of oil paint, indicating that it was known about in Italy but was not widely used at that time.

  The perfection of oil painting is usually ascribed to the Flemish Van Eyck brothers who were working in the first half of the 15th century. The technique was then introduced by Antonella da Messina to Italy, where it received an enthusiastic reception. Whatever the truth in these stories, it does appear that oil painting began in northern Europe and was influential in the development of painting in the Italian Renaissance. This important influence of artists working north of the Alps on their southern counterparts prompts us to rethink the view of the Renaissance as being solely about Italy’s rediscovery of its Classical past. It seems the interest in naturalism and the effects of light and shade, which preoccupied artists such as Leonardo, was enabled through the adoption of northern techniques of painting rather than by the art of antiquity.

  By the 16th century, the new medium of oil painting had in fact succeeded tempera, as it offered far greater possibilities for artistic experimentation. Some artists continued to use oil and tempera in the same work, exploiting the different qualities of each technique for the best effect. Oil remained the dominant medium for painters up until the introduction of acrylic paints in the 20th century.

  The main supports used for oil painting are wood and cloth, both prepared with a ground. A preparatory drawing, or cartoon, was then transferred onto the ground, or sometimes artists drew directly on this surface using black or red chalk. This preliminary design mapped out the principal elements of the composition. After this, an imprimatura base was applied to the entire picture surface, which affected the tonal value of the whole depending on the colour chosen. For example, a neutral tone such as light grey or brown could function as the mid-point in tonal values and could be used to create half-tones, shadows, or backgrounds. We can see this in the work of Vermeer who used mainly light grey to light brown grounds – these are evident in Maid with a Milk Jug (Fig. 16). By contrast, Velázquez preferred light grey and off-white layers; this helps create the interesting light and space of Las Meninas (Fig. 6).

  The imprimatura was followed by the blocking out of basic colours, upon which finer and finer detail was added. The oil process enabled a softening and blending of colours. Paint was either blended to a polish, as in Van Eyck’s works, or else it was painted freely, like Rembrandt’s. Indeed, in the 17th century, spontaneity of brushwork (‘painterliness’) was much admired in the work of Velázquez, and we have already seen in Chapter 1 how this technique appealed to the Impressionists. A final layer of varnish was added to protect the paint surface from dirt, abrasion, and water.

  The preparatory processes of academic art – the oil sketch or alla prima painting, sometimes known as esquisse and ébauche – became standard techniques of Impressionist artists and their successors. Monet’s painting of Rouen Cathedral (Fig. 1) is an excellent example even though it was produced quite late in the artist’s career. The looser quality of the handling of the paint and the play on texture and light made art appear more visually accessible, despite there being more for the viewer to ‘complete’ in terms of recognizing what is being represented. In recognition of the quickness of this new technique, which enabled artists to capture light effects so much more effectively, Monet painted several images of the cathedral at different times of day – to show how objects change under various lighting and atmospheric conditions. The unfinished look of these works shocked the Academy at the time, but this development in technique and mode of representation was a cathartic moment in Western art.

  Sculpture: modelling, carving, and casting

  Sculpture is the art of producing in three dimensions representations of natural or imagined forms. It includes sculpture in the round, which can be viewed from any direction, as well as incised relief, in which lines are cut into a flat surface. Sculpture has been a means by which ideas could be expressed since prehistoric times. We know little about prehistoric artefacts, but we are certain that the ancient cultures of Egypt and Mesopotamia produced large numbers of sculptures, which were often monolithic. These works were used in religious rituals as well as admired for their aesthetic beauty. Similarly, in the ancient Americas and in Asia, sophisticated techniques and styles were used to produce symbolic sculptures.

  The beginnings of the tradition of European sculpture is found in the freestanding and relief work of the ancient Greeks, which may well have been influenced by Egyptian art. By the time of the Classical and Hellenistic periods, the representation of the intellectual idealization of its principal subject, the human form, was a predominant concern. The concept was so magnificently realized by means of naturalistic handling that it became the inspiration for centuries of European art. We have seen this, for instance, in the Apollo Belvedere (Fig. 7), a Roman copy of a Greek original that exemplifies the artistic preoccupations of the time and the influence the Greeks had on subsequent traditions. Sculpture encompasses a range of techniques, including modelling, carving, and casting. Each of these helps give the finished work a distinct character or aesthetic. For instance, modelling in a medium such as clay or wax permits the addition as well as subtraction of material and is highly flexible. The ancient technique of firing of clay from simple terracotta to elaborately glazed ceramics has produced some striking works that are geographically and temporally dispersed. By contrast, carving, from such varied materials as stone, wood, bone, and, more recently, plastics, is strictly limited by the original block from which material must be subtracted. It is not unusual for sculptors to add separate pieces of the same or different material that are mechanically joined to the main block. Rodin’s The Hand of God (Fig. 19) shows how the subtractive process of carving works to gradually ‘reveal’ the figure. The marks of the chisel and claw hammer can still be seen on the marble, showing how the carving process was one of gradual refinement to the smooth polished finish of the hand.

  Casting is a reproduction technique that duplicates the form of an original whether modelled, carved, or constructed, but it also makes possible certain
effects that are impractical with the other techniques. Top-heavy works that would require external support in clay or stone can stand alone in the lighter-weight medium of hollow cast metal.

  The tensile strength of bronze allows for a great deal of freedom in the composition of works. The Greeks excelled in bronze sculpture, as seen in the few surviving examples of their work, for instance The Zeus of Artemisium in the National Museum in Athens and The Delphic Charioteer in the Museum at Delphi. Returning to the Apollo Belvedere, we can see how copying a bronze work in another material – in this case marble – demonstrates the different qualities of the materials. This is not just in terms of the composition but the overall effect: the serene white of the marble (in which medium most ancient Greek sculptures are now known) would have contrasted with the Greek original in shiny bronze, perhaps partially draped with real cloth and garlands of flowers. The Greeks, and the Chinese, mastered the cire perdue (‘lost wax’) process of bronze casting. Italian Renaissance sculptors revived bronze casting skills, as seen in Lorenzo Ghiberti’s doors to the Baptistery of San Giovanni in Florence, known as the Gates of Paradise. The classic description of Renaissance bronze casting is given in Benvenuto Cellini’s Autobiography (1558–62).

  How technical knowledge informs art history

  This very brief survey of some of the techniques used in the production of artworks shows that artists are not always confined by the medium in which they work. Important choices are made that stand outside the constraints of the materials and techniques. It is necessary that we understand the techniques and processes used by artists, and the glossary develops this further. But it is also essential that the interface between the qualities of medium and technique and the aesthetic decisions made by the artist is clearly understood. By achieving this understanding, the ways of thinking about, writing about, presenting, and reading art history remain engaged with the work rather than operating at a distance from it.

  References

  Chapter 1

  Judy Chicago, The Dinner Party (Penguin, 1996).

  Chapter 2

  Jacob Burckhardt, The Civilisation of Renaissance Italy (1860); modern edn. tr. S. G. Middlemore (Phaidon, 1961).

  Ernst Gombrich, The Story of Art (1950); 16th rev. edn. (Phaidon, 1995).

  Linda Nochlin, ‘Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?’ (Art News, Jan, 1971); reprinted in Linda Nochlin, Women, Art and Power, (New York: Harper and Row, 1988), pp. 145–177.

  Pliny the Elder, Natural History (CE 77); modern edn. The Elder Pliny’s Chapters on the History of Art, tr. K Jex-Blake (Chicago: Ares, 1976).

  Griselda Pollock and Rozsika Parker, Old Mistresses (Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1981).

  Giorgio Vasari, Lives of the Artists (1550, 1568); modern edn. The Lives of the Artists, 2 vols, tr. George Bull (Penguin, 1987).

  Johann Joachim Winckelmann, Imitation of the Painting and Sculpture of the Greeks (1755); modern edn. Reflections on the Imitation of Greek Works in Painting and Sculpture, tr. Elfriede Heyer and Roger C. Norton (Open Court, 1987).

  Chapter 4

  Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten, Aesthetica (Georg Publishers, 1986).

  Jacques Derrida, The Truth in Painting (1978).

  Immanuel Kant, Critique of Judgement (1790).

  Chapter 5

  Émile Mâle, Religious Art in France: the Late Middle Ages: a Study of Medieval Iconography and Its Sources (Princeton University Press, 1992).

  Erwin Panofsky, Studies in Iconology: Humanistic Themes in the Art of the Renaissance (Westview Press, 1972).

  Aby M. Warburg, Images from the Region of the Pueblo Indians of North America, tr. Michael P. Steinberg (Cornell University Press, 1995).

  Chapter 6

  Benvenuto Cellini, Autobiography, tr. by George Bull (Penguin, 1999).

  Cennino Cennini, Craftsman’s Handbook, tr. Christiana J. Herringham (Allen and Unwin, 1899).

  The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci, ed. Irma A. Richter (Oxford World’s Classics, 1998).

  Further information

  Selected American and European art museum websites

  Metropolitan Museum, New York www.metmuseum.org

  Museum of Modern Art, New York www.moma.org

  Whitney Museum of American Art, New York www.whitney.org

  International Center for Photography, New York www.icp.org

  Dia Center for the Arts, New York www.diacenter.org

  Brooklyn Art Museum, New York www.brooklynart.org

  Guggenheim Museum, New York, Bilbao, Venice, Berlin, Las Vegas www.guggenheim.org

  Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC www.si.edu

  National Gallery of Art, Washington DC www.nga.gov

  National Museum of American Art, Washington DC www.nmaa.si.edu

  Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, Connecticut www.yale.edu/ycba

  Sterling and Francine Clark Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts www.clarkart.edu

  Philadelphia Museum of Art, Pennsylvania www.philamuseum.org

  Boston Museum of Fine Arts www.mfa.org

  Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania www.warhol.org

  Art Institute of Chicago www.artic.edu

  Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago www.mcachicago.org

  Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota www.walkerart.org

  Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati, Ohio www.contemporaryartscenter.org

  Denver Art Museum www.denverartmuseum.org

  San Francisco Museum of Modern Art www.sfmoma.org

  Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, California www.bampfa.berkeley.edu

  J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, California www.getty.edu/museum

  Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles www.moca.org

  Tate Gallery, London www.tate.org.uk

  National Gallery, London www.nationalgallery.org.uk

  British Museum, London www.thebritishmuseum.ac.uk

  Louvre, Paris www.louvre.fr

  Musée d’Orsay www.musee-orsay.fr

  Centre Pompidou, Paris www.cnac-gp.fr/english

  Altes and Pergamon Museums, Berlin www.smpk.de/ant/e/s.html

  Stedelijk Museum of Modern Art, Amsterdam www.stedelijk.nl

  Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam www.vangoghmuseum.nl

  Museo del Prado, Madrid www.mcu.es/prado/index_eng.html

  Uffizi Gallery, Florence www.uffizi.firenze.it

  Other art history websites include:

  a site developed and maintained by Sweet Briar College, Virginia: http: //witcombe.bcpw.sbc.edu/ARTHLinks.html

  and the Mother of All Art and Art History Links Webpage from the Art History Department at the University of Michigan: http://www.art-design.umich.edu/mother

  Glossary

  Words in italics denote headings of related entries in the glossary

  alla prima painting: painting, usually from life, in a direct manner: completing a painting in a single session or while the paint is still wet. It was originally a means of oil sketching, but was adopted by the Impressionists to produce finished works of art painted outside the artist’s studio.

  bronze: bronze is ideal for casting artworks; it flows into all crevices of a mould, thus perfectly reproducing every detail of the most delicately modelled sculpture. It is malleable beneath the graver’s tool and admirable for repoussé work.

  canvas: a support for a painting made from woven flax and stretched over a frame.