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The aesthetic qualities of a painted work of art are determined by composition, the colours used and the application method. Equally important are the support and its preparation. Preparatory layers are fundamental to the creative process and to the perception of the work: they influence the final surface texture, the paints' luminosity and the durability of a painting. For centuries painters were well aware of these facts and took great care in this stage of the process.
These papers were presented at the first conference devoted to preparatory layers used by artists, organised by the working group 'Paintings: scientific study, conservation and restoration' within the Conservation Committee of the International Council of Museums (ICOM-CC) in 2007 at the British Museum, London.
A wide range of issues is covered including the consideration of the preparatory layer(s)' function: optical properties, terminology, as well as materials and techniques used in the preparation of more unusual supports. The results of technical examination, experimental reconstruction and analysis of documentary sources provide fascinating insights into the relationships between supports, preparatory layers and artistic forms of expression; they offer new insights on the origin and dissemination of certain techniques and related questions of artistic exchange. Furthermore, the influence of preparatory layers on mechanical properties, changes in appearance and deterioration as well as the impact on conservation treatment decisions are explored. The influence of the environment on traditional and modern materials is addressed.
The broadly chronological account of the use, variants and developments of ground layers in painting is an extremely useful, accessible resource. The essays are well illustrated, with diagrammatic images and detail photographs documenting examples and results dicussed within the text. The reliance on, and importance of contemporary sources as well as scientific analysis, reconstructions and mechanical testing is emphasised throughout, with useful examples that inform our understanding of the provenance and behaviour of paintings and aid conservation decisions.
Foreword
Acknowledgements
European documentary sources before c.1550 relating to painting grounds applied to wooden supports: translation and terminology
Jilleen Nadolny
An icon of St. George: preparation for a portrait of a saint
Lynne Harrison, Robin Cormack, Caroline R. Cartwright and Janet Ambers
Not just panel and ground
Erling Skaug
The colour of canvas: historical practices for bleaching artists' linen
Gunnar Heydenreich
Remarkably improved spatial resolution in SEM images of paint cross-sections after argon ion polishing
Jaap J. Boon and Jerre van der Horst
Imaging chemical characterisation of preparatory layers in fifteenth- and sixteenth-century northern European panel paintings
Ester S.B. Ferreira, Rachel Morrison and Jaap J. Boon
Grounds on canvas 1600-1640 in various European artistic centres
Elisabeth Martin
Selective darkening of ground and paint layers associated with the wood structure in seventeenth-century panel paintings
Petria Noble, Annelies van Loon and Jaap J. Boon
Reconstructing seventeenth-century streaky�imprimatura�layers used on panel paintings
Maartje Stols-Witlox, Tiarna Doherty and Barbara Schoonhoven
Not preparation but impregnation: transparent paintings of the late eighteenth century painted by Giovan Battista Bagutti (1742-1823)
Sara De Bernardis
'The whole world is angelikamad': preparatory layers on canvas used by Angelika Kauffmann
Inken Maria Holubec
Historically accurate ground reconstructions for oil paintings
Leslie Carlyle, Jaap J. Boon, Ralph Haswell and Maartje Stols-Witlox
The mechanical response of flour-paste grounds
Leslie Carlyle, Christina Young and Suzanne Jardine
Canvas and its preparation in early twentieth-century British paintings
Sarah Morgan, Joyce H Townsend, Stephen Hackney and Roy Perry
Flocked canvases: a special fabric for pastel paintings
Kathrine Segel and Mikkel Scharff
Southeast Asian oil paintings: supports and preparatory layers
Nicole Tse and Robyn Sloggett
Delaminating paint films at the end of 1950s: a case study on Pierre Soulages
Paulin H�lou-de la Grandi�re, Anne-Solenn Le H� and Fran�ois Mirambet
Comparing contemporary titanium white-based acrylic emulsion grounds and paints: characterisation, properties and conservation
Bronwyn A. Ormsby, Eric Hagan, Patricia Smithen and Thomas J.S. Learner
Cold temperature effects of modern paints used for priming flexible supports
Christina Young and Eric Hagan
Filling materials for easel paintings: when the ground reintegration becomes a structural concern
Laura Fuster-L�pez, Marion F. Mecklenburg, Mar�a Castell-Agust� and Vicente Guerola Blay