Layer 03 · Section
The Paint
Glazes built thin, and the one that fails first.
What a conservator can match is limited by what is in the jars, and by what the original was.
Photograph supplied.
Depth came from many thin transparent passes over a light ground, not from thick paint. That makes the picture a stack of layers each depending on the one beneath it — and it makes the failure of any single layer visible in a way that a mixed colour would not be.
Entries in this section
05Glazes are built thin
Depth came from many transparent layers over a light ground, not from thick paint.
Marijke de Haan · 4 minThe blue problem
Smalt fading and azurite greening: two blues that do not stay the colour they were.
Marijke de Haan · 2 minLead white
The workhorse of the palette, and how it behaves in the crack network.
Marijke de Haan · 2 minDrying cracks
Wide, early cracks caused by the paint itself rather than by age.
Ruth Callender · 2 minPentimenti
Changes the painter made, becoming visible as the upper layers grow transparent.
Ruth Callender · 2 min