Historical Painting Techniques, Materials, and Studio Practice

Abstract

This paper provides an overview of
technical aspects of the search for
verisimilitude in seventeenth-century
Italian painting. In particular the role
of varnishing will be examined in
relation to technical problems caused
by absorbing grounds. In addition,
some theories on viewing distance
and lighting will be discussed.

12

Va rnish, Grounds, Viewing Distance, and Lighting:

Some Notes on Seventeenth-Century Italian

Painting Te chnique

Helen Glanville

au Fourquet 47120

Pardaillan

France

Introduction

In the sixteenth century, the dichotomy between Disegno and Colore, between

Titian and Raphael, was seen as one between those artists who chose to

imitate nature and those who chose the Antique as their model. In the sev­

enteenth century, this dichotomy could be reduced, simplistically speaking, to

two groups of artists: those who were more strongly influenced by Raphael

and the Antique and who painted with a smoother, apparently more finished

technique; and those who were more influenced by Titian and the Venetian

school of painting and the more open texture that accompanied this type of

representation of naturalistic effect-what Poussin's fr iend Du Fresnoy termed

"the great Lights and Shadows, the Effect of the whole together" (1). These

two tendencies have been seen to coexist through the end of the nineteenth

century.

Although these two schools differed in their approaches to handling paint,

they both subscribed to the idea that painting should be the representation

of natural appearances on a flat surface; and most importantly, that through

this representation the public should be able to grasp a higher and greater

truth. Ideas as to what fo rm this imitation of nature should take varied, but

the essential concept can be fo und in the writings of theorists as divergent

in other respects as the arch-Venetian Boschini and Bellori, the epitome of

Roman Classicism (2, 3).

The first Academy of Painting, fo unded in 1586 by the Carracci in Bologna,

was crucial to the development of painting in seventeenth-century Italy. Pain­

ters such as Domenichino, Reni, Albani, and Guercino (as well as Annibale

Carracci) who had come to Rome after training at the Carracci Academy

profoundly influenced their contemporaries in Rome. They brought not only

the teachings of their masters (i.e., that the painter had to emulate nature

accurately on a flat surface, while also illustrating the essence, the "Truth," of

what was depicted, that which was beyond simple appearances). This concept,

essential to painting in its newly reacquired status as a liberal art, was also in

complete accordance with the tenets laid down by the Counter-Reformation.

Two camps emerged concurrently: those who described the thing itself, and

those who described the impression on the beholder.

St. Philip Neri and Paleotti both required that artists, through verisimilitude

or realistic representation, appeal to the hearts and minds of the people.

This paper provides an overview of technical aspects of the search fo r veri­

similitude in seventeenth-century Italian painting. In particular the role of

varnishing will be examined in relation to technical problems caused by ab­

sorbing grounds. In addition, some theories on viewing distance and lighting

will be discussed.

The use of varnish

Andre Felibien, who moved in the artistic circles of Rome in the 1640s and

who was a fr iend of Poussin, Guercino, and Cigoli, and probably knew Ga­

lileo, wrote, "When a work is painted to the last degree of perfection, it can

be considered from close to [sic]: it has the advantage of appearing stronger

and three-dimensional" (4). This same effect, wrote Felibien, can be created

Historical Painting Techniques, Materials, and Studio Practice