ATSR Publication 1 Art of the Past - Sources and Reconstructions

Mark Clarke, Joyce H. Townsend and Ad Stijnman (editors)
London: Archetype Publications 2005
ISBN 1-904982-01-8 £37.50 / $65.00 Paperback 156 Pages

In October 2004 the Art Technological Source Research study group held a highly successful symposium at the Instituut Collectie Nederland, Amsterdam: Approaching the Art of the Past: Sources & Reconstructions.

Recipe books, treatises and manuals on artists' materials, tools and methods are of fundamental importance for an understanding of how art objects were made. Historically accurate reconstructions on the basis of these sources provide insight into the original appearance of an object, as well as workshop practices, and provide models for understanding material degradation. The interpretation of artists' intent rests on this kind of basic knowledge. For example: Van Gogh never intended the blossoms in his series of orchard paintings (Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam) to appear quite as pale as they look today. How would they have looked originally? The recipe sources and reconstructions may answer this and help us understand what has happened.

The symposium was held to discuss the role of source research and the use of reconstructions in the emerging field of art technological research.

Table of contents


Forward - Henriette van der Linden

Preface - Alberto de Tagle

Introduction - Ad Stijnman and Mark Clarke

Chairman's remarks - Arie Wallert

An introduction to source research
Ad Stijnman

Reconstruction research, some cases and their contexts
Ernst van de Wetering

Blue and green, understanding historical recipes and phenomena on old master paintings
Margriet van Eikema Hommes

The Cologne database for Medieval painting materials and reconstruction
Doris Oltrogge

Levels of reconstruction of black iron gall inks for the InkCor project
Ad Stijnman

The value of accurate reconstructions to the art historian
Lorne Campbell

Historically accurate oil painting reconstructions for the De Mayerne Project
Leslie Carlyle

Cobalt blue, emerald green and rose madder in copal-based media used by the Pre-Raphaelites
Joyce Townsend

Reconstructions of French 19th-century red lake pigments for the Red Lake Project
Jo Kirby

When glass is made of plastic: restoration of the model of the 'Pavillon Saint-Gobain' for the international exhibition of 1937
Olivier Béringuer

ArTeS database
Hayo de Boer

Inventory of a pharmacy in Kolberg
Andreas Burmester

Page-Image Recipe Databases
Mark Clarke and Leslie Carlyle

16th century portrait miniatures
Alan Derbyshire, Nick Frayling, Timea Tallian

Computer reconstruction of the yellow cloak of the ÔGirl at the VirginalsÕ by Vermeer
Joris Dik, Paul van Alkemade, Valerie Sivel, Jan van der Lubbe, Yuval Garini

Sources and preparatory drawing in 15th-19th century Byzantine iconography
Vaios Ganitis, Ekaterina Talarou

3D Digital Visualisation and Virtual Restoration of Polychrome Sculpture
Angie Geary

Whistler's Correspondence: an artist in the studios
Erma Hermens, Margaret MacDonald

Reconstruction of recipes for flesh colours in mediaeval artist manuals
Kathrin Kinseher

Reconstruction of the one of Durer's drawing machines
Aurélie Nicolaus, William Whitney

Smalt glazes on silver leaf gildings of baroque and rococo polychromy in southern Germany
Mark Richter

(In)stability of pigment mixtures described in artist manuals
Elzbieta Szmit-Naud

Import of European painting materials in Havana, Cuba, in the 17th and 18th century
Alberto de Tagle

Chrozophora tinctoria : mediaeval colourant in the seventeenth century
Arie Wallert

Exploring Rembrandt's painting materials and techniques: Rembrandt and burnt plate oil
Phoebe Dent Weil & Sarah Belchetz-Swenson

Imitating ultramarine: artist's economies reconstructed
Sally Woodcock & Libby Sheldon


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