Sixteenth century painters

It’s easy to look at the beauty or historic importance of paintings – but it’s rare to find out about the men (it’s usually men) doing the painting. This week, two treats which give more than a glimpse into the craft of painters in the sixteenth century.

First, Fiona McLees. Her blog article on her conservation work on the 1579 Ottoman manuscript about Sultan Suleyman the Magnificent (in the Chester Beatty) is great, and it’s here. There are lots of images illustrating what she saw – click on them to get a magnified view. She comments on what she saw when carefully examining and treating the folios, and how this gives an insight into how a painting was produced:

• There’s a quick run-through on how to choose the right glue to mend tears in paper (aren’t we lucky that someone knows all this detailed stuff).
• There are both red – and black – underdrawn lines. Fiona suggests that maybe the black was intended to remain slightly visible through the pigment layer, and so to act as a guideline for the final details.
• Underpainting (of blocks of colour) can be seen by looking under the right light on the back of the painting – “showing how the [coloured] images were built up”.
• Blind tool marks can be seen in raking light: “blind ruling to mark out margins and other straight lines, blind compass marks (with holes visible in the middle), and even grids into which patterns could then be slotted”.
• There was lavish use of gold – it was even overpainted if the design changed. Several shades of gold were made by mixing gold with pigments, and using different alloys of gold.
• Blown up images show that some of the fine lines were made using a split-nib pen, and not a brush.
• And for the mistakes, the surface of the paper was scratched away. This is OK with heavy Islamic paper, due to its surface coatings and burnishing.

Then, the NPG has a new “digital interactive” display of miniatures (from the Latin word ‘miniare‘: to colour with red lead). These intimate art forms were designed, according to Nicholas Hilliard, to be “viewed … in hand near unto the eye”.

Apparently miniatures were apparently painted using a magnifying lens. And visitors to the new display “will be able to see the portraits as the artist may have seen them by viewing magnified photographs”.

I was especially charmed to see the portrait of Mary Herbert, Countess of Pembroke, painted on the reverse of a playing card (from the suit of spades). She is wearing a pearl necklace, “the white beads of which are dotted with black”. Hilliard painted pearls with burnished silver highlights and over time the silver has oxidised and turned black.

More details here.