Case study20th century artists’ oil paints: The case of the Olii by Lucio Fontana
Section snippets
Introduction and aims of the research
During the first decades of the 20th century, many innovative binders were introduced to the art world and soon became popular as artists’ paints and painting media [1], [2], [3]. As a direct consequence, the composition and nature of many artistic and pictorial binders were thus subjected to radical changes. However, despite the advantages that these new synthetic materials presented, oils continued to dominate as the most versatile binding medium, and have never been entirely substituted [4],
Samples
The opportunity of investigating the aforementioned artworks by Fontana was presented when these paintings required restoration, and samples were provided thanks to the generosity of the works’ owners and the Fondazione Lucio Fontana in Milan, Italy. Micro-fragments of the respective pictorial layers were taken from the back sections or lateral margins of the paintings, some of which also contained the ground layer of the canvas. These samples were found to be composed of different layers of
Results and discussion
Table 2 fully reports the typology of the examined samples and the analytical results obtained by XRF, FTIR-ATR and GC-MS on the six Fontana's paintings.
The Concetto spaziale. Notte d’amore a Venezia (60 O 81) (detail shown in Fig. 1a) was analysed as both ground and pictorial layers. The white ground layer is composed of a mixture of linseed oil and lead white (2PbCO3·Pb(OH)2), with zinc oxide (ZnO), calcium carbonate (CaCO3) and barium sulphate (BaSO4) as whiteners and/or fillers. The
Conclusions
The results obtained by this study have provided us with important information regarding the works of the Olii series created by Lucio Fontana between 1960 and 1964. During the same period, the artist experimented with several different and innovative pictorial binders, but still tended towards more traditional binding materials. Fontana himself was known to be an experimental artist and he used to mix house paints with manufactured oil paints [7], [8], [9]. Nevertheless, as we have proven,
Acknowledgements
This research project was made possible thanks to the collaboration of the Fondazione Lucio Fontana in Milan and is the result of a collaboration between the Ca’ Foscari University of Venice and the Netherlands Cultural Heritage Agency/RCE (Rijksdienst voor Cultureel Erfgoed, formerly ICN-Instituut Collectie Nederland) and is part of the wider 20th Century oil paints Project carried out by RCE in cooperation with the Courtauld Institute of Art (CIA), the Getty Conservation Institute (GCI) and
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