Oil Painting Processes of the Masters (Part 2 of 3)

At 124 in the morning on March 18, 1990, one of the biggest art thefts in history took place. Gentlemen, this is a robbery, they announced. And in only 81 minutes, they stole over $500 million worth of artwork from the collection. The perpetrators made off with 13 pieces of art from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, unexplainably leaving behind the most valuable painting in the collection, The Rape of Europa by Titian. Among the artwork they did take were three pieces by Rembrandt, including the only known painting of a seascape by this artist, and one worth over $50 million at the time. Rembrandt would probably have been flattered to know the value of his work especially when you consider that he died penniless and was buried in an unmarked grave with no public announcement of his death. Rembrandt, who worked in the 1600s, was one of the leading painters of the Dutch Golden Age, and is often looked upon as one of the world's greatest artists. If Titian's work began to reveal dimensional texture, Rembrandt's work took that to a whole new level. His work is dramatic, conveys a sense of life, and utilizes a broad variety of methods. Rembrandt was born into a middle-class family near the city of Amsterdam in 1606. His father was a miller who saw to it that his son was well-educated, but Rembrandt eventually decided to pursue painting as a career. He studied under two well-known Dutch artists of the time, and then set up a working studio, eventually settling in Amsterdam where his career peaked throughout the 1630s. He was particularly known for his dramatic history paintings, as well as for his portrait work. To include his self-portraits, of which he painted dozens, he was influenced by the work of Titian, Caravaggio, and Anthony van Dyck. But he's said to have been most influenced by his intense observation of life. These observations, plus the use of chiaroscuro lighting effects, gave his work a dramatic psychological edge. Chiaroscuro is an Italian word that relates to a technique where the lights and the darks in a composition are enhanced in order to create dimension and convey emotional impact. It was first popularized by Leonardo da Vinci, and then later used, to an even greater degree, by Caravaggio, who died shortly after Rembrandt was born, and who, as mentioned, had an influence on Rembrandt's work. Chiaroscuro is often conveyed with a single-source directional light, and in order to best communicate this effect, Caravaggio used a medium or dark-toned ground, and left areas of his dark ground exposed in order to function as some of the darks in his painting. This was easier than having to build up the darks through layering. The technique caught on, and by the time Rembrandt built his career, it was a popular effect. In fact, you may be familiar with some of the other masters who used it, such as Vermeer or Velázquez. The dark ground that Rembrandt used was created using two layers of oil ground, his typical oil ground consisting of drying oil, chalk, and white pigment. The first layer was toned umber or reddish brown, and the second was a thinner, light gray tone. We seem to have a little glimpse of that colored ground in the background of this painting, as well as spots of it in this one. Can you see it? Around 1639, Rembrandt began using quartz in his ground instead of chalk. The quartz was derived from the clay produced from crushed bricks or roof tiles. It added a warm tone, a little translucency, and some flexibility that would be important when rolling canvas. The use of ground quartz is also said to have provided a rougher surface that would grab his thicker paint better. This would be important when you consider how thickly he applied the paint at times. Now, working on a dark tone, as opposed to a white or a light tone, meant thinking differently about the layers. How does it change the process? Well, you're starting the painting with your darks already established. It's now a matter of building up your white or light tones. With a white surface, you're beginning with your lightest tone and working to deepen the values. This is why the dark shadows in van Eyck's work were often the thickest part of his painting. He needed to cover the white value as much as possible. With a dark tone, it's reversed. The lights end up being the thickest part because you need more light paint to cover the dark ground. Once Rembrandt established his ground, he would skip the underdrawing process altogether and proceed right into a grisaille or a grisaille. This is where he worked out the composition for his painting. He would add varying amounts of white to a transparent brown in order to build his medium and light values. Sometimes he would even use sediment from the bottom of his brush holder as the colorant. Once this layer was dry, Rembrandt painted the upper layers of paint, working from the background to the foreground. He tended to increase the layer thickness as he proceeded. In that way, he would keep to the thick over thin rule, which is basically about drying time. But at the same time, he was also known to break that rule by glazing over dried areas of impasto paint. After applying this glaze over the dried impasto, he would then wipe off the initial coat to leave just a hint of glazed color on the surface. Of note, like Van Eyck, Rembrandt would sometimes add colorless ground glass to his paint mix. He also made wonderful use of the technique of scratching the surface to create texture, something he picked up from his close associate, Jan Lievens. But again, Rembrandt did something rather unique with his scraped areas. On occasion, he would scrape the wet paint, let it dry, and then glaze over that scrape with a darker color, and then wipe again. This would cause the pigment to get trapped in the crevice of that scrape, and when he wiped the surface, it would leave a tint of color within the scrape. He might then glaze the area with a light transparent color, resulting in a dimensional, almost gold-like appearance. He was very creative. When using impasto paint, he often applied it with a kind of stick, much like sculpting. The degree to which Rembrandt used impasto, and the fact that he was able to use it without the paint sinking or wrinkling, has caused experts for centuries to wonder whether he, like Van Eyck, used a secret ingredient in his paint mixes. In a recent study using chemical analysis, plumbonacrate was found in his paint layers, which is a rare lead carbon mineral. This mineral would help the paint form a more paste-like texture, and could have been in the form of either lead oxide or letharge. It's an ingredient, however, that's not typically found in artwork until the 20th century, although it was discovered in some of the works by Vincent van Gogh as well. But keep in mind that Rembrandt was painting with it in the 1600s. He would finish his paintings much like Titian by applying thick impasto white highlights, but even more dramatically. Basically, Rembrandt would do whatever was necessary to create the look he was after. But because he knew his materials so thoroughly, he was able to maintain the paint's integrity. Rembrandt's use of impasto paint and creative paint application was just part of his artistic genius. He purposely used the contrasts in paint texture and opacity to impact the piece, and would even go as far as using heavily thinned applications to imply his forms. Another master known for this kind of textural contrast was J.M.W. Turner. But Turner helped make popular a very different application method. He would thin down his oil paint to the consistency of water, the wash of paint. Joseph Mallard William Turner was born in what was known as the Artists' Quarter of London in 1775. His father, William, was a barber and a wig maker, and became one of Turner's biggest supporters, displaying his son's work in his store, and eventually taking on the role of business manager until his death. His son would become one of the most prolific artists in British history, producing over 23,000 pieces of art. J.M.W. Turner began his artistic career in the late 1700s as a watercolorist, painting in that medium for about 10 years, during which time he was considered one of the masters of the medium. It was because of his work in watercolor, a medium that uses the white of the surface to illuminate the paint, that he was able to understand and apply the concept of transparency to oil painting. To do this, he would use a white or a light surface when working in oil. He knew that a white surface would reflect light that passed through transparent layers, so he would thin down his oil paint almost to the consistency of water, and in this way, it would create luminous visual effects. White crowns were beginning to gain popularity in the late 1700s due to the efforts of the neoclassical artists. But Turner was probably the most successful at utilizing this feature, and helped to bring light grounds back into fashion. He primarily painted on canvas, and intentionally avoided using a sizing layer over his ground, because he wanted a highly absorbent surface, in order to better gauge the final color and to work quickly. An absorbent surface will soak up some of the oil in the paint, and therefore cause it to dry faster. As well as appear less glossy, he felt that the matte finish helped him judge his colors better as he proceeded. Once his ground was established, he would use a pencil and lightly sketch a few minimal lines, sometimes simply the structural lines for a ship or a building, in order to ensure accuracy. But there are also many paintings in which he had no underdrawing at all. With a few loose lines in place, Turner would then lay on a very thin wash of oil paint thinned with turpentine, working quickly and using a stiff bristle brush with broad strokes. A wash isn't much different from a glaze. Both involve very thin paint that appears transparent or translucent if you're using an opaque paint. Perhaps the unofficial difference would be that a wash is a very broad application without concern for obvious brush marks, while a glaze would be more refined, seamless, and more select in where it's applied. In addition, a wash is usually a base layer, whereas a glaze is often one that sits on top of a prior layer. Once the initial wash was dry, Turner would apply another wash or a glaze in order to tone down the colors. These additional washes were also transparent, but he would add increasing amounts of white in the mix as he progressed, slowly increasing the level of opacity, often applying the more opaque paint with a rag. His foregrounds were normally glazed, but not his skies. Instead, he would use a palette knife, a brush, or a rag to apply impasto opaque colors for the skies and the wave crests, as well as some other features. In this way, like Rembrandt, he was making the most out of the contrast in texture, the thick impasto sky against the smooth glazed foreground. But of course, in this piece, he seems to have done the exact opposite. Remember, I'm examining the most common technique, but every artist will have variation. His exact process for painting the upper layers of paint is hard to pin down, experts feel that even he may not have been able to explain his process at that point. Instead, he seemed to have let the creative process take over as he worked. As a painting neared completion, if it was intended for an exhibition, artists at that time may opt to apply the final touches once it had been transported to the gallery in case the painting got damaged along the way. Varnishing Day was an event just prior to the opening of the exhibition. Where the artists would be able to varnish, repair, or even alter aspects of their painting. It was meant for final touches. But in Turner's case, in the later years, he would go as far as to send a nearly blank canvas to the show and then spend all day on Varnishing Day creating the painting nearly from scratch as it hung there in the gallery, framed. In his lifetime, Turner's work was both praised and criticized, even mocked throughout his career. What looks masterful to us looked edgy to critics at the time. For example, during two separate visits to the French seaport of Dieppe, Turner was struck by the architecture and the bustling activity. He made sketches of the port and its people. And once back in his London studio, used those sketches plus his memory to paint a scene. The painting was very large, about five by seven feet in size. When it was finally exhibited, critics were thrilled with the composition, but they were highly critical of Turner's extensive and unnatural use of yellow. But this was nothing new to him. Since his early 30s, he was known to push the boundaries of convention in his choice of subject matter, colors, process, and even materials. In fact, his atmospheric gestural work is often considered a precursor to modern art. Sadly, though, he wasn't very concerned about the longevity of his work. He knowingly used some pigments that would eventually fade, like smalt or indigo, and he would add mastic resin to some of his mixes, an ingredient which by then was known to cause cracking. Still, much of his work survives, and he's considered one of Britain's greatest artists, even receiving the honor after his death of being buried in St. Paul's Cathedral in London. J.M.W. Turner was known for his use of contrasting paint color, texture, and opacity, and his painting process reflected that. But there's another master who utilized the wash of paint as well. This artist used the thin layers for the bulk of his work, and his Nocturne series contained very little textural contrast. I'm talking about the American artist James McNeill Whistler.