Cause of Puzzling Color Change in Van Gogh Painting Found

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The color-change (from bright yellow to orange-gray) in Van Gogh's "Flowers in a blue vase" can be seen to the right and upper right of the painting. Two microsamples were taken from these areas.

Parts of Vincent van Gogh's "Flowers in a blue vase" painting have mysteriously changed color over time, and now scientists have figured out why: A chemical reaction between the paint and a protective varnish supposedly applied to the painting after the artist's death in 1890 turned his bright yellow flowers an orange-gray color.

The chemical degradation occurred right at the interface between the paint and the varnish, the researchers added.

Van Gogh painted "Flowers in a blue vase" in 1887 in Paris; the Kröller-Müller Museum in the Netherlands acquired the painting in the early 20th century. Like many other paintings at the time, this one was covered with what was considered a protective varnish. 

Then, in 2009, a conservation treatment "revealed an unusual gray opaque crust on parts of the painting with cadmium yellow paint," said paintings conservator at the museum Margje Leeuwestein in a statement.

The change in color was perplexing and didn't seem to be the result of simply the coating of varnish aging. 

"Varnish can become brown with age and thus can give all colors a more dark tone," study researcher Koen Janssens, of the University of Antwerp in Belgium, told LiveScience.

The research team found in an earlier study that photo-oxidation led to a darkening of Van Gogh's bright yellows in two paintings of his, "Bank of the Seine," and "View of Arles with Irises."

"However, when only the varnish has darkened and has not reacted chemically with the paint below it, it can relatively easily [be] removed and the original bright colors of the paint will become visible again," added Janssens, chairman of the university's department of chemistry.

Mysteriously, he said, the paint beneath the varnish had also become brittle and any attempts to remove the varnish failed — a bit of the gray crust came off with the varnish.

To sleuth out the culprit for the color change without sabotaging a masterpiece, experts at the museum took two microscopic paint samples from the original artwork. Janssens and colleagues used powerful, yet microscopic, X-ray beams to determine the chemical composition as well as the structure at that paint-varnish interface. 

Rather than the crystalline cadmium sulfate compounds they would expect due to oxidation of the paint, they found a lead-sulfate compound.

(When ultraviolet and blue light falls on the paint, so-called photo-oxidation leads to the liberation of cadmium ions and sulfate ions from the yellow cadmium paint.)

It seems, the researchers said, that the negatively charged sulfate ions hooked up with lead ions from the varnish to form anglesite, an opaque lead-sulfate compound. The lead likely came from a lead-based drying agent, or siccative, added to the varnish.

To keep Van Gogh's painting from deteriorating further, Janssens suggests two actions. Since the process starts with the photo-oxidation, he recommends keeping the masterpiece in lower light conditions. In addition, he suggests using a more "high-tech type of varnish" that is more stable than the one previously used.

The Van Gogh analyses, detailed in a forthcoming issue of the journal Analytical Chemistry, were carried out at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility ESRF in Grenoble, France, and the Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron DESY in Hamburg, Germany.

Other mysteries of Van Gogh resolved by science include: a disputed still life is the Real McCoy; his famous sunflowers are genetic mutants; and a painting thought to be a self-portrait actually shows the artist's brother.

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Hillstrom opens sesquicentennial-themed exhibit, “150 Years of Swedish Art”

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Named after Sweden’s King Gustav II Adolf, Gustavus thrives with strong Scandinavian roots planted by our Swedish founders.


While we celebrate our Sesquicentennial by remembering the past and looking forward to the future, the history of Sweden’s rich artistic tradition is being honored.

Carl Larsson (1853–1919), Portrait of Poet Erik Axel Karlfeldt, 1918
Oil on canvas, 25 3/4 x 21 1/2 inches
© Nationalmuseum, Stockholm
Bequest in 1919 by Karin Bergöö, widow of the artist

Part of the Sesquicentennial celebration is the collaboration with museums in Stockholm, Nationalmuseum and Moderna Museet, to create a new exhibit in the Hillstrom Museum, 150 Years of Swedish Art.


“It is remarkable to have works of such high quality lent by such prominent, important international museums,” Director of Hillstrom Musuem of Art, Don Myers said.


The new exhibit contains 44 paintings, representing Sweden’s art history from around 1855 to today.


The oldest piece in the collection, as well as the opening painting, dating back to 1855, is tied especially close to Gustavus’ namesake. The painting, Death of King Gustav II Adolf at Lutzen, by Carl Wahlbom, depicts the battle where the King was killed; it shows King Gustav II Adolf falling from his horse after being wounded.


Another painting, View of Ulriksdal from the Southeast, by Edvard Bergh, painted in 1862, is an old friend to Gustavus as they are both celebrating 150 years.




  
August Strindberg (1849–1912), Sunset (Solnedgång), 1892
Oil on cardboard, 9 1/4 x 12 9/16 inches
© Nationalmuseum, Stockholm
Purchased in 1968


  
August Malmström (1829–1901), Dancing Fairies (Älvalek), 1866
Oil on canvas, 35 7/16 x 58 11/16 inches
© Nationalmuseum, Stockholm
Bequest in 1872 of King Carl XV



  
Ernst Josephson (1851–1906)
Portrait of Stage Director Ludvig Josephson (Regissören Ludvig Josephson), 1893
Oil on canvas, 53 15/16 x 42 15/16 inches
© Nationalmuseum, Stockholm
Bequest in 1970 from Grace and Philip Sandblom,



With the historic importance and impressive pieces on display, professors are bringing students into the museum to appreciate the magnitude of what is on campus and as a learning opportunity.


“I will be bringing all of my classes,” Assistant Professor in Art and Art History, Kris Lowe said. “It offers a place to strengthen visual literacy skills.”


As people start to visit the exhibit, the reactions are what the museum had aimed for.


“I liked the various types of artwork. It was beautiful, I really love it,” Junior Scandinavian Studies and Political Science major Annalise Dobbelstein said.


The exhibit features many different artists, from Carl Larsson  and Anders Zorn to Swedish artists that are less well known  in America.


“I hope that visitors will not only get a sense of the rich and vital history of Swedish art by viewing the exhibit, but that they will become familiar with Swedish artists who are less known in this country,” Myers said.


150 Years of Swedish Art will be on display in Hillstrom Museum now through Sunday, Dec. 2, 2012.





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El Greco to Velazquez to Goya: sublime visions from Spain

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Rarely-seen prints and drawings on show at the British Museum tell the story of Spanish art, plus the Liverpool Biennial, John Golding and Rita Ackermann – 

Figures Dancing in a circle from Los Disparates, 1816-23, Francisco Goya

Exhibition of the week – Renaissance to Goya: prints and drawings from Spain 

 

Spain is one of the great artistic nations of Europe yet art here evolved in a unique and unusual way. It did not look in the 1400s as if Spanish art was going to soar. That century saw the expulsion of the Moors and with them the loss of the arts that created the mosques and palaces of medieval Andalucía. Could the new exclusively Catholic Spain rival the beauty of medieval Islam? It took an immigrant from Crete, the ethereal genius El Greco, to give 16th century Spain truly great paintings. In fact, his religious intensity pointed the way to the personal visions that would soon make Spanish art sublime. In the 1600s, the art of Spain explodes into power, from the unrivalled realism of Velázquez (see below) to the poetic Catholicism of Zurbarán. By the late 1700s, raw native originality was blending with European portrait styles in the precociously modern art of Goya. This free exhibition reveals the story of Spanish art through rarely-seen prints and drawings.

Masterpiece of the Week

 

Diego Velázquez, Philip IV of Spain, about 1656. Copyright: The National Gallery, London Philip IV of Spain, about 1656, by Diego Velázquez

 

 
The ruler of Spain is a haggard and exhausted man in this troubled portrait. Velázquez is an artist of unforgiving realism. At once grand and tragic and down to earth, his people are seen without flattery. Velázquez began his career in Seville, where he painted street people and servants with acute lifelike compassion. This Spanish Caravaggio soon caught the eye of the court and spent the rest of his life as a royal painter in Madrid. His style became more velvety and rich without ever losing its truthful authority. He is an artist of invincible intelligence and this painting sees Philip as honestly as a mirror.

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Collector’s homage: Ten great painters under one roof

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Muhammad Ramazan, the gallery owner, said that the exhibits included some of the finest work from his personal collection.

A paintings exhibition, containing works  of 10 of the most renowned artists of Pakistan, started at the Ejaz Gallery on Thursday.

The exhibition, which will continue till September 23, features works of Saeed Akhtar, Jamil Naqsh, Ahmed Khan and two or more paintings each by late Ismail Gulgee, Sadequain, Colin David, Allah Bakhsh, Abdur Rahman Chughtai, Anwar Jelal Shemza and Askari Mian Irani.

Muhammad Ramazan, the gallery owner, told that the exhibits included some of the finest work from his personal collection.

“I purchased some pieces from galleries and acquired others through close association with the artists themselves,” he said.

He said the exhibition aimed at paying homage to some of the best painters Pakistan had produced.

Bakhsh’s mixed media painting is priced at Rs5.5 million, one of the two most expensive paintings at the exhibition.

Asad Faruki, a professor at the National College of Arts, who counts Collin David, and Askari Mian Irani among his instructors at the NCA was particularly impressed with a landscape by Allah Bakhsh. He said it outshone his other works.

Art teacher and critic Qudoos Mirza found the works of Chughtai, Shemza and Naqsh most inspiring.

Seven of Naqsh’s paintings are on display, one of them priced at Rs5.5 million. Akhtar, Gulgee and Askari have some brilliant pieces. Gulgee has seven calligraphy pieces, priced between Rs0.75 million and Rs1.5 million. His work attracted the most attention by the visitors.

Uzma Haroon, an NCA student, said art students heard these names at college daily. “While their (artists’) best work might not be on display today, whatever is, it definitely makes a statement about the skills these artists are famous for,” she said.

Three paintings by David feature two nudes and a lush landscape.

Dr Khalid Mehmood, a painter since 1964, who has started a PhD programme in studio practice and art history at Punjab University’s Art and Design Department, was in awe of the exhibit.

“These are rare pieces. It is obvious that the most outstanding feature of the exhibition is having 10 of the best artists in a single exhibition,” he said. Mehmood also appreciated the works of Naqsh, David and Chughtai.

Chughtai, he said, was a master at combining Indian, Persian and the Buddhist influences.

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From Van Gogh to Kandinsky

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Vincent van Gogh

Wassily Kandinsky

This summer’s main exhibition at the Scottish National Gallery presents a selection of impressive symbolist landscape paintings by the world’s most famous avant-garde artists such as Vincent Van Gogh, Paul Gauguin, Edvard Munch, Piet Mondrian and Wassily Kandinsky.

According to curator Frances Fowle, symbolism is not very well known in Britain. The exhibition shall help to explore different definitions of this specific art section. Frances Fowle said: “One thing that we wanted to do is to explain symbolism to the public.”

Concentrating on the natural world around them, symbolist artists were able to suggest a reality of more significance and deepness behind the ordinary everyday life. “Symbolist imagery was inspired by the imagination, and led artists to respond to their surroundings freely as shown in this remarkable collection of landscape paintings,“ said Michael Clarke, director of the Scottish National Gallery.

In many ways it was the reaction against materialism of the 19th century. “It was expressing people’s anxieties about their place in the world. Initially, it began as a literary movement in France. Jean Moréas was a poet and he published what is known as Symbolist Manifesto. It was a kind of statement about writing and how it should present reality,” explained Fowle.

The exhibition is organised thematically. It reveals how symbolism spread from France to centres like Belgium, Germany, Poland and Finland. Fowle said: “We are looking at the impact of symbolism right across Europe, and there is a particularly important section of the exhibition, which focuses on Nordic, Scandinavian and Finnish Art.”

The first room of the exhibition presents Arcadia with images of unspoiled regions by artists like Chavannes. It goes on with sections on the Nordic, Scandinavian art presenting paintings between naturalism and symbolism by artists like Gallen-Kallella.

The Symbolic Dream section presents among others works by painter Munch. Almost monochromatic and dark paintings by artists like Whistler are to be found in the city section. The Rhythms of Nature section present more colourful and vivid works by artists like Van Gogh and Mondrian and the final room reveals the link between painting and music with works by artists like Kandinsky.

To gain some sort of understanding from the paintings, you are asked for more imagination in each section. The meaning seems to be hidden deeper and more and more in colours and abstractness. From rather dark but natural images right at the beginning you move towards images of some sort of colourful mystery. “Kandinsky painted recognizably landscapes but then moved into something much more abstract, sort of spiritual art. He talks about links between colour and emotions, colour and music and this kind of spiritual dimension, so he seems like the fitting point of the exhibition,” explained Fowle.

As the final section reveals: “In his 1911 manifesto, concerning spiritual in art, Kandinsky drew parallels between colour, emotions and music, writing that ‘colour is the keyboard, the eyes are the hammers, the soul is the piano with many strings. The artist is the hand that plays, touching one key or another, to cause vibrations in the soul’.” Stands with iPads within the exhibition make it possible to listen to music or poetry when looking at key works.

This gives visitors great opportunity to experience certain paintings in combination with other artistic or music pieces, known to have had some inspirational effect on the artists and their works.

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Mahmoud Said's Paintings May Break Big Records At Auction In Dubai

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Two paintings by the father of modern Egyptian painting, Mahmoud Said, are poised to lead Christie's Modern and Contemporary Arab, Iranian, and Turkish Art sale in Dubai this fall. Titled "El Zar" and "Pecheurs a Rosette," the works are making their auction debut, expected to fetch up to $200,000 and $600,000 respectively.

"El Zar," Mahmoud Said, 1939

 

 

Said, also known as "Alexandria's paintbrush," is one of Egypt's most iconic painters, whose images of dancers, dervishes and nudes propelled him to the front of the modern art movement his his country. Working in the early to mid-20th century, he focused primarily on genre paintings, landscapes and portraits, many of which depicted themes of traditional Egyptian culture and his hometown of Alexandria.

Though Said's works are officially estimated to fetch well under $1 million, some in the art world are speculating that the paintings will attract much higher price tags. "His works have everything that it takes for them to sell at much higher prices than the ones they fetch," Hala Khayat, Specialist on Middle Eastern Art at Christie’s, told the English-language news site Ahram Online. "The Middle East is an emerging art market and there is international interest in both modern and contemporary Middle Eastern art. In the case of Mahmoud Said, the demand is there, but you can rarely find his paintings for sale. Supply is very limited and eventually it will dry up."

"Pecheurs a Rosette," Mahmoud Said, 1941.

The two paintings set for auction at Christie's Dubai this October reflect the sincere adoration Said felt for his heritage. "Pecheurs a Rosette," estimated to sell between $400,000 and $600,000, shows a scene of swarthy fisherman unloading their catch on the banks of the Nile. Packed with images of strength and fertility rendered in vibrant golds and blues, the composition perfectly captures a brief moment representative of Egypt's storied past. 

"El Zar" also gives attention to the indigenous customs of the country, showing a scene of female figures dancing in a trance as part of a religious ritual performed to exorcise spirits. Painted with clouded brushstrokes reminiscent of Flemish painters like Peter Paul Reubens, the work is an example of Said's fascination with the plurality of spiritual beliefs in the region.

Said's work has certainly defied auction expectations before. The artist shocked auction audiences in 2010 when one of his most famous paintings, "The Whirling Dervishes," sold for $2.5 million at Christie's Dubai. With a previously estimated price tag of no more than $400,000, the sale set the world auction record for the artist, beating out the $2.4 million cost of his "Les Chadoufs" earlier that year. It also became the highest selling piece of art by any Arab artist at auction.

According to a promotional video on Christie's website, the international demand for works by Arab, Turkish and Iranian artists is on the rise. When Christie's first opened its auction services in 2006, it reported that over 90% of the works being sold were going to collectors in the region. But that number has drastically changed since, and now over 50 percent of the art is being bought by collectors in Asia, Europe and America. In total, the Dubai auction house has sold over 2,500 pieces of Middle Eastern art for a total of $220 million. 

Antonia Carver, director of Art Dubai, a fair that showcases art from the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia, stated to Reuters earlier this summer that she too has seen increased interest in the Dubai art scene. "The recognition of Arab and Iranian artists by the global market has been absolutely phenomenal," she said. "I don't think anyone in the art market here is hoping for a big boom. They're hoping for a steady growth and I can say we're in a much better position than before."

Christie's auction of Modern and Contemporary Arab, Iranian and Turkish Art takes place at the Jumeirah Emirates Towers Hotel on October 23 and 24, 2012.

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Clapton to Sell Richter for $20 Million, 20 Times Price

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Eric Clapton is selling a painting by Gerhard Richter valued at $20 million -- almost 20 times what he paid for it in 2001.

The 1994 oil-on-canvas “Abstraktes Bild (809-4)” is one of a series of three Richter paintings bought by the U.K.-born rock guitarist for $3.4 million in total at Sotheby’s New York in November 2001. At the time, this was an auction record for a lot containing abstracts by the German artist.

Executed predominantly in red, dark blue and yellow, the work is being re-offered by Sotheby’s in London for its “Frieze Week” auction of contemporary artworks on Oct. 12. It has an estimate of 9 million pounds ($14.5 million) to 12 million pounds, according to a news release issued today.

Richter, 80, who works in Cologne in both figurative and abstract idioms, has become the world’s most bankable living artist, dealers said.

When Clapton bought his painting, the average auction sale price of Richter’s work was $461,910, according to the database Artnet. This year, his successful lots average $2.6 million, an increase of 44 percent on 2011, said an Artnet Artist Index Report.

The artist’s highly decorative abstractions, often painted with a squeegee, have become particularly sought-after by wealthy international collectors. They have set seven of the 10 highest prices paid for the artist at auction.

Values have been boosted by the critical and popular success of recent retrospectives at Tate Modern, London, and the Pompidou Center, Paris, dealers said.

The auction record for the artist is the $21.8 million paid for the 1993 “Abstraktes Bild (798-3)” at Christie’s International in New York in May.

The painting’s value as a sole lot was estimated at about $2 million by dealers. Together with the other two that Clapton bought, it was worth about a third of the $3.4 million price which included fees.

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An exercise in three-dimensional art

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Come September and the art exhibition fever seems to have gripped the city with a whole lot of them running simultaneously at different locales.


One such paintings show which opened Wednesday runs up until September 22 at the Artscene Art Gallery in Defence.


The exhibition, titled Beyond Surface, features 18 paintings by Shakeel Siddiqui. These are all still life works. As the artist puts it, these, to a conventional eye, are just still life works but to one who is perceptive, there’s something much deeper in the paintings behind them. For instance there’s the picture of an old weather-beaten window of a dwelling in the urban backwaters of the town. The artist wants the viewer to go deeper into the meaning of the work, all the years the window has been there, the vicissitudes of time the generations of the inhabitants may been through, brought home by its shabby worn-out state. In short, the still life really is a depiction of history. True, an average mind would not be able to connect the two and one would need a really fertile imagination to get the message, but the poignancy is there all the same.


Calling his work super-realism, Siddiqui uses old, worn-out items, like old letter racks, old discarded envelopes, and others, in minute detail to covey his message. Of course, this calls for a superlative imagination on the part of the viewer.


However, what really is reflective of his skill as an artist is his expertise in three-dimensional art. As one steps into the gallery, just opposite the entrance one sees a weather-beaten old window, doors ajar, within the space in between the doors covered by a chick (a kind of a curtain made of reeds placed horizontally, an innovation native to the sub-continent). Instantly, it produces the illusion of a window in the wall. However, on closer scrutiny, it turns out that it’s an oil-on-canvas.


Then there’s another oil-on-canvas depicting a bookshelf with books lying haphazardly on it. One feels that a real bookshelf has been built into the wall but it turns out that it is a painting. 


Most of all there are two female nudes with their most private physiology covered with newspaper pages, perhaps to protect the hot-blooded males (of whom there’s no shortage) from titillating agonizingly over the female form, apart from the socio-legal constraints, of course. Even the pasting strips on the four corners of the nudes look so very real. However, it turns out that even the newspaper pages and the pasting strips are paintings and not for real.


Siddiqui, who has been painting since childhood, has impressive antecedents. He obtained his diploma in art from the Arts Council, Karachi. He was a member of the Arts Students League of New York, USA, for two years. Professionally, he has been painting since 1976.



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Ghost in the Machine

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Xie Molin's solo exhibition features the artist's latest abstract paintings. Photo: Courtesy of Beijing Commune

Abstract artists in China might not be that well-known, but that doesn't mean that their influence isn't rising. 

Traditional artistic techniques utilizing the brush still reign supreme, but different processes and methods of painting are also beginning to surface. 

Xie Molin, 33, is a rising Chinese abstract artist. The painter from Wenzhou, Zhejiang Province, graduated from the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing in 2003 before studying at the Edinburgh College of Art in Scotland from 2005 to 2007.  

Xie's acrylic paintings for his one-man show at Beijing Commune feature only three colors: yellow, black, and white. He told Metro Beijing he chose a monochrome style for most of the paintings to purify colors, which strengthens visual effect. 

 "With a single color, viewers can pay more attention to the whole structure as well as the lights and shadows in the painting," he explained. 

Every piece was created with a machine connected to computers he designed with an engineer. Xie input designs into the computer, which would then send messages to the machine that paints on the canvas. 

"It is an axis-controlled machine. I drew the brush path in the computer first, and then the computer controlled the machine moving on the acrylic paint," he said.

Beijing-based artist Wang Yifan is particularly intrigued by Xie's works and his use of technology and machinery to make his paintings. He told Metro Beijing the exhibition "expresses a calm style" connected to Xie's "self-discipline and tension." 

Xie's popularity as an abstract artist is rising in China and abroad. He remains modest about his growing stature internationally, however. 

Lü Jingjing, manager at Beijing Commune, said Xie's growth as an artist was characterized by "the Chinese spirit of self-sufficiency." 

"It was not only his machine-generated paintings that attracted us, but the style of the art itself that we thought was interesting," Lü told Metro Beijing.

One major element of abstract art is its lack of rules, especially when it comes to how painting is applied to a canvas. American painter Jackson Pollock's brush hardly touched his canvases as he stood over them letting the paint drip onto the surface, while UK artist Desmond Paul Henry created paintings in the 1960s by attaching an analog bombsight computer to a motor that guided brushes over canvases.

Taiwan native Huang Ching-chia, who works at an art gallery in Beijing, said she feels abstract art has mainly been the focus of younger artists.

"I found it impressive that Xie used a machine to create the art instead of using his hands. Such methods can express a kind of repetitiveness within his artistic vision," she said.

As for Xie's future artistic endeavors, he plans to continue experimenting with machine-generated paintings. "I will try to make paintings with more varied and attractive visual effects not only limited to abstract art," he hinted.

Art communities, like the one in Heiqiao where Xie created his latest paintings, help Beijing's artists and the city's art scene thrive. 

But Xie still has concerns. 

"We lack good museums, which set the standards for art through exhibiting and collecting. Protecting and improving artist studio districts instead of tearing them down for commercial use is also important," he said.

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Museum of American Art acquires portrait of George Washington

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Rembrandt Peale (1778-1860), “Portrait of George Washington,” undated, oil on canvas, Hunter Museum of American Art, Chattanooga, Tennessee, Gift In Loving Memory and Honor of S. K. “Skeeter” Johnston, III and partial Museum Purchase

The Hunter Museum of American Art recently added a portrait of George Washington to its permanent collection. 

The acquisition was unveiled last night during the Museum’s 60th Anniversary Celebration.

“It is so appropriate for this great American art museum to celebrate its 60th anniversary by adding an image of George Washington to our permanent collection,” said Hunter Museum Executive Director, Daniel E. Stetson. 

The portrait was painted by Rembrandt Peale. He was a member of the extraordinary Peale family in late 18th and early 19th century America. The family included many artists, and Rembrandt’s father, Charles Willson Peale, was a Renaissance man being not only an artist, but a scientist, aide to George Washington during the Revolutionary War and founder of America’s first museum. 

Rembrandt Peale specialized in portraits, particularly in portraits of George Washington. At age 17, Rembrandt painted his first portrait from life of Washington during his second term. In an effort to create the definitive portrait of the first president, it is estimated that Rembrandt did 70 portraits of Washington, which were highly acclaimed during his lifetime. 

"The George Washington portrait has a beautiful gilt frame which enhances the work,” said Hunter Museum Chief Curator Ellen Simak. “It takes pride of place in Gallery 2 in the mansion, and we have done some extra interpretation tied to the portrait via work borrowed from the Houston Museum." 

The portrait has been on loan to the museum for several years. Then, through a combination of a generous gift and museum acquisition funds it was acquired for the permanent collection. 

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