"The aesthetic qualities of a painted work of art are determined by composition, the colours used and the application method. Equally important are the support and its preparation. Preparatory layers are fundamental to the creative process and to the perception of the work: they influence the final surface texture, the paints' luminosity and the durability of a painting. For centuries painters were well aware of these facts and took great care in this stage of the process." "These papers were presented at the first conference devoted to preparatory layers used by artists, organised by the working group 'Paintings: scientific study, conservation and restoration' within the Conservation Committee of the International Council of Museums (ICOM-CC) in 2007 at the British Museum, London." "A wide range of issues is covered including the consideration of the preparatory layer(s)' function: optical properties, terminology, as well as materials and techniques used in the preparation of more unusual supports. The results of technical examination, experimental reconstruction and analysis of documentary sources provide fascinating insights into the relationships between supports, preparatory layers and artistic forms of expression; they offer new insights on the origin and dissemination of certain techniques and related questions of artistic exchange. Furthermore, the influence of preparatory layers on mechanical properties, changes in appearance and deterioration as well as the impact on conservation treatment decisions are explored. The influence of the environment on traditional and modern materials is addressed."--BOOK JACKET.
European documentary sources before c.1550 relating to painting grounds applied to wooden supports: translation and terminology / Jilleen Nadolny -- An icon of St George: preparation for a portrait of a saint / Lynne Harrison, Robin Cormack, Caroline R. Cartwright and Janet Ambers -- Not just panel and ground / Erling Skaug -- The colour of canvas: historical practices for bleaching artists' linen / Gunnar Heydenreich -- Remarkably improved spatial resolution in SEM images of paint cross-sections after argon ion polishing / Jaap J. Boon and Jerre van der Horst -- Imaging chemical characterisation of preparatory layers in fifteenth- and sixteenth-century northern European panel paintings / Ester S. B. Ferreira, Rachel Morrison and Jaap J. Boon -- Grounds on canvas 1600-1640 in various European artistic centres / Elisabeth Martin -- Selective darkening of ground and paint layers associated with the wood structure in seventeenth-century panel paintings / Petria Noble, Annelies van Loon and Jaap J. Boon -- Reconstructing seventeenth-century streaky imprirnatura layers used on panel paintings / Maartje Stols-Witlox, Tiarna Doherty and Barbara Schoonhoven -- Not preparation but impregnation: transparent paintings of the late eighteenth century painted by Giovan Battista Bagutli (1742-1823) / Sara De Bernadis -- 'The whole world is angelikarnad': preparatory layers on canvas used by Angelika Kauffmann / Inken Maria Holubec -- Historically accurate ground reconstructions for oil paintings / Leslie Carlyle, Jaap J. Boon, Ralph Haswell and Maartje Stols- Witlox -- The mechanical response of flour-paste grounds / Leslie Carlyle, Christina Young and Suzanne Jardine -- Canvas and its preparation in early twentieth-century British paintings / Sarah Morgan, Joyce H. Townsend, Stephen Hackney and Roy Perry -- Flocked canvases: a special fabric for pastel paintings / Kathrine Segel and Mikkel Scharff -- Southeast Asian oil paintings: supports and preparatory layers / Nicole Tse and Robyn Sloggett -- Delaminating paint films at the end of the 1950s: a case study on Pierre Soulages / Paulin Helou-de la Grandiere, Anne-Solenn Le Ho and Francois Mirambet -- Comparing contemporary titanium white-based acrylic emulsion grounds and paints: characterisation, properties and conservation / Bronwyn A. Ormsby, Eric Hagan, Patricia Smithen and Thomas J. S. Learner -- Cold temperature effects of modern paints used for priming flexible supports / Christina Young and Eric Hagan -- Filling materials for easel paintings: when the ground reintegration becomes a structural concern / Laura Fuster-Lopez, Marion F. Mecklenburg, Maria Castell-Agustl and Vicente Guerola Blay.
Artists' preparatory studies--Congresses