Page 14 - George O'Hanlon

During the Tour of Russian Icons, the editors of Iconofile and tour group members met Adolph N. Ovchinnikov, director of ancient Russian painting. He introduced us to his book, Symbolism of Christian Art, containing an extensive review of the symbolism found in Christian art. This is an excerpt from the chapter, "On Sankir," published in the second issue of the Iconofile Journal.

Gilbert Charles Stuart (born Stewart) (December 3, 1755–July 9, 1828) was an American painter from Rhode Island. According to evidence from various sources, his palette mainly consisted of the colors described in this article. All of the pigments on Stuart’s palette have been identified in literature and studies of his paintings. Unfortunately, “Antwerp blue” is an imprecise term, and we cannot determine precisely what it meant in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

We are often asked about the use of clove oil to retard the drying of oil paint. Like many others, you may have heard that it darkens upon exposure to light. Clove oil works well as a retarder, but there is a note of caution: over time (a long time), it does darken as it dries. It starts off light but can eventually turn black. This is over the years and depends on the amount of direct light. We recommend using slower drying oils to retard drying—walnut or modified oil—instead of adding clove directly to paint.

Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (15 July 1606 – 4 October 1669) was a Dutch painter and etcher. He is considered one of the greatest painters and printmakers in European art history and the most important in Dutch history. The range of colors Rembrandt employed falls firmly within the mainstream of painting practice in Holland in the seventeenth century. His palette is entirely made up of widely available pigments and, by that time, well understood in their qualities and drawbacks. Seventeenth-century Holland was a center for manufacturing pigments on an industrial scale. The technologies required had evolved enough to remove the uncertainties in preparing standard products.

Francisco Benitez considers himself an atemporal archaeologist who excavates lost and forgotten styles of painting long assigned to the shadows to reveal the ever-transient nature of the human psyche. Trained in a rigorous atelier program at the Art Student’s League in New York, he frequented museums and copied old master paintings to master their techniques and conceptual strategies.

Ultramarine is a blue pigment consisting primarily of a zeolite-based mineral containing small amounts of sulfur. Ultramarine is one of the most complex of the mineral pigments, composed of the blue mineral lazurite, which is the major component of the rare and semi-precious stone lapis lazuli. The mineral occurs in nature as a product of limestone metamorphism. It is typically associated with calcite, pyrite, diopside, humite, forsterite, hauyne, and muscovite minerals, sometimes found in lava as a by-product of volcanic eruptions.

Rublev Colours Ultramarine Blue (Greenish Shade) artist oil color is an intense deep greenish-shade blue oil paint made from an inorganic pigment (ultramarine) of sodium aluminum silicate composition. It is a transparent, small-particle color with high tinting strength.

The founders of Natural Pigments recently met James Gurney and his wife, Jeanette, at the Plein Air Convention in Monterey, California. James is the author and illustrator of the book series Dinotopia. This highly imaginative book series details the world of dinosaurs in a utopian setting, hence the name.

During the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, the paint used by artists was prepared in the studio. The painter purchased pigment from apothecary shops and apprentices, who also prepared panels and grounds for the master painter, then prepared it for use as paint. The oil paint used by artists from the 15th to 19th centuries consisted primarily of a single pigment and vegetable drying oil. However, gums, proteins, and resins were sometimes added for particular passages in a painting. The idea of a “hue” or mixed pigment practically did not exist because artists mixed colors on the palette.

The palette of Velázquez was smaller than the range of colors available to artists of his period. However, it was typical of artists of the seventeenth century, the palette described by Roger de Piles in his famous treatise on painting of 1684. Velázquez included calcite and smalt in his paint, not only to alter the colors but also for specific technical purposes. Smalt was used as a drying agent. Calcite increases the transparency of the colors and alters the consistency of the paint, especially when making it more fluid. The addition of calcite also reduces the quantity of lead white needed in mixtures.