STEFAN ARTENI

Perspective as Form and Medium

and
the Interplay of Proportion Systems
and Perspective

XV

SolInvictus Press 2006

Painting and Alchemy

The alchemist of Bourges

Montenegrin Icon and detail,
Saint Luke, physician and painter
Paracelsus
[Aureolus Philippus Theophrastus
Bombastus von Hohenheim],
1493, near Zurich - 1541, Salzburg,
alchemist, physician & surgeon, inventor of
iatrochemistry
Sir Theodore Turquet de Mayerne
(1573-1655)

Physician, carried out research on technical

aspects of painting and collected recipes
and instructions from Rubens,
Daniel Mijtens and Anthony van Dyck
contained in Pictoria sculptoria et quae
subalternarum artium
 Sir Anthony van Dyck,
Princess Elizabeth and
Princess Anne

Sir Peter Paul Rubens,

Selfportrait

Sir Anthony van Dyck,

Selfportrait
['My best pupil', is how
Rubens praised
Anthony van Dyck]

Sir Peter Paul Rubens,

Allegory
Paul Pontius,
Portrait of Daniel Mijtens
(after Sir Anthony Van Dyck)

Daniel Mijtens
(known in England as
Daniel Mytens the Elder),
Portrait of Charles I
Giovanni Boccaccio,
Of Famous Women
Giovanni Boccaccio,
Of Famous Women
Hendrick Gerritsz Pot, The Painter in his Studio
Adriaen van Ostade, The Painter’s Studio
David III Ryckart, Painters Workshop, 1638 [from Kees Kaldenbach]
Gerard Dou (Gerrit Dou),
Self-Portraits with palette
Jan van der Straet (Stradanus or Giovanni Stradano),
Painter’s Studio, engraving by J.B.Collaert
Details of Jan van
der Straet’s
Painter’s Studio
[from Kees
Kaldenbach]
Job Berckheyde,
The merchant of colors
Paint bladder,
19th century,
Harvard Art Museums

Palette of Delacroix
Pigment manufacturing: Rosso è un colore che si
chiama minio, il quale è artificiato per archimia.
[Red is a color called minium which is artfully
manufactured by means of alchemy.]
Il libro dell'arte, or Trattato della pittura by Cennino
Cennini da Colle di Valdelsa

Separation of the pure essence of a substance from

its impurities: distillation, oil extraction by cold
pressing, oil purifying and bleaching

Late in the 15th Century the publication of The Great

Surgery Book by Paracelsus described a fifth element,
"quinta essentia" or essential oil, which he called the
soul of the plant, and which has therapeutic quality.

Oil of Spike Lavender, an Essential Oil used

in Painting
Oil of Spike Lavender is one of the oldest known
turpentine substitutes. It is the essential oil from the
lavender plant and possesses a most wonderful scent.
It evaporates more slowly than turpentine and is
Paint grinding
nonflammable. Since it is slower drying than turpentine, [from www.sinopia.com]
it is occasionally used to slow the drying time of oil paint.
(Excerpt from ART HARDWARE: The Definitive
Guide to Artists’ Materials, by Steven Saitzyk
© 1987)
Jacques BLOCKX Fils s.a.
[www.blockx.be]

Samples from Stefan Arteni’s

collection

The light color of both

oils is quite remarkable,
given that the samples
have been stored in the
dark for many years.
Amber: The “Tears of the Gods”
By Ulrich Arndt
[www.horusmedia.de]

“This is a noble medicine for the head, stomach, intestines, and other sinews
complaints, the same also against stones.” Like this Paracelsus adores the
amber-essence and he further writes: “That is the Magisterium Carabe (thus he
describes amber), which showed in many ways wonderful virtues.”

Georgius Agricola (1494–1555), a well-known doctor and alchemist, the pharmacist of

town in Joachimsthal and Chemnitz, already discovered in his experiments with
amber the extraction of amber-acid through distillation, which centuries later should
be of great importance for the production of colours…

Alchemical Processing
“The practice for Carabe is as follows”, explains Paracelsus the first simple
preparation of an amber essence in the sixth book of Archidoxis, “Take Carabe
(= amber) well pulverized. Then add Circulatum (= a solvent of alchemy; for first
experiments conditionally replaceable by high-proof alcohol) into a bottle and leave it
in ashes for six days. Then distillate it as long as an oil is found at the bottom…”
Nowadays the amber essence is produced again true to laboratory-art according to
Paracelsus, where far more than the three mentioned distillations are carried out in
order to achieve a high degree of purification. The reason: taste and smell of amber
essence, as it had been always described, is “strange” or even “unpleasant”. Even
the amber essence according to Paracelsus has still a slight resinous typical taste.
Jacques BLOCKX Fils s.a.
[www.blockx.be]

Samples from Stefan Arteni’s

collection

Blockx Amber Varnish [left]

It contains 36% pure dissolved
amber resin…36% purified
poppyseed oil and 28%
turpentine. [From DickBlick.com]

Amber Painting Solution [right]

Formulated with 57% amber
varnish, 16% spike spirit and 27%
poppyseed oil.
[From DickBlick.com]
 Venetian Grinds
The secret behind Italian Renaissance painters' brilliant palettes
By Alexandra Goho
From Science News, Vol. 167, No. 11, March 12, 2005, p. 168.

[Conservators] found a variety of types of glass particles mixed with the paint. Upon closer examination, [Barbara] Berrie
saw that the silica represented a high-quality form routinely used by Venetian glassmakers. During the Renaissance, they
obtained it from quartzite pebbles along the Ticino River in northern Italy. They would then grind the quartzite into a fine
powder, says Berrie, who presented her findings at the Materials Research Society meeting in Boston last December.
"For the Venetians to be able to use this ultrapure source of silica was a real technological innovation," says [Jennifer]
Mass. Traditionally, glass was made from sand, which is loaded with impurities such as iron. The iron gives glass a green
tint. Using pure silica, helped Venetian glassmakers to create their colorless cristallo.

Now, it appears that painters used glass to expand their choice of colors. For example, in Lotto's 1523 "The Nativity,"
Berrie found yellow glass particles in a sample taken from Joseph's orange robe. Unlike lead-tin yellow, the particles
included antimony and potassium, as well as lead. The antimony gave the glass a hint of orange that would have enabled
Lotto to achieve a warm tone, says Berrie.
Claudio Seccaroni of the Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy, and the Environment (ENEA) in Rome
analyzed dozens of Perugino's works using a technique called X-ray fluorescence analysis. With this method, which does
not require the removal of paint samples, Seccaroni and his colleagues detected significant amounts of manganese
associated with layers of red lake.
Normally, lake pigments do not include manganese, but that element was a standard ingredient in common colorless glass
formulations.
Coincidentally, manganese is a drying agent.

[Barbara Berrie is a conservation scientist at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., Jennifer Mass heads the
conservation-science lab at Winterthur Museum]

Note by Stefan Arteni: Smalt [potassium glass containing cobalt] is ground glass of blue color and was the earliest of the
cobalt pigments. De Mayerne mentions ground Venice glass used as drier. It is quite possible that Venetian artists have
used a wider variety of ground glass as pigment and/or drier than previously known. However, there is another interesting
question. Present day texturing mediums incorporate high-grade silica. Did the Venetians use pure ground silica – finely
ground glass - for the same purpose?
During his second trip to
Italy, Velázquez purchased
this series of the Old
Testament, painted by
Tintoretto in 1555.
Parmigianino (Girolamo
Francesco Mazzola),
painter and alchemist
 Parmigianino
(Girolamo Francesco
Mazzola),
painter and alchemist

[from www.parmigianino2003.it]

Saletta di Diana e Atteone

Fontanellato, Rocca Sanvitale
Parmigianino (Girolamo Francesco Mazzola), Saletta di Diana e Atteone,
Fontanellato, Rocca Sanvitale [from www.parmigianino2003.it]
Parmigianino (Girolamo Francesco
Mazzola), Saletta di Diana e Atteone,
Fontanellato, Rocca Sanvitale
[from www.parmigianino2003.it]
Parmigianino (Girolamo
Francesco Mazzola),
Parma, Chiesa di Santa Maria
della Steccata
[from www.parmigianino2003.it]
Parmigianino (Girolamo Francesco Mazzola), Parma, Chiesa di Santa Maria
della Steccata [from www.parmigianino2003.it]
Parmigianino (Girolamo
Francesco Mazzola),
Parma, Chiesa di San Giovanni
Evangelista
[from www.parmigianino2003.it]
Parmigianino (Girolamo
Francesco Mazzola),
Parma, Chiesa di San Giovanni
Evangelista
[from www.parmigianino2003.it]
Paint Alchemy
Burgundy,
Martailly-Lés-Brancion (Saône-et-Loire),
Brancion church.
The paintings of the church were made
between 1325 and 1330 apparently in a
glue medium (distemper).
 Dierick Bouts,
c. 1450,
The Entombment,
National Gallery, London.
Painted in glue size on
linen.
Dierick Bouts,
Flemish, 1450 – 1455,
35 7/16 x 29 3/8 in,
Getty Museum.
The muted and translucent colors are
due to the use of a glue medium –
distemper - applied directly to the
sized linen.
Dierick Bouts,
Resurrection,
1450-60,
glue size on canvas, 89 x 72.5 cm,
Norton Simon Museum of Art,
Pasadena
Andrea Mantegna, The Holy Family With Saint Elizabeth and the
Infant Saint John the Baptist, glue size on canvas, Kimbell Art
Museum, Fort Worth, Texas [on the right, detail of the painting]
Andrea Mantegna, Ecce Homo, glue size on canvas,
Musée Jacquemart-André, Paris
Albrecht Dürer,
Head of a young man, about 1506.
Glue size painting on a sketch in ink or black
chalk, on fine canvas mounted to paper,
225 x 192 mm,
Paris, Biblioteque Nationale
Albrecht Dürer, c. 1520.
Distemper on canvas.
25.5 x 21.5 cm,
Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris.
Edouard Vuillard,
glue medium on paper,
Neue Pinakothek,
München
Edouard Vuillard,
Portrait of Ker-Xavier
Roussel, 1936.
Glue medium
on paper mounted on
canvas,
124 x 142 cm,
Musée d´Art Moderne de la
Ville de París, París
 Pablo Picasso,
Theatre curtain for Parade,
glue size on canvas,
10.500m x 16.400m,
Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris

Pablo Picasso,
Theatre curtain for Mercure,
glue size on canvas,
3.920m x 5.010m,
Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris
 Gino Severini

Still Life with Mandolin ,

1920,gouache on paper
mounted on canvas,
32.5 x 50 cm

Study for the mosaic - L'UNIVERSITA DI

FRIBURGO E IL SUO IRRAGGIAMENTO -
1949, gouache on cardboard,
45.5x67.5 cm
 Composition,1954,
gouache on paper glued to
cardboard, cm 21x38

L'Italia, 1914,
gouache on paper,
cm 43.5x28.8

Mario Sironi
Stefan Arteni, Schmincke gouache series 12 on gessoed linen, varnished
An excellent modern product
approximates the ancient
glue size paints:
Schmincke
Finest Artists’ Gouache, series 12
In the past, the product used to be called:
Künstler-Tempera, feinste Gummi-Leim
Tempera Sorte 12 [Artist’s Tempera, finest
Gum-glue size Tempera series 12]
or
Feinste Künstler- & Designer Gouache
Sorte 12 [Finest Artist’s and Designer’s
Gouache]
There also were two mediums:
Ei-Tempera Malmittel [Egg tempera
painting medium]
and
Tempera-Malmittel 12 (Gummi-Leim
Bindemittel) [Tempera painting medium 12
(gum-glue size binding medium)]
The natural diverse opacity of pigments
was not increased artificially by additives.
Therefore the paint did not darken upon
varnishing or overpainting with oil.
Unfortunately, the range of colors has
been drastically reduced recently.
Bozzetti, Damaged Works,
Unfinished Works

Only the unfinished works,

because uncompletable, solicit
us to muse upon the essence
of art.

Emile Cioran

Byzantine Icon
Theophanes the Greek
Theophanes the Greek
Theophanes the Greek
Theophanes the Greek
Theophanes the Greek
Theophanes the Greek
Theophanes the Greek
Theophanes the Greek
Sinopia and restored fresco by Fra Angelico
Jan van Eyck
Pisanello
(Antonio Puccio
Pisano),
fresco fragment
Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo da Vinci
Michelangelo
Buonarroti
Paolo Caliari
Veronese
Pontormo
(Jacopo Carucci)
Pontormo (Jacopo Carucci),
Annunciation, detail
Pontormo
(Jacopo Carucci)
Pontormo
(Jacopo Carucci)
Pontormo
(Jacopo Carucci)
Pontormo
(Jacopo Carucci)
El Greco
(Domenikos Theotokopoulos)
El Greco (Domenikos Theotokopoulos), Laocoon, detail
Peter Paul Rubens
Peter Paul Rubens
Peter Paul Rubens
Peter Paul Rubens
Peter Paul
Rubens
The Modern Era

Edouard Manet
The Modern Era

Mario Sironi
The Modern Era

Mario Sironi
Stained glass window restored,
detail and bozzetti
Painting as Alchemy:
The Painter’s Hand
 The Alchemy metaphor refers to the
creation of “something out of nothing”
(e.g. George Spencer-Brown’s initial
mark as the root of form) or to the
transformation of a substance of less
value into a different substance of more
value (e.g. the turning of colored
powdered matter into valuable paint by
mixing it with a liquid, or the turning of
paint applied to a support into art.)

Portrait of a Noblewoman, Probably

Isabella of Portugal (1397–1472),
mid-15th century Netherlandish
Painter
Oil on wood; Overall 13 5/8 x 10 5/8 in.
(34.6 x 27 cm), with added strips of
1/8 in. (0.3 cm) at each side,
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
S.Trismosin
Splendor Solis (1582)

The alchemistic union,

symbolized by the peacock’s
tail (compresence of colors) and
music (harmony), is achieved
under the sign of Venus.
Deposition by DANIELE DA
VOLTERRA [before restoration]

Deposition by DANIELE DA
VOLTERRA [after restoration]
DANIELE
DA VOLTERRA,
Deposition,
detail
DANIELE
DA VOLTERRA,
Deposition,
detail
DANIELE
DA VOLTERRA,
Deposition,
detail
DANIELE
DA VOLTERRA,
Deposition,
detail
"A painting is made of paint…paint has its
own logic and its own meanings even
before it is shaped into the head of a
Madonna. To an artist, a picture is both a
sum of ideas and a blurry memory of
'pushing paint,' breathing fumes, dripping
oils and wiping brushes, smearing and
diluting and mixing…painting is alchemy.
Alchemy is the art that knows how to make
a substance no formula can describe."

James Elkins, What Painting Is, Routledge

Gino Severini,
Selfportrait with palette
Masolino
da Panicale
Masolino
da Panicale
Piero della
Francesca
Lorenzo Lotto
Jan Vermeer
Jan Vermeer
Jan Vermeer
Peter Paul
Rubens
Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez
Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez
Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez
Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez