Recently, I was given a gift,
a nice Facebook gift, when a young friend, who has a really cool job at an art
auction house, connected me to a Christie’s article about paintings.
I took art classes in high
school and college. I did some painting…but not all that much…so I knew writing
about paintings in a mystery novel would be a stretch. I had to pay attention
to books like The Art Forger by B. A.
Shapiro for painting terminology and descriptions of techniques, and carefully
read anything I could find on Olof Krans. Even if I couldn’t directly use the
information, I needed to understand it all.
Now, I had another good
source. The Christie’s article was about the backs of paintings. Yes, the backs.
As museum visitors, we rarely
get to see the backs of paintings. I can only think of one occasion where a
Grant Wood painting was displayed on an easel in the middle of the room leaving
the back exposed.
So, this article was a treat
from the start:
“5 things you can learn from
the back of a painting.
The most overlooked aspect of
an artwork is by no means the least important, as specialist Tom Rooth explains.
“…What
lurks beneath the back of a painting can often be as surprising as what is
marked upon it. Though it’s incredibly rare, there have been cases where
paintings have been found hidden behind other works — sometimes for hundreds of
years, escaping the attention of galleries and auction houses. A loose lining,
or an unusual run of nails can be a clue, though sometimes these secret
masterpieces are only revealed when a work is reframed. It’s impossible to say
why a work is hidden in this way: it may have been a way to store and preserve
a work, or it might simply be that the frame was repurposed.
“Where
reframing would be difficult, improvements in imaging technology have allowed
experts to see through the top layers of a work to any original paintings or
drawings below; it has not been uncommon for penniless artists to reuse
canvases.”
There’s nothing like the
feeling of being totally on target. The “I was sooo right” moment.
I savor it because…it doesn’t
come by all that often.
To read the entire article go to:
Am anxious to read all your posts, Mary. How goes it these days?
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