Three hundred conservators, conservation scientists, curators, art historians, and students from twenty-two countries assembled at The Art Institute of Chicago in October 1999 for a conference entitled The Broad Spectrum: The Art and Science of Conserving Colored Media on Paper. Drawing on their wide range of expertise, participants expressed their varied approaches to the investigation and custodianship of art in the papers published in this volume. A consideration of the materials and techniques of coloured media on paper, The Broad Spectrum is also an exploration of the meaning and interpretation of artworks.
An array of media, as employed in different historical periods and cultural contexts, is brought under intense and diligent scructiny. A historical survey of pastel and chalk is presented alongside fascinating case studies and recommendations for transport, storage, and display. Watercolor and ink are examined through essays on individual artists such as Durer, Turner, Cezanne, and Homer, and through a brief history of paper-making. Modern materials are discussed including distemper, fluorescent paint, and ink jet printers. Challenges posed by traditional Asian art forms are explained, and considerations of the issue of fading - its measurement and prevention - conclude the volume.
Exquisitely and amply illustrated with high-quality reproductions in color and black and white, The Broad Spectrum is a collaborative triumph. This volume, which presents empirical research together with sensitive analyses of data and pictures, promises to inspire future research, and prompt further inter-disciplinary efforts among specialists - all the while enhancing the art-viewing experiences of wider audiences.
This volume represents a unique collection of expertise and will be of interest to art historians and curators as well as researchers, practitioners and students of conservation.
Preface and Acknowledgements
Harriet K. Stratis and Britt Salvesen
Foreword
Douglas W. Druick
Chapter 1 Pastel and chalk
An aesthetic overview of the pastel palette: 1500-1900
Marjorie Shelley
Distinguishing between chalk and pastel in early drawings
Thea Burns
Making up the face: technique and meaning in the pastels of Rosalba Carriera
Thea Burns
Materials, methods, and meanings in Edgar Degas's late pastels
Richard Kendall
An investigation of the pastels of Giuseppe De Nittis and the pastel revival of the later nineteenth century
Anne F. Maheux
James McNeill Whistler: the color of line
Margaret F. MacDonald
Blues and browns and drabs: the evolution of colored papers
Peter Bower
Housing a pastel collection at the National Archives of Canada
Part I: pick it up ... and move it out
Gilbert L. Gignac and Gregory J. Hill
Housing a pastel collection at the National Archives of Canada
Part II: God is in the details: the conservation treatment of early Canadian pastels
Maria Bedynski and Gregory J. Hill
Chapter 2 Watercolor and ink
Cause and effect in the historical development of watercolor
Marjorie B. Cohn
Observations on the functions of watercolors and pastels in Italian Renaissance drawings
Thomas McGrath
The history and technology of Renaissance and Baroque hand-colored prints
Susan Dackerman and Thomas Primeau
The analysis of watercolor materials, in particular Turner's watercolors at the Tate Gallery (1790s to 1840s)
Joyce H. Townsend
Paul Cezanne's watercolors: his choice of pigments and papers
Faith Zieske
Winslow Homer's watercolor pigments
Barbara Berrie, Yoonjoo Strumfels, and Carol Tolocka
The history and use of colored inks
Carlo James
Aging of paper and pigments containing iron and copper: a review
Vincent Daniels
Effects of aqueous treatment on iron-gall ink - monitoring iron migration with the iron (II) indicator test
Elmer Eusman
All the colors of white: the changing nature of white papers
Peter Bower
Chapter 3 Nineteenth and twentieth century materials
In the kitchen with Paul Gauguin: devising recipes for a symbolist graphic aesthetic
Peter Kort Zegers
The use and misuse of distemper in the works of Edouard Vuillard: a curator's view
Gloria Groom
The use and misuse of distemper in the works of Edouard Vuillard: a conservator's view
Faye T. Wrubel
The treatment of two Karel Appel gouaches
Piet van Dalen and Gabriëlle Beentjes
Daylight fluorescent colors as artistic media
Margaret Holben Ellis, Christopher W. McGlinchey, and Esther Chao
Assessing the impact of storage environments on the color transfer of felt-tipped pen on paper
Barbara Rosenberg
The preservation and conservation of ink jet and electrophotographic printed materials
Debbie Glynn
On material(ism) or why painting conservators have all the fun
Daria Keynan
Chapter 4 The materials of Asian art
Color as language in traditional Japanese prints
Roger S. Keyes and Elizabeth I. Coombs
Aqueous treatment of Ukiyo-e prints of the Edo period: three case studies
Pamela de Tristan
Painted Japanese paper screens: The consolidation of paint layers on a paper substrate
Sandra Grantham and Alan Cummings
The conservation of a set of Japanese Fusuma
Mitsuhiro Abe and Sydney Thomson
Chinese color printing technology and history in the Ten Bamboo Studio Manual of Painting and Calligraphy
M. Brigitte Yeh
Indian paintings on paper, textile, and mica: conservation, storage, and display
Mike Wheeler, Pauline Webber, Anna Hillcoat-Imanishi, and Clair Battisson
Chapter 5 The assessment of fading
Statistics without anesthesia: interpreting color data
Roy Perkinson
The use of the X-Rite Colortron (TM) measurement of water colors
Barbara Mangum and Arlen Heginbotham
Pursuing the fugitive: direct measurement of light sensitivity with micro-fading tests
Paul M. Whitmore
The user's point of view: micro-fading test results and the shaping of exhibition policy
Craigen Bowen, Barbara J. Mangum, and Meredith Montague
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