The materials of the image: pigments on Portugese treatises from the Middle Ages to 1850

23.6.2011

Project status

concluded

Execution period

2005-2008

REF

POCI/EAT/58065/2004

Main research unit

Centre for History of the University of Lisbon

Principal Investigator

Vítor Serrão (ULisboa)

Research team

Manuel Batoréo (ULisboa); Luís Urbano Afonso (ULisboa); Ana Paula Baptista Carvalho (ULisboa); João Manuel Pires da Silva (ULisboa); António João Carvalho Cruz (ULisboa); Maria Helena Ribeiro Matias Mendonça (ULisboa); Fernanda Madalena de Abreu da Costa (ULisboa)

This project is concerned with the study of materials used in Portuguese painting, namely pigments. The chronological span covers from the Middle Ages to c. 1850. This large period of time is easily understandable because until the Industrial Revolution the production and change of pigments did not change particularly. The changes that were introduced were not very significant and they did not imply a deep variation on the ways of production and on the behaviour of the materials. This study is divided on two steps. The first is directed at the recollection of all written information in the Portuguese concerning the material dimension of the art of painting, namely pigments and colours. Obviously, the first source of this study consists on Portuguese treatises, although its scarcity. We also include data from contracts between painters or sculptors and buyers, as well as data collected from technical digests from the 18th and 19th centuries. The second step consists on the semantic and laboratorial analysis of the technical terms mentioned on those written sources, in order to classify them as better as possible. The laboratorial work consists on the synthesis of the pigments in accordance to the information provided by the founded sources and subsequent characterization of the pigments using a chemical analysis. The results of this project will be relevant to the preservation of artistic objects. Indeed, they can help restorers to use more appropriate and materials to recover the ancient ones. Furthermore, this study will improve the knowledge of the artistic techniques used in Portugal during the above-mentioned chronological span. Hence, its importance to the study of the history of forms, styles, and, to a lesser degree, to iconography. Naturally, the comparison of periods of pigment use and regional preferences are also important to build our knowledge on painting chronology and filiation.