Classic paintings that hide incredible secrets on their canvases. Art in X-Rays

For every artist, a painting is his child, but if a child is very difficult to change, it is much easier to do with paintings. In art, there is a term "pentimento" when the artist makes changes to his painting. This is a fairly common practice that has been used by artists throughout history. Usually pentimento cannot be seen with the normal eye, and x-rays come to the rescue. We offer you 5 classic paintings that hide incredible secrets, some of which are frightening.

Whale in Hendrik van Antonissen's "Beach Scene"

After a painting by a 17th-century Dutch artist ended up in a public museum, its owner noticed something unusual about it. Why are so many people suddenly on the beach for no apparent reason? While removing the first layer of the painting, the truth came out. In fact, the artist originally painted a whale carcass on the beach, which was later painted over. Scientists believe that it was painted over for aesthetic purposes. Not many people would want to have a painting of a dead whale in their home.

Hidden figure in Pablo Picasso's painting "The Old Guitarist"

Picasso had a very difficult period in his life when he did not even have money for new canvases, so he had to paint new paintings on top of the old ones, repainting them many times. This was the case with the old guitarist.

If you look at the picture very carefully, you can see the outlines of another person. X-rays showed that it had previously been a painting of a woman with a child in the countryside

The mysterious disappearance of the Roman king

The portrait "Jacques Marquet, Baron de Montbreton de Norvin" by an artist named Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres is one of the most prominent representatives of political pentimento. On this canvas you can see a portrait of the chief of police of Rome, but earlier something else was written on this canvas.

Scientists believe that after the conquest of Rome by Napoleon, this canvas featured a bust of Napoleon’s son, whom he himself proclaimed king of Rome. But after Napoleon was defeated, the bust of his son was successfully painted over

Dead baby or basket of potatoes?

You can see in the painting by the French artist Jean-François Millet called "L" Angelus" from 1859, two peasants who stand in the middle of a field and mournfully look at a basket of potatoes. However, when the painting was studied using X-rays, it turned out that before In place of the basket was a small coffin with a small child.

The X-ray was not taken by chance. Salvador Dali insisted on x-rays, claiming that the painting depicted a funeral scene. In the end, the Louvre reluctantly x-rayed the painting, and Salvador Dali's premonition was justified

The painting "Preparing the Bride" is not what it seems

The painting "Preparing the Bride" is actually an unfinished painting. This painting was part of a series depicting the traditions of French rural life by Gustave Courbet. It was painted in the mid-1800s and acquired by the museum in 1929.

In 1960, the painting was studied using X-rays and what scientists discovered shocked them. The painting originally depicted a funeral scene, and the woman in the center of the painting was dead.

Modern art historians are increasingly resorting to studying paintings by old masters using fluoroscopy, using the well-known property of lead white: to block x-rays. An X-ray image obtained by transilluminating a particular painting can show compositional changes made by the artist, alterations of individual details of the painting, corrected errors and other features of the artist’s technical process.

Using this method, it was established, for example, that the Dutch painter Rembrandt, when creating “Self-Portrait” in 1665, initially made a mistake by giving a mirror image of himself on the canvas: he had a brush in his left hand and a palette in his right. The artist noticed this only after the painting was completely finished. Having smeared his hands on the canvas with a thick layer of paint, he painted them again. Now the brush was in the right hand, and the palette in the left.

Second example. The Flemish painter Rubens (1606-1669) changed the original composition of his painting "Portrait of Francesco Gonzaga" (kept in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna) after it was completed. Compositional changes are clearly visible in the above x-ray.

Also, quite recently, with the help of X-rays, it was possible to find out which of the two paintings by the artist Van Dyck “Saint Jerome and the Angel” (on the title of the article) is genuine, and which is just a copy (albeit an excellent one).

P.S. Perfume says: And when studying some old paintings, you can be surprised to discover that their paints contain the same components as maxilift cosmetics. Maybe this is the secret of the quality and durability of this cosmetics? By the way,

Silchenko T.N.

1. X-rays and painting

The day of Roentgen's discovery of a “new kind of rays” is considered to be November 8, 1895. Already the next year, Roentgen, using open rays, studied, along with other materials, various pigments. At the same time, some physicists were able to obtain the contours of the images in the painting from X-ray photographs. These were the first laboratory experiments; practical application for the study of X-ray patterns began at the end of the first quarter of the 20th century. and is gaining its due place among other methods of studying the material part of paintings only gradually and not without objections. Opinions have been expressed that the time and money spent on x-ray examinations are not worth the results they give, and that x-rays can harm the picture. The main reason for these and similar objections was the inability to fully use the results of the study and insufficient knowledge of the physicochemical properties of both X-rays and the picture itself. It has now been definitively established, both theoretically - based on a deep study of the nature of X-rays, and practically - based on careful experimental testing, that the dose of X-rays is even a million times greater than that which (on average) is needed to obtain an image from the picture, does not cause her any harm and cannot in any way affect her further existence. At first, the obstacles to the widespread introduction of the X-ray research method into museum practice were the imperfection of the necessary equipment, the high cost and complexity of its use, which required the participation of a small number of radiologists at that time. Nowadays, all these complications have disappeared, and only the inertia of museum workers can explain the fact that the most valuable research method has not yet entered into the daily practice of all Soviet museums and restoration workshops as firmly as it has entered medicine and other areas of science and technology. The study of paintings using X-rays is especially valuable if it is carried out in parallel with the study in ultraviolet rays (luminescent method), sometimes with the help of a binocular magnifying glass. Such a comprehensive study, revealing what is hidden inside the painting and what is not visible in ordinary light on its surface, provides the most valuable data about the material part of the painting, necessary not only for the restorer, but also for the art critic, artist and curator. Other methods, such as chemical analysis, can also be successfully used to study paintings, but they require special equipment and specialists; the need for such research arises in exceptional cases; their introduction into the daily practice of museum workers to the extent that it should be with X-ray and luminescent methods is less necessary; Therefore, this article deals only with these two methods.

Data on the nature of X-rays and their physical and chemical properties can be found not only in truly vast literature - scientific and popular, but also in any modern physics textbook. The technique of their practical use in various fields is described in detail in the relevant manuals, so this article very briefly presents the main provisions that are directly related to the practice of studying paintings.

The use of X-rays to study paintings is based on the fact that rays passing through a painting, under favorable conditions, produce an image on a fluorescent screen or a photograph on photographic film. Practice suggests using only photographs, and not transillumination, because: 1) with translucency it is impossible to catch, much less remember, all the smallest details that are recorded in the photographs; 2) when studying large paintings, it is technically difficult to use the screen; 3) transillumination is possible only in complete darkness, while the screen, hard and heavy (thanks to lead glass), must be pressed tightly against the picture, which can lead to damage to it; 4) an x-ray is an objective document, always ready for demonstration, comparison and comparison with a number of other photographs, and this is extremely important when studying both one painting and, in particular, a series of paintings, for example, when studying the technique of a particular master or school. Accumulating an archive of X-ray images of paintings is one of the most important tasks of every large museum.

According to the wave theory of light, X-rays are electromagnetic vibrations with wavelengths from 725 to 0.10 A°. 1 The properties of X-rays and, in particular, their penetrating ability largely depend on the wavelength: the shorter the waves, the greater the penetrating power of the rays, or, as they say, they are harder, and, conversely, the longer the waves, the less of them penetrating force - they are softer. The definition of “hard” and “soft” rays is arbitrary and does not sufficiently characterize the actual properties of a given beam of rays: soft for one purpose, they may be too hard for another. The designation in wavelengths has scientific meaning. In practice, when using tubes with a heated cathode, it is customary to determine the rigidity by kilovoltage, i.e., the voltage of the electric current that is supplied to the tube, since the wavelengths in the emitted beam change depending on it, and this determines the penetrating ability: the higher the kilovoltage, the harder the rays. The choice of one or another rigidity is determined by the transparency of the object under study for X-rays. For some clarification, we can say that for the study of various metal products, hard rays are required, for the study of the human body - medium, for the study of paintings - soft (about 30 kilovolts). An X-ray beam consists of a mixture of rays of different wavelengths (similar to visible "white" light), with the shortest corresponding to the height of the applied kilovoltage, and the longest (when working with a conventional diagnostic tube) those produced at 15 kilovolts, since the rays softer ones are filtered out by the glass wall of the tube.

When a beam of rays passes through an object (for example, a painting), soft rays are delayed to a greater extent than hard ones, due to which not only a general quantitative attenuation occurs, but the ratio of soft and hard rays in the beam also changes towards a percentage increase in the number of hard rays . In practice, the intensity attenuation, i.e., the difference between the intensity of the rays with which they came out of the tube and the one with which they, having passed through the object being photographed, will affect the photographic film, depends on the chemical composition of the object and its thickness: the attenuation is proportional to 4- 1st degree of the element's serial number according to the periodic table and 3rd degree of wavelength; moreover, the attenuation increases rapidly with increasing thickness of the layer of material through which the rays pass, especially with soft rays.

In the picture, the difference in the thickness of various sections in most cases is not particularly large and the retention of X-rays when taking an image is affected to a lesser extent than the chemical composition of the materials from which it is constructed; for example, even a thick layer (on the scale of a painting) of ocher blocks X-rays much less than a thin layer of white lead or pure gold. This becomes understandable if we consider that the stopping power is determined not simply by the serial number of the element, but by its 4th power. For example, the ratio of the serial numbers of iron (26) and lead (82) will be only about 1:3, and the ratio of their 4 degrees will be about 1:110, also for zinc (30) and lead (82) their ratio is 4 -x powers will be approximately 1:56.

(the table shows metals whose compounds are pigments, most often used in painting).

In order to determine how significantly a substance consisting of several elements will block X-rays (and all the materials from which the picture is constructed are exactly that), it would be necessary to calculate the sum of the blocking force of each element and its quantity. Of course, in the practice of studying paintings, such calculations do not have to be made, if only because the exact chemical composition of paints and their ratios in a particular area of ​​the painting (when mixed or superimposed on each other) are not known. The above information is given only to show what properties of the materials from which the picture is constructed create the most favorable conditions for obtaining a clear, detailed x-ray image and what shooting technique should be used.

As an X-ray object, the painting has the following advantages over other objects: small thickness and flat surface; immobility, relative transparency for x-rays. Thanks to this, with the right technique, it is possible to obtain the maximum contrast and sharpness of the image for a given picture, because: 1) the effect of scattered rays is almost completely eliminated, as well as the “blurring” of the picture from the movement of the object at any exposure duration; 2) it is possible to ensure a tight and uniform fit of the film; 3) soft rays are used, which give the greatest contrast in the image. Unfavorable conditions are created if the painting is made with paints that block rays weaker than its base or primer, or that differ little from each other in transparency for X-rays. In most paintings, especially by old masters, the ground, due to the absence or small amount of lead paint in it, is quite transparent to X-rays.

Paints common in tempera and oil painting can practically (conditionally) be divided into four groups:

1. Organic (kraplak, black, for example soot).

2. Derivatives of metals with a low atomic number or with a small percentage of metal (ocher, etc.).

3. Derivatives of metals with average atomic numbers (zinc, copper).

4. Derivatives of heavy metals (lead, mercury).

For rays of the hardness that is used in the study of paintings and with the usual thickness of the paint layer, the first two groups, like the binder and coating varnishes, are completely passable for x-rays and on x-ray photographs they give areas of maximum density for a given image. Paints of the third group block the rays quite weakly and only with a sufficient layer thickness do they create an overall background of a photo of medium density (“gray”) without sharp boundaries, with weakly expressed chiaroscuro (halftones). Against this background, darker places appear with varying clarity, corresponding to areas of the picture made by the first or second group, and lighter, sometimes completely transparent, corresponding to details made with paints of the fourth group.

Lead white plays an extremely important role. Of all the paints, they block X-rays most significantly; Moreover, it is rare to find a painting that does not contain lead white, either in pure form or in the form of “bleaching,” that is, mixed with other paints (only in later paintings - from the beginning of the second quarter of the 19th century - lead white is sometimes partially or completely replaced by zinc). Therefore, the completeness of the image of a painting on an x-ray is determined almost exclusively by the amount and distribution of lead white on it. The painting technique also has a very great influence on the nature of the photograph (in the sense of image reproduction): with layer-by-layer painting, when the underpainting was first painted, with details in details and light and shade, using lead white, and then covered with glazes, a reproduction of the picture is obtained on the x-ray photograph, close to a regular photograph (and sometimes even more detailed). With a single-layer technique, when the required color or shade is obtained by mixing paints on the palette, the picture may not produce clear contours and rich contrasts. This explains the great role of underpainting - it is on it that the completeness of the image in the photograph depends; glazes, usually made with a very thin layer and paints that are transparent to X-rays (and ordinary light), do not produce shadows on an X-ray photograph.

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Radiography of a painting or the history of one portrait

An example of how complex the restoration of paintings is and requiring the involvement of specialists of various specializations is clearly demonstrated by the work with one of the paintings belonging to school No. 206 in St. Petersburg. The reason for turning to specialists for help - employees of the St. Petersburg State Academy of Arts and Industry - was damage to the canvas. According to the regulations, during the restoration the following work is carried out:

• research (both to assess the artistic value and to obtain objective data on the structure of the paint layers, the facts of restoration and other work on the painting);
• conservation;
• restoration itself - restoration of the canvas;
• storage - providing conditions under which the aging of canvas materials and paints slows down as much as possible.

X-ray pictures in the study

The study involves both a visual examination (carried out by a restorer) and special types of filming. To diagnose damage, obtain data on the structure and number of layers of the canvas, obtain information that can help determine authorship, and methods for restoring the painting, the following are used:

• shooting in UV and IR rays;
• spectral analysis;
• X-ray photography.

The complex of research makes it possible to restore the history of the painting. Revealing hidden layers of paint without damaging later ones is one of the tasks that radiography of paintings solves.

How radiography of a painting helped find an unknown portrait

In the case of working with a painting from School No. 206 in St. Petersburg, an x-ray of the painting not only confirmed the assumption of a restoration specialist about the second (hidden) image, but also made it possible to identify its author. And subsequently, both paintings were restored - in a little more than three years.

The subject of the canvas is V.I. Lenin against the backdrop of the Peter and Paul Fortress. Damage - through ruptures - was only in the lower part of the picture. They attracted the attention of a restorer, who suggested that a layer of paint on the back of the canvas could hide an independent image.

What was hidden by the layer of water-soluble gray-white paint on the back of the canvas was revealed by an X-ray of the painting. The picture showed a portrait of Nicholas II and the signature of the author - Ilya Galkin. Among his works were other portraits of the last emperor of the Russian Empire and members of the imperial family (in particular, portraits of Empress Alexandra Feodorovna and Maria Feodorovna, the Dowager Empress, mother of the sovereign), created in the last decade of the 19th century. The exact date of painting the portrait is 1896: the painting was commissioned by the Petrovsky Commercial School, which later became the 206th school: first in Leningrad, and then in St. Petersburg. The portrait of V.I. Lenin on a canvas 1.8 by 2.7 meters was created approximately 28 years later - in 1924. The famous painter and graphic artist Vladislav Matveevich Izmailovich, a graduate of the Central School of Technical Drawing of Baron A. L. Stieglitz (later - the state art and industrial academy of the same name) was supposed to paint a new portrait on top of the portrait by Ilya Galkin. However, the artist acted in his own way - hiding the painting of 1896, and the portrait of V.I. Lenin was written on the back of the canvas.

We are starting a series of publications in which we will talk about the methods used in researching works of art. The first method that will be discussed is one of the oldest and most widely used in the study of painting. This is an X-ray examination.

A little history

X-ray photography was discovered by the German scientist Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen in 1895, and a year later the first X-ray photograph was taken in Russia. The method is based on the fact that X-rays (in the spectrum of electromagnetic waves they occupy a place between ultraviolet and gamma radiation) have a high penetrating ability. On the film they leave a shadow image of the structure of the object being studied.

The method was developed for medical research, but quickly found application in the study of art. Already in 1919, the tireless Igor Emmanuilovich Grabar initiated the development of a methodology for studying works of art using R rays. Initially, this was done by the Moscow Institute of Historical and Artistic Research and Museum Studies (one of the first institutions coordinating the museum work of the young Soviet state). And in 1925, the country's first laboratory for physical and chemical research of art monuments was opened.

Today in Russia the method is widely used in forensic examination, but it works best if the photograph can be compared with photographs of reference works of painting by a particular artist. Therefore, large museums and research centers (including ours) are constantly adding to their collections of such images - X-ray libraries (they store tens of thousands of images).

How are x-rays done?

For research, special X-ray machines are used, and very often, in the absence of devices designed specifically for studying works of art, laboratories in museums and restoration workshops are equipped with medical diagnostic devices or devices for industrial control.As in medical research, for X-raying works of art, laboratories are equipped with protection from high voltage and X-rays.

The painting is placed horizontally, X-ray film is placed under it and the radiation is directed. The rays pass through the painting and create a shadow image on the film. In special cases, specialists can try out various types of research, for example, microradiography (to obtain enlarged images), as well as angular and stereoradiography (to obtain information about the three-dimensional structure of an object).

This is what the first X-ray machine looked like.

1. Understand the principles of constructing a paint layer, the characteristics of the soil, the method of applying a stroke, modeling forms and other author’s techniques that are individual to each artist

For example, these:

3. Detect the underlying paint layer, if there is one.

For example, under Marevna’s still life the inscription “Peace-Labor-May” and a flying dove were found.

4. Determine the degree of restoration (if any), destroyed areas, losses, as well as transfer of the work to another basis (if restoration is required).