Tempera Painting 1800-1950
The papers and posters in this volume were presented at the international conference Tempera Painting between 1800 and 1950: Experiments and Innovations from the Nazarene Movement to Abstract Art held at the Doerner Institut, in cooperation with the Academy of Fine Arts, Munich, the Technical University Munich (Chair of Conservation-Restoration, Art Technology and Conservation Science) and museum partners Villa Stuck and the Lenbachhaus. These texts explore the revival of tempera painting between 1800 and 1950 from the perspectives of art history, technical art history, conservation and scientific analysis. General papers provide an overview on topics such as the historical background of tempera painting, its terminologies,commercial production and the reconstruction of historical recipes, fundamentals of rheology, binding medium analyses and their interpretation. Particular papers focus on the work of Christina Herringham, Frances Hodgkins, Paul Klee, Hermann Prell, John Roddam Spencer Stanhope, Joseph Southall, Edward Steichen and Ossawa Tanner. The book offers new insights into what artists were trying to achieve, the materials they used and how they prepared and applied them.
The papers and posters in this volume were presented at the international conference Tempera Painting between 1800 and 1950: Experiments and Innovations from the Nazarene Movement to Abstract Art held at the Doerner Institut, in cooperation with the Academy of Fine Arts, Munich, the Technical University Munich (Chair of Conservation-Restoration, Art Technology and Conservation Science) and museum partners Villa Stuck and the Lenbachhaus.
These texts explore the revival of tempera painting between 1800 and 1950 from the perspectives of art history, technical art history, conservation and scientific analysis. General papers provide an overview on topics such as the historical background of tempera painting, its terminologies,commercial production and the reconstruction of historical recipes, fundamentals of rheology, binding medium analyses and their interpretation. Particular papers focus on the work of Christina Herringham, Frances Hodgkins, Paul Klee, Hermann Prell, John Roddam Spencer Stanhope, Joseph Southall, Edward Steichen and Ossawa Tanner. The book offers new insights into what artists were trying to achieve, the materials they used and how they prepared and applied them.
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‘I EXPLORED EVERY MEANS OF PAINTING BACK THEN, NOTABLY EVERY TEMPERA’: HERMANN PRELL’S RESEARCH ON TEMPERA<br />
Figure 7 Titan and Horse, c.1901, tempera on canvas, 71 × 100 cm, Städtische Galerie Dresden –<br />
Kunstsammlung Museen der Stadt Dresden. (Photo: Franz Zadnicek.)<br />
with casein zinc white and judged by Prell to be<br />
very good: ‘Ground: casein-zinc-white [Helferling]<br />
Neisch/ casein paints Neisch/ very good, even on<br />
dry [canvas]/ only slight brightening/ very firm.’ 27 He<br />
painted Titan’s Head (Fig. 8) in tempera paints made<br />
by Neisch on a moist Helferling ground: ‘Neisch<br />
tempera/ Helferling ground/ wets from behind.’ 28<br />
The execution on ‘casein canvas’ (Prell 1916: 71)<br />
seems to have corresponded with his ‘casein technique<br />
on canvas’ for the Danzig paintings described<br />
above: ‘The large cartoon for the ceiling picture<br />
transferred to the canvas by two pupils, [Richard]<br />
Schlösser and [Paul] Harnisch and the underdrawing<br />
executed’ (Prell c.1921, XVI: 28). 29 In the process,<br />
he carried out the ‘underpainting on the dry [canvas]<br />
with umbra, terra di siena, ultramarine – as needed.<br />
Finally underpainting in local colours without looking<br />
at the effect until no bare canvas was anywhere<br />
to be seen and the picture was there in its entirety’<br />
(Prell XIV, 310). 30 And then Prell began to paint:<br />
I had it moistened from behind piece by piece with<br />
a spray and a large sponge, until it was totally wet.<br />
The wet area looks considerably darker. I mixed<br />
the main hues, as with fresco, in glass jars until<br />
they were stiff, in order to constantly keep the<br />
Figure 8 Titan’s Head, 1903, tempera on canvas, 43.6 × 30.8<br />
cm, Städtische Galerie Dresden – Kunstsammlung Museen<br />
der Stadt Dresden. (Photo: Franz Zadnicek.)<br />
113
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