Historical Painting Techniques, Materials, and Studio Practice

This property was deliberately used in the making of copper resinates. These
are complex compositions of copper salts with various resinous acids, such as
abietic and succinic acids, achieved by heating verdigris with Venetian turpentine
or pine resins. The resulting substance shows no particulate matter,
and a strong, bright green color. Copper resinate became the pigment of
choice whenever bright green glazes were desired. An early account fo r the
deliberate making of such a compound can be found in a fifteenth-century
manuscript in the Biblioteca Casanatense (13). Unfortunately, the copper resinates
show the same tendency to discolor, giving the meadow and the trees
in the background of the Getty Titian their present brown color in place of
the originally deep green color. In various areas on the painting, however,
the copper resinate has retained some of its original color. In particular, the
green leaves of grass near Adonis's foot stand out because of their bright,
strong color. Examination of a cross section taken from that area showed that
the copper resinate was not laid over the underpaint but rather mixed with
lead white. This mixture may possibly have helped in preserving much of its
original color. The green of the trees in the background was produced with
copper resinate.
The green that was used to paint the meadow near the vase at the lower-left
corner consisted of a mixture of copper resinate and yellow ochre. The cross
section showed that there were only two different paint layers on the gesso
ground: one layer of yellow ochre, possibly applied in two coatings, and an
upper layer of copper resinate. The leaves of the plants appear to be highlighted
with white, and glazed with copper resinate.
No other green pigments could be identified. This finding tallies with the
use of greens in Titian's later Tarquin and Lucrezia (14). We were surprised
that malachite, fo und in Titian's almost contemporary Bacchus and Ariadne or
in Tintoretto's paintings in the National Gallery, could not be detected in the
samples we took from the Getty painting (15, 16).
Conclusion
Our examinations show that the execution of the J. Paul Getty Museum's
Venus and Adonis represents a stage between the Prado version and the National
Gallery version. It stands technically in the middle between two extremes
in Titian's stylistic development. The earliest stage is the Prado version
in which an already conceived image is carefully designed and then executed
and filled in accordingly. In Titian's later style, however, the painting grows
out of an interaction between matter and concept. As every touch of the
brush has its impact on all previous touches, there is a shift in the appearance
of the final painting. Rather than resulting from a fixed plan, this way of
creating a painting with the total problem of the picture in mind, is apt to
be a continually developing and self-revising one.
The Getty piece already represents a concept of painting in which form does
not merely follow function, but rather grows out of a continuous interaction
between the demands of the material and the artistic idea: "Obwohl das Werk
erst im Vollzug des Schaffens wirklich wird und so in seiner Wirklichkeit
von diesem abhangt, wird das Wesen des Schaffens vom Wesen des Werkes
bestimmt" (17).
Notes
1. Ovid. 1986. Metamorphoses. Translated and introduced by M. M. 1. Middlesex,
Penguin Books, Ltd., 239, 244-45.
2. van Asperen de Boer. J. R. J. 1975. An introduction to the scientific examination
of paintings. Netherlands Yearbook Jo r History if Art (26): 1-40.
3. Plesters, J. 1980. Tintoretto's Paintings in the National Gallery, National Callery
Technical Bulletin (4):37.
4. Wethey, H. E. 1975. The Paintings oj Titian, Vol. III: The Mythological and Historical
Paintings. London: Phaidon, plate 189.
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