Historical Painting Techniques, Materials, and Studio Practice

Figure 4. Detail (showing cracks) from William Hilton the Younger's study of Editha's head for Editha
and the Monks Searching for the Body of Harold, ca. 1834. Oil on canvas, 335 X 244
mm. Courtesy rf the Tate Gallery, London (N00333).
unlined. The paint dribbling down the tacking margins at an angle suggests
Turner used a sloping easel, probably the tripod type depicted in his watercolors.
There are very few descriptions of Turner painting, but observation
of the paintings and cross sections makes it clear that he thinned paint excessively,
until it contracted into islands as it dried (visible in the foreground);
at other times, he mixed paint in drying oil on the palette so rapidly as to
leave recognizable blobs of the added oil. Almost certainly, Turner completed
The Dawn of Christianity at the Royal Academy in the three days required of
other artists of his era fo r retouching sunken areas or appling varnish. The
sky paint was applied rather thickly with a palette knife, as was white impasto
in the lower right. Both paints consisted of good quality lead white with few
impurities. Turner sometimes modified the sky with opaque scumbles, but
rarely glazed it, emphasizing the contrast between the sky and the highly
glazed landscape in the foreground. The middle ground was painted rapidly
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Historical Painting Techniques, Materials, and Studio Practice