Sunday, 1 June 2014

Botticelli Paintings

By Darren Hartley


Botticelli paintings revise traditional procedures to adopt recent innovations. They use tempera grassa, a medium in which the egg yolk was modified by the addition of oil to make the paint more transparent. Botticelli followed the methods that had been perfected in the previous century, showing the conservativeness in his approach.

The finest pigments of the period were utilized in innovative Botticelli paintings. They were applied in scumbles, i.e., thin and opaque layers. However, the reds and greens were glazed more often than not. These pigments produced an exquisite, enamelled effect, from its composition of infinite tonal gradations.

It is unfortunate to note that most of the Botticelli paintings have lost the fullness of their beauty over the years. This loss can be attributable to the fact that colors have a tendency to change nature, to become more transparent, as the years passed on. A prime example is copper resinate, which turns from green to brown, in an irreversible chromatic change, an excessive contrast and a loss of luministic gradation.

The flesh tones in Botticelli paintings constitute the most refined among its many components. The faces of women were pale and porcelain like, the infants and children endowed with more intensely colored, ruddier complexions while the men appeared with darker flesh.

Chalk, pen, bistre and tempera were among the media in which Botticelli perfected his skills. This is very evident in Botticelli paintings. He used paper tinted with roses, violets, yellows and grays. This pioneering technique modelled up figures with whites in the light and modelled them down with darker colors.

Because the Dante illustrations were only executed in outline, they were considered unique Botticelli paintings. Supposedly to be infused with color, Botticelli never got to completing them. Of the 92 parchment sheets comprising the collection, some were not even started. They were initially scratched into the parchment, overdrawn with slate and ink, in preparation for their eventual filling with colored inks.




About the Author:



No comments:

Post a Comment