Art exhibition reveals Vermeer’s secrets using technology to look under paintings
Jeffrey Brown:
Now the exhibition Vermeer's Secrets offers a different kind of portrait of the artist, below the surface, at the underpainting, sometimes multiple layers of sketches, brushstrokes, and, of course, the paint itself, and shows how ever more refined cameras, like those that do remote sensing of the earth and space, can peer underneath without damaging the paintings and find hidden images, how the angle of a pen was subtly shifted to impact the overall effect, or the head of an unknown man.
Studying the images and chemical components allows scientists to create a kind of map that offers clues to how an artist worked.
John Delaney, Senior Imaging Scientist, National Gallery of Art: We're trying to look at a fingerprint that's related to the material. And then, in those maps, you can actually see the paint strokes.
Gloss