Winslow Homer, Van Gogh, and nanotechnology

A few years back I wrote up a story about Winslow Homer and his painting, For to Be a Farmer’s Boy, which had a nanotechnology angle. The painting,part f the Art Institute of Chicago’s (AIC) collection, was examined using the Surface Enhanced Raman Spectrometry (SERS) technique and I found the art conservation application so interesting I included the story in my The Nanotech Mysteries wiki on the Scientists get artful page.

The April 5, 2011 article [ETA: Link added Feb. 10, 2013] by Francesca Casadio on physorg.com  has more technical detail about the conservation process and the painting. It also mentions The Bedroom by Van Gogh,

… they are both displayed at the Art Institute of Chicago (AIC). Homer’s painting represents a high point in the career of America’s premiere watercolorist, while Van Gogh’s painting is perhaps one of most recognizable paintings in the world. However, they also share a key physical trait.

“These breathtaking artworks are both painted with colorants that are sensitive to light, or, as we say in museums, they are ‘fugitive,’ meaning they quickly vanish if exposed to too much light,” says Francesca Casadio, A.W. Mellon senior conservation scientist at the AIC. “Fading can dramatically change the color balance of fragile works of art and go so far as to obfuscate, in part, the artist’s intended effect.”

Here’s how it works,

By using a colloidal suspension of silver nanoparticles as a “performance enhancing drug,” researchers, for the first time, can identify natural organic colorants on a single grain of pigment otherwise invisible to the naked eye.

SERS analysis
Indeed, only a handful of pigment particles were available from the Homer watercolor. Compared to reference 19th century watercolor pigments available at AIC, these colorants were identified as Indian purple (cochineal precipitated with copper sulfate) and madder purple, two natural dyestuffs derived from an insect and vegetable-root sources, respectively.
The results indicate that in Homer’s For to Be a Farmer’s Boy, the “empty” sky once depicted a vibrant autumn sunset, with organic purples and reds, in addition to inorganic reds and yellows.

The Art Institute of Chicago has a page about this painting where they have a digital simulation that allows you to see the original before and after the restoration.

I did cover Van Gogh’s The Bedroom in a March 16, 2010 posting (scroll down) about the Amsterdam Museum and its restoration efforts. The museum staff wrote a blog about the painting and the process as they restored it. The last posting on the blog indicates that The Bedroom was going to be in Japan until April 10, 2011 and then it was being returned to the Amsterdam Museum. I wonder if the painting’s current residency at the AIC is a consequence of the earthquake, tsunami, and reactor situations in Japan.

One thought on “Winslow Homer, Van Gogh, and nanotechnology

  1. Pingback: Picasso, paint, and the hard x-ray nanoprobe « FrogHeart

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