Reverse glass painting, as demonstrated in this book, involves creating a traditional primitive picture on a piece of glass in a way that the finished image can be viewed on the opposite side of the glass. Here award-winning painter Anne Dimock provides advice on the tools and materials needed to get started, tips on creating a variety of painting effects, techniques on using stencils for borders, guidelines for applying and etching gold leaf, and step-by-step projects for mastering the craft. Helpful series photographs demonstrate the process for creating a variety of traditional images, including landscapes, maritime themes, fruits, flowers, animals, and human figures. AUTHOR: Anne Dimock lives in Trumansburg, New York, and is an instructor of reverse glass painting with the Historical Society of Early American Decoration. She has been teaching the art for more than twenty-five years and has received a number of awards for her work. SELLING POINTS: *Basic skills from an expert *14 projects with patterns provided *Full-colour, step-by-step photographs ILLUSTRATIONS 364 colour photographs *

With contributions from outstanding specialists in glass art and East Asian art history, this edited volume opens a cross-cultural dialogue on the hitherto little-studied medium of Chinese reverse glass painting. The first major survey of this form of East Asian art, the volume traces its long history, its local and global diffusion, and its artistic and technical characteristics. Manufactured for export to Europe and for local consumption within China, the fragile artworks studied in this volume constitute a paramount part of Chinese visual culture and attest to the intensive cultural and artistic exchange between China and the West.

Displaying a talent for combining aesthetic sensibility with scientific rigor, the author has given new life to something that once excited European passions: an original, non-academic art at the forefront of the 'new technology' of the time. For decades, aristocrats of the Old World and then American collectors (the latter at the end of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth centuries) spent countless sums on the purchase of these works, which were worth a fortune. These wealthy collectors of curiosities of all types were also most certainly great dreamers seeking a worthy setting for their dreams. Unbeknownst to them, their endeavours had much greater scope, creating and nourishing the conditions for a rare encounter between two worlds: a golden age of atypical collaboration, a combined adventure between China and Europe.

"Thanjavur paintings are among the most popular artworks that adorn the walls of Indian homes--avidly collected but little comprehended. This richly illustrated volume presents an enhanced understanding of the subject through an in-depth study of South Indian paintings of the 18th and 19th centuries in the Thanjavur and the allied Mysuru styles. The meticulously researched text showcases and engages with Kuldip Singh's unique collection of 300 paintings. Also included are painted prints, some reverse-glass works and a few lithographs. These cover a wide range of idioms and themes: from the domain of gods and goddesses and the sites and stories associated with their worship, we come down to the realm of their human patrons with portraits made of maharajas, priests and ordinary individuals. We also gain a glimpse of the different regions and schools that come under the larger ambit of the term "South Indian" paintings. A historical and cultural background provides an overview and context to the material while a description of technique and an analysis of styles highlights an aesthetic appreciation. In addition to a focus on the process of conserving and preserving these works, the book looks at the contemporary status of this form which is experiencing a revival within the art market."--Dust jacket.

Bridging the fields of conservation, art history, and museum curating, this volume contains the principal papers from an international symposium titled "Historical Painting Techniques, Materials, and Studio Practice" at the University of Leiden in Amsterdam, Netherlands, from June 26 to 29, 1995. The symposium—designed for art historians, conservators, conservation scientists, and museum curators worldwide—was organized by the Department of Art History at the University of Leiden and the Art History Department of the Central Research Laboratory for Objects of Art and Science in Amsterdam. Twenty-five contributors representing museums and conservation institutions throughout the world provide recent research on historical painting techniques, including wall painting and polychrome sculpture. Topics cover the latest art historical research and scientific analyses of original techniques and materials, as well as historical sources, such as medieval treatises and descriptions of painting techniques in historical literature. Chapters include the painting methods of Rembrandt and Vermeer, Dutch 17th-century landscape painting, wall paintings in English churches, Chinese paintings on paper and canvas, and Tibetan thangkas. Color plates and black-and-white photographs illustrate works from the Middle Ages to the 20th century.