The first truly comprehensive analysis of the history, practice, and conservation of painting on canvas. Throughout its long history in Western art, canvas has played an influential role in the creative process. From the Renaissance development of oil painting on canvas to the present day—through Impressionism, Abstract Expressionism, and other art historical movements—the use of canvas has enhanced the scale of painting, freedom of brushwork, and spontaneity in technique. This book recounts some of that rich history in relation to corresponding developments in conservation practice. Rather than concentrating on the familiar concerns of cleaning and varnish removal, this volume considers the preservation of a painting’s structure. By focusing on recent studies on the fundamental nature of canvas and its mechanisms of deterioration, the book explains new approaches to the conservation of both contemporary and historical art—including reversible, passive, and preventive treatments, particularly with respect to lining. Written by Stephen Hackney, a conservation practitioner and leader in conservation research, On Canvas is the first book to take a comprehensive look at this important subject and is destined to become an invaluable resource for the field.

Forgeries present a daunting problem to art historians, museums, galleries and curators who face challenges in determining the authenticity of paintings. Recent progress in science has led to the development of new methods for investigating works of art, and can provide new insights into the materials found in paintings. The rise in the value of paintings together with the knowledge and skills of forgers highlights the need to develop reliable scientific procedures to identify fakes. Given the complexity of materials in paintings and the convergence of various disciplines, a methodological approach for nvestigations of paintings is based on art historical, curatorial, aesthetic, technical and scientific evaluation. In this book sophisticated digital and analytical techniques are reviewed for the identification of materials (pigments, binders, varnishes, adhesives) and the physical characteristics of paintings such as brushstrokes, craquelure and canvas weaves. This book presents an updated overview of both non-invasive and micro-invasive techniques that enable the material characterization of paintings. The materials constituting a painting are reviewed, as are ways that changes in materials over time can provide insights into chronology and physical history. State-of the art digital metods including multi and hyper-spectral imaging and computational approaches to data treatment will be presented. Analytical techniques developed and optimized to characterize binders, varnishes, and pigments are reviewed, focusing on materials which can provide information on ageing or provenance. Case studies of applications of synchrotron-based methods and the analysis of paintings are given, as are chapters devoted to legal aspects related to authenticity. Chapter 1 is available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.

Artists’ oil paints have become increasingly complex and diverse in the 20th Century, applied by artists in a variety of ways. This has led to a number of issues that pose increasing difficulties to conservators and collection keepers. A deeper knowledge of the artists’ intent as well as processes associated with material changes in paintings is important to conservation, which is almost always a compromise between material preservation and aesthetics. This volume represents 46 peer-reviewed papers presented at the Conference of Modern Oil Paints held in Amsterdam in 2018. The book contains a compilation of articles on oil paints and paintings in the 20th Century, partly presenting the outcome of the European JPI project ‘Cleaning of Modern Oil Paints’. It is also a follow-up on ‘Issues in Contemporary Oil Paint’ (Springer, 2014). The chapters cover a range of themes and topics such as: patents and paint manufacturing in the 20th Century; characterization of modern-contemporary oil paints and paint surfaces; artists’ materials and techniques; the artists’ voice and influence on perception of curators, conservators and scientists; model studies on paint degradation and long term stability; approaches to conservation of oil paintings; practical surface treatment and display. The book will help conservators and curators recognise problems and interpret visual changes on paintings, which in turn give a more solid basis for decisions on the treatment of these paintings.