Glazing is a technique employed past painters since the invention of oil painting. Although in theory it is very unproblematic, in practice glazing can exist a very complex undertaking. In the simplest terms, glazing consists of applying a transparent layer of paint over another thoroughly dried layer of opaque paint, normally with a wide, soft-bristled brush. The underpainting, every bit the dried layer below is called, is generally done is a single color but it may also incorporate some color. The upper and lower layers of pigment are not physically merely optically mixed. Glazing is similar to placing a canvass of colored acetate over a monochrome photograph. The paint used to glaze must be modified by an oil medium to accomplish the right fluidity for brushing. Glazing creates a unique "polish through," stained-glass consequence that is non obtainable past direct mixture of pigment.

LOOKING OVER VERMEER'S SHOULDER

The complete volume well-nigh 17th-century painting techniques and materials with detail focus on the painting of Johannes Vermeer.

by Jonathan Janson | 2020

Looking Over Vermeer'southward Shoulder is a comprehensive study of the materials and painting techniques that made Vermeer one of the greatest masters of European fine art.

Bolstered by the author's qualifications equally a professional person painter and a Vermeer connoisseur, every facet of 17th-century and Vermeer's painting practices—including canvas preparation, underdrawing, underpainting, glazing, palette, brushes, pigments and composition—is laid out in articulate, comprehensible language. Besides investigated are a number of key issues related specifically to Vermeer's studio methods, such as the camera obscura, studio organization every bit well every bit how he depicted wall-maps, floor tiles, pictures-inside-pictures, carpets and other of his most defining motifs. Each of the book'due south 24 topics is accompanied past abundant color illustrations and diagrams.

By observing at shut quarters the studio practices of Vermeer and his preeminent contemporaries, the reader will larn a concrete understanding of 17th-century painting methods and materials and proceeds a fresh view of Vermeer's 35 works of art, which reveal a seamless unity of arts and crafts and poetry.

While not written every bit a "how-to" manual, realist painters volition find a true treasure trove of technical data that tin can be adapted to almost any mode of figurative painting.

LOOKING OVER VERMEER'S SHOULDER
author: Jonathan Janson
appointment: 2020 (2d edition)
pages: 294
illustrations: 200-plus illustrations and diagrams
formats: PDF | ePUB | AZW3
$29.95

Looking Over Vermeer's Shoulder

CONTENTS

  1. Vermeer's Training, Technical Groundwork & Ambitions
  2. An Overview of Vermeer's Technical & Stylistic Evolution
  3. Fame, Originality & Subject Matte
  4. Reality or Illusion: Did Vermeer's Interiors ever Be?
  5. Colour
  6. Limerick
  7. Mimesi & Illusionism
  8. Perspective
  9. Camera Obscura Vision
  10. Light & Modeling
  11. Studio
  12. Four Essential Motifs in Vermeer's Oeuvre
  1. Drapery
  2. Painting Flesh
  3. Canvass
  4. Grounding
  5. "Inventing," or Underdrawing
  6. "Dead-Coloring," or Underpainting
  7. "Working-up," or Finishing
  8. Glazing
  9. Mediums, Binders & Varnishes
  10. Pigment Application & Consistency
  11. Pigments, Paints & Palettes
  12. Brushes & Brushwork

Why Glaze?

Glazes cannot be used indiscriminately and were always restricted to specific passages of the composition. To begin with, there is nada to exist gained by glazing with neutral grays or dull colors. Grays are far more than effective when they are created with opaque or semi-opaque earth colors or blackness admixed with white. The light grey groundwork walls in Vermeer'southward works were never achieved by glazing. Nor were the light base tones of flesh produced by glazing transparent layers of pink over a white underpainting, as if information technology were a watercolor, although sparse red glazes may have been utilized to obtain the warmer variation in the cheeks and the lips. There is no line which divides a coat from a semi-transparent layer of color, but in general only inherently transparent pigments are adjusted for glazing. Mod art historian are apt to corruption the term and describe any layer of paint that is not completely opaque as a glaze. Bright colored drapery were often glazed. An unfinished painting (fig. 1) by the Italian painter Andrea de Sarto shows the beginning of the working-up stage. The red drapery, which has been modeled with flat tones of vermilion and black, would take been successively glazed with madder lake. The sleeves take been modeled with lite yellow and dull dark-green and most probably would have been be glazed with verdigris, a deep and lustrous green pigment.

Glazing was utilized for two reasons. One, artists of the past had very few of the brilliant colors that are available today. For example, potent purples, greens and oranges were either rare and unstable or could exist mixed with available pigments. For example, purple was approximated by glazing blue over a cerise underpainting or vice a versa. Two, glazing creates, equally we have said, an extraordinarily luminosity impossible to attain otherwise. Only inherently transparent pigments, called lakes, are suited for glazing. The master pigments used for glazing were madder lake, red, natural ultramarine, verdigris, diverse organic yellow lakes and indigo. For further data on these pigments see Palette.

Andrea del Sarto fig. 1 The Sacrifice of Isaac
Andrea del Sarto
c. 1527
Oil on canvas, 208 x 171 cm.
Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, Ohio

Glazing, however, has more than than one drawback. It is difficult to anticipate the final chromatic effect of the glazed area with respect to the overall harmony of the finished work. Due to its transparency a coat produces an optical depth that attracts the viewer'southward heart more the surrounding layers of opaque paint that normally cover the great role of painted surface of the sheet. Furthermore, it is insufficient to know how a coat is to be applied. I has to determine with the utmost precision how thick or thin the glaze-paint should be: a little too scanty or a trifle too lavish an application can change a paint layer'south color or tonal value to an of import degree. The same holds true for the underpainting, which is usually brought to its final caste of particular since one time glazed it is hard to right. For these reasons glazing was not used for other than specific areas of the painting.

Today, there are diverse informative studies which make reference to glazing in Vermeer's painting. However, art historians tend to overstate Vermeer's use of glazing and do not distinguish between glazing used as a corrective measure—very calorie-free glazes meant to alter only slightly the underlying paint layer which for one reason or another had not come up to the painter'south original expectations—and truthful glazing which, instead, aims to create by plan a specific and otherwise unachievable pictorial effect. This difference might not seem central merely the thought that Vermeer built up his paintings in a series of successive glazes is incorrect and creates a distorted perception of Vermeer'southward painting methods. An oil painting cannot be created by a serial of successive glazes as if they were water color washes. The majority of painting in the seventeenth century was executed with opaque and semi-opaque layers of pigment. Glazes also attract dust due to their high oil content. Dutch painters similar Vermeer, used glazing very selectively and co-ordinate to well-known formulas.

A fine case of a genuine ultramarine glaze tin be seen in the satin gown of Adult female in Blue Reading a Letter, although it is now less vivid today due to aging of the varnish. The jewel-like depth of the wrap in The Milkmaid (fig. ii) is another. In this example, the excellent state of conservation of the painting allows us to capeesh in full the chromatic luminescence of pure lapis lazulig glased over and black and white inderpainting

The Milkmaid (detail, Johannes Vermeer fig. 2 The Milkmaid (particular)
Johannes Vermeer
c. 1658–1661
Oil on canvas, 45.five x 41 cm.
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Girl with a Red Hat, reconstruction
Reconstruction of Vermeer's Girl with a Red Hat by Jonathan Janson, author of Essential Vermeer.

A superbly conserved example of glazing tin be establish in Vermeer'south Daughter with a Red Hat. In the reconstruction to the left, various stages of the seventeenth-century multi-stage painting process tin be observed. The red chapeau, according to common practice for painting bright red objects, is kickoff modeled with shades of pure vermilion and black. Subsequently, the lighter areas volition be glazed with a thin layer of pure madder lake while the shadowed areas would exist deepened with a thicker glaze of madder lake and, perhaps, some black or natural ultramarine.

The background tapestry is briskly executed wet-in -wet using various world colors and natural ultramarine. The blue satin garment, still in the underpainting phase, is modeled with raw umber and white in the highlights.