Journée d’étude : « Face, revers et leurs interactions en peinture (1870 – 1900) »

Les récents travaux menés sur l’histoire matérielle et les techniques de la peinture du dernier quart du XIX^e siècle  ont contribué de façon déterminante à un renouveau des études sur les œuvres et la vie artistique de cette période. Dans la continuité de ces recherches, menées conjointement par les historiens de l’art, conservateurs et restaurateurs, la journée d’étude internationale organisée par l’Université de Rouen, en partenariat avec l’Université de Paris-Ouest la Défense et avec le soutien de l’archevêché de la cathédrale de Rouen et de l’agglomération de Rouen (CREA), se propose de porter une attention particulière aux supports, face cachée des œuvres, qui ont, par leur nature comme par leurs dimensions, une incidence directe sur la couche picturale, face visible ; ainsi qu’à la préparation, qui, parfois visible, parfois cachée, sert d’intermédiaire entre la couche picturale et le support.

Quatre axes de recherches, qui portent de façon privilégiée sur la génération impressionniste, ont été proposés aux intervenants de cette journée :

1-     Les revers comme accès à l’œuvre

Les revers montrent ce sur quoi le peintre a basé son travail. Retourner un tableau, c’est avoir un accès privilégié à ce qui a été le premier choix du peintre.  Qu’apporte l’observation du support sur le processus de création ? Comment le choix d’un support, toile, carton ou  bois, influence la manière de peindre ?

2-     Les revers comme archive de l’œuvre

Sur les revers sont apposés les inscriptions, étiquettes, tampons, cachets qui indiquent les déplacements, les appartenances, les expositions. Les revers ont des marques et des coups qui témoignent de l’histoire des œuvres. Comment tenir compte de ces informations ? Comment les documenter, les conserver, les interpréter ?

3-     Les dimensions : standardisation, écarts et enjeux

Durant cette période, les peintres utilisent le plus souvent des supports au format standard sans pour autant abandonner les formats hors mesure.

Quelles sont les conséquences esthétiques  de cette standardisation ? Comment les peintres ont transformé les formats proposés : utilisation d’un format pour un autre, agrandissements ? Dans quels cas et pour quelles raisons ont-ils préféré des formats hors mesure ? Quel lien établir entre les formats et les exigences d’exposition ou de vente ?

4-     La préparation : usages, altérations et conséquences esthétiques

La préparation fait le lien entre le support et la couche picturale, isolant le premier du second et lui donnant une tonalité générale. Les marchands de couleurs proposent aux peintres des préparations variées : gamme de tons,  épaisseurs, huile ou colle. Quels usages en ont fait les peintres de cette époque? Le vieillissement ou les traitements subis transforment-ils la couleur initiale de la préparation, et si oui, quelles sont les conséquences esthétiques de ce changement ?

Journée d’études internationales 
Université de Rouen – Groupe de Recherches historiques (GRHIS)

Organisation et responsabilité scientifique :

Frédéric Cousinié, professeur d’histoire de l’art moderne, Université de Rouen

Ségolène Le Men, professeur d’histoire de l’art contemporain, Université de Paris-Ouest la Défense

Bénédicte Trémolières, restauratrice, doctorante.

Programme

10h – Introduction (Bénédicte Trémolières)

10h15 – Ann Hoenigswald (Washington, National Gallery of Art), 19th Century ground preparation : Understanding paint Layers from the ground up.

The second half of the 19^th century presented artists with numerous opportunities that had been unavailable earlier. The loosening of the restrictions of the Ecole des Beaux Arts and the introduction of alternative exhibition venues to the official salon allowed more leeway in terms of subject matter, materials and the way in which artists could present and display their pictures. Going hand in hand with this were developments in the scientific and artistic community which led to the production of new materials and a surge of colormen’s shops particularly in Paris. This offered artists significant options.

Discussions on the innovation and novelty of Impressionist painting techniques generally focus on the available pigments, the character of the media and the expressiveness of the brushwork, but often ignored is any attention to the preparation of the supports. Artists though, were fully aware that the type of ground they selected played a significant role in the final appearance of the composition. The color and texture of the ground had an impact on the overall tonal relationships and this was influenced by the careful attention to color science at this period. Artists also recognized that the absorbency of the preparation played a role in enhancing matte surfaces when that was the intent. In many cases artists applied a secondary layer on top of a proprietary one or allowed the ground to remain exposed and affect the ultimate visual impact of the composition. The final effect of the painting was very much impacted by this.

Extant colormen’s catalogues, such as Bourgeois Ainé, Lefranc or Sennelier reveal the range of products which were on the market and pocket-size sample books provided by the colormen specifically identify the remarkably broad range of options. Primary source materials – written documentation, journals and correspondence present valuable recorded evidence of artists’ choices and preferences.

Careful visual examination of these resources and equally careful examination of the grounds on 19^th century paintings in American and European collections, along with scientific analysis will allow us to document the available materials but more importantly will allow us to understand how and why artists used them. Additionally, it will assist us to establish whether the artist had an influence on the art market or the art market on the artist.  Recognizing patterns of which artists used which materials and how their choices evolved during their careers is another area of investigation. The role between the selection of ground and the decision whether or not to varnish a painting will also be focused upon. This alone will be of great help in identifying treatment decisions for the restorer.

Using 19^th century catalogues and sample books as guides can provide the means to establish a consistent nomenclature for conservators and art historians for describing ground materials. Up to this point the vocabulary and identification of tones and textures have depended upon individual, subjective observations. The original terms from the trade catalogues themselves may be a starting point for establishing a consistent means of reference. This study will integrate primary source written materials, the actual sample books and most importantly the paintings themselves to understand the importance of ground preparation in the final appearance of a painting in the late 19^th century.

 11h – Bénédicte Trémolières (Université de Rouen/Université de Paris Ouest La Défense), Les formats dans la série des Cathédrales de Claude Monet.

Les 28 vues de la façade de la cathédrale de Rouen, peintes par Monet, présentent quatre compositions légèrement différentes : la cathédrale vue de face, deux vues du portail dont une présente un espace entre le portail central et la tour Saint-Romain, et une vue du portail avec des maisons accolées à la tour Saint-Romain. Selon les compositions Monet varie les formats, il en utilise cinq : quatre mesure et un hors mesure et il agrandit deux de ses toiles en cours d’exécution.

Cette présentation tentera de comprendre, en rappelant tout d’abord le travail d’approche du sujet et de sa mise en place dans les dessins préparatoires de Monet et dans d’autres séries telles les Meules et les Peupliers, ce que, pour les Cathédrales, le changement de format induit comme variantes dans chaque composition et ce qu’il peut signifier dans le processus de création de la série.

11h45 – Rob Erdmann, Kim Muir, Don Johnson (Chicago, Art Institute), Monet’s Supports : Thread count, weave and ground analysis of Monet’s paintings in the Art Institute of Chicago.

Since 2009, the Art Institute of Chicago (AIC) has collaborated with the Thread Count Automation Project (TCAP) to study the thread count and weave patterns of the museum’s 33 paintings by Claude Monet. These works span almost the entire arc of the artist’s career, representing his output from different periods and geographical locations. In-depth technical examinations and imaging at different wavelengths have been carried out for each painting and ground samples are being analyzed to study both layer structure and composition. The presentation will provide an overview of the thread counting and weave mapping process and will discuss the detection of weave match groups or “cliques” within Monet’s AIC oeuvre, which suggest a common source (i.e. bolt) for several of the canvases. Focusing on these “cliques”, data from the technical examinations, including supplier’s stamps and observations about the commercial priming process gleaned from the tacking edges, will be presented along with results from the ground analysis. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time that such a wide and systematic survey of Monet’s supports has been undertaken. Enhanced by the interdisciplinary contribution of art historians and benefitting from the latest computer-science-assisted visualization tools, this research utilizes information on Monet’s canvas and ground choices to shed light on how specific canvases may relate to one another, and reveals the potential of such research in studying the painter’s working method and output.

13h-14h30 Déjeuner

14h30 – Sylvie Patry (Paris, Musée d’Orsay), Les changements de format chez Renoir

La question du grand format chez Renoir a fait l’objet d’une exposition à la Frick Collection à New York, à l’instigation de Colin Bailey. Pour la première fois, la création de Renoir était abordée sous l’angle de choix en apparence techniques ou liés aux circonstances de la création (commande, œuvres de Salon etc.), mais qui ont permis de mettre en évidence la continuité et les modalités d’une ambition au cœur de l’œuvre de l’artiste, peindre de grands tableaux de figures. L’observation des formats chez Renoir, qu’il s’agisse d’œuvres de grandes dimensions, ou de tableaux de chevalet, révèle également de fréquents changements, manipulations ou « bricolages ». Qu’il s’agisse de toiles de dimensions standard ou hors commerces, le peintre a souvent modifié le format initial des tableaux en cours d’exécution.

A l’aide de quelques exemples choisis à différents moments de sa carrière, nous nous interrogerons sur l’éventuel impact de ces changements sur la composition et le cadrage, et sur le sens même d’une pratique, qui aboutit dans les dernières années au refus de toute détermination du format final par le support.   

15h15 – Ella Hendricks (Amsterdam, Van Gogh Museum), Van Gogh’s picture supports : reconstructing choices.

Van Gogh’s paintings show a great variety in the type of picture supports on which they are made: ranging from small and inexpensive cartons, to reused lids of Japanese wooden crates and red-striped household linen (torchon), as well as different types of artist’s canvas purchased ready-stretched or by the metre. He also recycled old canvases, painting new pictures on the front and/or reverse of the supports.  In each case, it was a combination of practical, economic and artistic  factors that determined the artist’s  particular choice.  This talk places the picture support central in a discussion of individual works, examining why Van Gogh opted for a certain type of substrate, the way in which it was used and the impact that it has on the current appearance and condition of his works.

16h – Pause

16h15 – Devi Ormond (Los Angeles, Getty Museum), Insights into Émile Bernard’s ‘Les Bretonnes dans la Prairie’ (September 1888)

Recent technical examination of ‘Les Bretonnes das la Prairie’ painted in Pont- Aven by Émile Bernard in September 1888 has shed some very interesting light on the controversy that surrounds this work‘s relationship with Paul Gauguin’s ‘Vision of the Sermon’ painted at the same time. Bernard’s ‘Les Bretonnes’ has been painted on a fine cotton canvas which has been primed by the artist with a chalk/glue ground.  The canvas support is unlined allowing us to the see the inscriptions and residues of wet paint that transferred from the front of the painting before it was rolled and taken by Gauguin down to Van Gogh in Arles. This presentation will focus primarily on the results of the technical examination of the reverse of Bernard’s painting and how they have served to clarify art historical questions. The subject of that which constitutes an original stretcher, particularly at a time when painted works were being rolled and sent to dealers or to fellow artists, will also be addressed.

17h- Elisabeth Reissner (London), Exploring the material history and the significance of surface texture in the paintings of Paul Cézanne.

 Following a brief overview of what is known and more importantly what is still not known about Cézanne’s choices of supports and grounds my talk will consider the little studied topic of alterations made to the dimensions of his canvases whilst the work was still in progress. The light that this might shed on the evolution of his works is particularly intriguing in instances where he produces closely related ‘versions’ of a particular motif. The majority of Cézanne’s supports have also been lined since leaving his studio. The results of this aspect of the paintings’ material history will be considered in relation to questions concerning the significance of paint texture in Cézanne’s oeuvre. The choice, by some artists in this period, to select combinations of canvases and grounds whose texture remains visible on the surface of their paintings has been interpreted as an indicator of aesthetic and ideological preferences. In Cézanne’s works the oil paint is frequently applied in a manner that (almost) obliterates traces of any canvas texture and reduces significantly the part played by the ground’s composition and colour. How might paying attention to the surface effects of his paintings contribute to a better understanding of the kind of experience the artist hoped his paintings might evoke?

Entrée libre, sur réservation préalable : b.tremolieres@gmail.com