Painting techniques of the old masters - a diagram of painting techniques. Nikolai Petrovich Krymov

Painting technique of the old masters - diagram of painting techniques

The old masters never worked in the underpainting with pure white: this would create a too harsh, rough effect that would be difficult to soften in the final glaze. Much more often, underpainting was done with white, colored with ocher, umber, green earth, cinnabar or other paints. Such underpainting still produces an almost monochrome impression before glazing and, superimposed on the darkened writing, gives an enhanced idea of ​​the form due to the contrasts of chiaroscuro. Many Caravaggists and Bologneses wrote this way, and in Spain - Ribera, Zurbaran and others. Such underpainting is always painted lighter than the finished painting, and this “enlightenment” is all the sharper the greater the role the artist assigns to subsequent glazing, since glazing not only enlivens the underpainting, but also always darkens and insulates it. Therefore, illuminated areas, for example, blue clothes, were painted in the underpainting in a dense blue tone mixed with lead white; green fabric was worked with green, also heavily bleached; the face and hands in the underpainting were painted in a cream tone, very light, in the hope that the glaze would insulate and revive it. A colored, whitewashed underpainting can be used on both a weakened and darkened lettering. Accordingly, the underpainting will produce weakened or enhanced chiaroscuro.

When writing according to a dark copybook, you have to make sure that the brightly lit form powerfully protruding from it is “molded” correctly. Sometimes this is difficult to achieve with one layer and then you have to, while still compacting the layer, paint in the illuminated areas. Therefore, the thickness of the underpainting may vary. It depends on the texture and color of the ground (or imprimatura), on the individuality of the master’s creative method. A very important point in underpainting painting is the formation of the texture of the paint layer. The nature of the underpainting can be determined by the master’s desire to preserve the traces of the working brush, all the painterly kinetics, or, on the contrary, his intention is to smooth out and flatten these traces. In the copybook, as in general in the glaze technique, the stroke is not expressed plastically. In addition, in highlights and halftones, the writing is covered with dense layers of underpainting, and only in the shadows can it be preserved in the finished picture. In underpainting, on the contrary, the brushstroke can be clearly visible through the transparent layer of the final glaze. Moreover, the final transparent layer sometimes highlights individual strokes even more, concentrating around them. On highlights and in the center of the illuminated area, sometimes it is necessary to put a very dense, whitewashed stroke; sometimes a brush, applying a flesh-colored layer, draws wrinkles on the face and other details in a lighter tone, which are then enhanced by glazing, and the glazing paint, most often flowing from convex strokes, collects at their base, further emphasizing each detail.

The treatment of the body paint layer, the underpainting, reflects the artist’s style. Depending on the nature of the brushstroke, a dense underpainting can be painterly, with extremely developed, relief and temperamental brushstrokes, as in Rembrandt’s late paintings, or more restrained, retouching - with a barely noticeable brushstroke, - as in the paintings of Poussin, and, finally, fluted, when the artist seeks to destroy all traces of the touch of the brush, as, for example, with Raphael or Giulio Romano.

The impasto layer may have all the features of an underpainting, but be very white and require strong glazing. Often there is a case of developed, fully picturesque underpainting, when at this stage the picture approaches completeness. In this case, glazing plays only a retouching role or it can be completely omitted. The latter system was often used by Frans Hals.

Probably, the most complex structure of the main layer of Rembrandt’s painting “Artaxerxes, Haman and Esther” gave the artist the greatest pleasure when working on this wonderful canvas. It is necessary to come close to this masterpiece, to examine the alternating layers of impasto strokes and glazes in the illuminated areas of faces, figures and objects in order to get a complete understanding of Rembrandt’s highest skill. Then the perception at a distance of the picture as a whole will be enriched by the awareness of an amazingly complex, unusually vital textured richness.

It would seem that the freer the painting method, the closer and more understandable it is to the modern artist. And yet the miracle of Rembrandt's picturesqueness remains incomprehensible. Is it possible to copy such a canvas? If a modern painter decides to undertake such a feat, he must first comprehend the technique of the old masters, because the techniques of even the late Rembrandt are still based on his enriched experience of the three-stage method.

What else is characteristic of painting the main layer?

In order to imagine all the variety of painting techniques of the old masters, it is necessary to pay special attention to the way in which they created, already in the underpainting, a soft, usually very perfect transition to shadow from a light surface.

It is easy to imagine that when modeling a form with thick, light paint, the transition from dense highlights to midtones and shadows can be achieved using two different techniques. The unusually soft transition from light to shadow, observed in the paintings of the old masters, especially in portraiture, can be organized by introducing into the light tone of the underpainting a small proportion of dark paint, usually cold: ultramarine, green earth, and sometimes burnt or natural sienna, depending from the overall color scheme of the picture. The same effect can be achieved by gradually thinning the layer of the same paint, applied in the penumbra as a through layer, fading to nothing thanks to weakening and sliding touches of the brush. Of course, with each of these methods the transition from light to shadow can be further refined with the help of many small, retouching strokes. We usually find through strokes in paintings painted on coarse-grained canvas or on rough ground, which was especially characteristic of Venetian painters, in particular Titian, Veronese and Tintoretto. At the same time, a soft brush with remnants of the main tone laid over the entire area of ​​\u200b\u200bthe “light” glides over small unevenness of the ground, leaving traces of light paint on the smallest elevations, between which a layer of darker writing or imprimatura is visible. This creates the thinnest through layer - a fading transition from light to shadow. Let us not, however, confuse it with glazing: here we are not dealing with transparent paint, but only with an interrupted layer, which at the smallest points remains, in essence, covering. (The through stroke has something in common with the dry brush method, although in contrast to the through stroke, when working with a dry brush, dark dots are superimposed on the unevenness of the base, thereby achieving the necessary shading of the form.)

Speaking about a through brushstroke, first of all, we should note the relative ease of applying liquid paint on flat ground and, conversely, the difficulty of working with a thick paste on a rough base. The lightness and freedom of the stroke in the first case can be enhanced by first wiping the surface of the painting with a solvent. In similar conditions, for example, the free-line painting style characteristic of fresco, or the free-picturesque manner found in modern tempera, developed. On the contrary, with impasto paint and rough ground, which was especially characteristic of the Venetians, a dense and clearly defined brushstroke is difficult. With an even more uneven base, dense application is impossible even with very strong brush pressure, and we inevitably encounter the appearance of a through stroke. A hard bristle brush with strong pressure less often gives such a result, while a soft, ferret or kolinsky brush with sufficiently viscous paint and with the various sliding movements characteristic of the old masters gives a through stroke as a natural result. In this case, the paint is applied in an interrupted layer to the elevations of the uneven base or underpainting, and the ground, imprimatura or underlying layer of paint is visible in its breaks.

In glazing, a transparent colored film is almost always placed on top of a lighter underpainting. On the contrary, a through stroke was usually applied on top of a darker layer. The moment of light scattering, which determines the visibility of the image, takes place under the glaze, in the depths of the underlying lighter layer. With a through stroke, we are not dealing with transparent paint at all, but only with a crushed layer of dense and opaque paste. Light scattering here occurs mainly on the surface of the paint layer, which emphasizes the shimmering dullness characteristic of the through layer, if it is not covered with varnish or glaze.

Depending on whether a through stroke of dark paint is applied over a light underpainting or, conversely, with light paint over a dark layer, the impression changes dramatically. Among the old masters, the first type of brushstroke, associated with the texture of the drawing, could have arisen by accident and never had the character of a deliberate technique. Therefore, the final painterly line work in a dark tone by the old masters, as a rule, was carried out by glazing or, in extreme cases, with translucent but liquid paint.

A through stroke - light on top of a dark layer - produces a completely different impression: it emphasizes not only the nature of the texture, but, most importantly, its depth, since the depth of the dark spaces between the light particles of paint in this case increases. Not only does paint layer on uneven textures and increase its roughness, but the impression of this roughness from the optical effect increases to an even greater extent. The gaze involuntarily goes into the depth of the material, noting its irregularities accentuated by light paint. The expressiveness of the texture increases, the persuasiveness, visibility of the structure, materiality, and physical sensation of the textured layer increases.

This impression is also facilitated, as we will see, by the technique of rubbed glaze, which naturally occurs under the same conditions that stimulate a through brushstroke, that is, with a rough ground or underpainting.

Let us now turn to the third stage - glazing. The artist unwittingly encountered not only the transparency of paints, but also the very principle of glazing back in ancient times, when oils and varnishes began to be used as a binder, giving a smooth, shiny surface when cured.

We have the right to distinguish three main tasks of glazing, and consequently, its three main types. Let's call them this: tinting, modeling and retouching glaze. In what cases is it appropriate to use each of them?

If the writing has been heavily darkened, and an exaggeratedly sharp volume and relief has been created in the tinted white underpainting, then an even layer of tinting glaze is necessary. This technique can easily enhance and revitalize the color of weakly colored areas of the painting, and at the same time soften the overly emphasized modeling and convexity of the form. Tinting glaze usually enriches the color, most often by warming it, softens the chiaroscuro contrasts, saturates the color with light and only slightly tints the shadow areas.

Let's imagine another case. The writing was weak, and the underpainting did not create a completely convincing relief of the form. Then glazing is designed to enhance the volume. However, this cannot be achieved by applying an even layer of tinting glaze. In this case, a modeling glaze that is quite intense in color is needed.

Masters of classical painting, as a rule, worked out the body and face with modeling glaze, enhancing and at the same time softening the form, easily detailing the halftones. Very often, modeling glazes in paintings by old masters are also found when depicting fabrics, contrasting with tinting glazes. These basic types of glaze are almost always found when juxtaposing several draperies. Hinting at the different nature of the fabric, they diversify the shape. Only tinting glazes would give an indifferent combination of colored silhouettes, devoid of modeling, and some modeling would give a diversity of uniformly reinforced folds that is difficult for the eye. Using modeling glaze, first cover the entire surface with an even layer, and then partially remove it from the illuminated areas, depending on the scale of the image, using the edge of the palm or finger. In this case, the shadows turn out to be more intensely colored than the light areas, where, emphasizing the modeling of the folds, the painting of the main layer appears. In the paintings of the old masters you can often see drapery, bleached in the highlights and intensely full-colored in the shadows - a typical result for modeling glaze.

The two fabrics shown side by side can be processed in different ways, and an evenly intensified color, say a brick-red fabric, can be adjacent to a green-blue, where a particularly intense color is left in the shadows. Since red and brick-red colors are especially common among images of drapery in classical painting, it is not difficult to trace the effect of various glaze methods in the paintings of the old masters. In some paintings we will see that part of the heavily modeled red fabric is enclosed between dark, tinted draperies or contrasted with weakly modeled blue planes. In others, the warm, tinted silhouette of the red spot is contrasted with the clear sculpting of the surrounding area. We will find this wonderful coloristic technique in Rembrandt’s “The Holy Family”, and in the “Little Dutchmen”, and in Poussin’s “The Generosity of Scipio”, and in many other old masters. In “Fornarina” by Giulio Romano we encounter transparent layers modeling the body and tinting the green drapery.

In the case when in the main layer the form is highlighted clearly enough and the full strength of the color is found, when the texture of the paint layer is convincingly expressive, only retouching glaze can be applied, the task of which is only to slightly enrich, strengthen or weaken the already found modeling of the form.

Of course, this is just a schematic diagram. In reality, glazing is more diverse both in its expressiveness and in its purpose, and the method of glazing itself is as individual as the work of the master at all previous stages of painting. In many ways, the final result of glazing is determined by the texture of the paint surface.

When the modeling layer of glaze is weakened, when excess color film is removed from illuminated areas, the latter reacts differently to the unevenness of the canvas, ground, and underpainting. It is easily removed from the elevations and is embedded even more tightly into all the recesses. If a master, having glazed a fragment of a painting with a very high relief of strokes or a painting on a coarse-grained canvas, not only resorts to modeling glaze, but, removing excess dark, glaze paint from illuminated places, leaves the glaze in all the recesses, we have a case of deep glaze.

Rubbed glaze, especially characteristic of Venetian painting, where it is determined by the density and height of the strokes of the main layer, as well as the coarse-grained texture of the canvas, which these painters loved so much, can be placed intentionally or arise by itself. To implement this technique, after glazing the fragment, the painting could be laid horizontally. Then the glaze flowed naturally into all the recesses and the grains of the canvas and the underpainting strokes were accentuated. And yet, they often preferred to remove excess glaze paint from all small elevations and thus rub in the glaze.

With a very coarse-grained canvas and uneven ground, glaze paint always tends to flow into the recesses, highlighting the pattern of the canvas. This phenomenon is sometimes so intense that the artist often had to take certain precautions in order to weaken the peculiar ripples resulting from it.

This especially applies to the depiction of the naked body. In painting a face, you need to carefully use dark tones for glazing, no matter how thin a layer they are applied on an uneven canvas. Even with the most fluid, thin and transparent layer, glazing with burnt umber or sienna lingers in the recesses of the texture, accentuating all its irregularities. Therefore, when painting female and young faces, the paint of the base layer, even applied with impasto, was smoothed, and the glazing was carried out on the basis of ocher tones, clouded by a minimal addition of white, which, even filling the recesses, did not highlight the unevenness of the texture too much.

On the contrary, when painting wrinkled faces or rough objects, such an emphasis on texture could be desirable, and the old masters knew how to use it perfectly. The effect of rubbed glaze could be further enhanced if the artist removed excess glaze paint with the palm of his hand or a cloth, as is done when printing etchings. (It must, however, be noted that the often encountered impression of a kind of rubbed glaze can be caused by washings and restorations, during which the glaze is more easily removed from the convexities of the texture and, remaining in its recesses, takes on the character of rubbing.) For example, in Rembrandt, in whose painting exceptionally expressive in its rough strokes and layers, the main layer is often laid on a relatively smooth ground of a thin canvas or board; glaze, accumulating in the recesses between the unevenness of the strokes, clearly highlights their character and the specificity of the main layer. On the contrary, the Venetians, who, as a rule, used exclusively coarse-grained canvases of twill (oblique) weaving*, more often emphasized not the features of the paint layer, but the structure of the base.

If a coarse-grained canvas in many places of the picture is accented with a through brushstroke and rubbed glaze, then the eye easily begins to feel the pattern of its fibers underlying or penetrating the entire image. Since painting retains its volumetric and spatial character, a combination of impressions of two kinds arises: the emphasized plane of texture and the spatiality of the image itself. This comparison is one of the completely natural expressions of the overall perception of the image and material. Such a textural and spatial solution can be seen in many of Titian’s works, for example in the Hermitage “Danae”, in the canvases of Veronese, Tintoretto and other Venetian painters.

It often happened that the master preferred to glaze the underpainting with not too dark, somewhat cloudy paint, mixing in ultramarine, dark brown or burnt sienna a little white or light ocher. Such a cloudy glaze could be used with any method - tinting, modeling, and retouching. Of course, it was necessary to ensure that the slightly whitened glaze did not destroy the intensity of the shadows, but, lying on the darkened parts, took on the role of a reflex. Such glazing can sometimes be seen in the greatest masters of painting - Titian, Velazquez, Rembrandt. Cloudy white glaze was often used by artists of various schools to depict lace, veils, and glass objects against a dark background. In the painting by Giulio Romano, one can observe the effect of a cloudy glaze in the image of a transparent veil draped over a naked body.

This technique is partly close to the method of fused glaze, which is clearly noticeable in cases where the glaze is placed in place of a viscous, completely dry base layer.

The alternation of body and transparent paint layers is associated with the need for the bottom layer to dry before glazing. At the same time, the old masters, to one degree or another, resorted to glazing over a wet or semi-dry layer, that is, to a fused glaze that merges with it, fusing into a single, viscous paste. Such glazing can be found in the pictorial texture of the greatest painters of the past. This method of painting requires the use of relatively large, soft brushes saturated with transparent paint, which allows a quick painterly technique to apply glaze on top of the still viscous base layer.

In this case, two typical phenomena arise: on the one hand, a certain amount of the bleached or ocher mass of the lower layer is inevitably mixed into the glaze paint, causing its characteristic clouding, and on the other hand, the process of applying liquid paint over the wet layer smoothes out its unevenness and sharp strokes , as if fluting the surface. Both of these phenomena can naturally arise in texture only at an exceptionally free, painterly stage. Therefore, while observing such glaze in Titian, Rembrandt and even Velazquez, we will almost never notice it in Ribera and other strict Caravaggists.

In the transparent layer of glaze, the stroke is hardly noticeable. Fro can be seen only at the edges of the glazed spot, where glazing can indicate one or another pattern of fabric, tree foliage, or hair. However, in the free painting technique of the best masters of the 17th and 18th centuries, we often encounter a special form of glazing, which can be called painterly linework and which allows the introduction of a strong brushstroke into the transparent layer technique.

Here we must first note one more difference in the technique of modern and old masters. While a modern artist, working with a large number of colors, strives to give each stroke a color that is as different as possible from the neighboring one (a system developed by the Impressionists), the old masters, working with a very limited number of colors, tried to use each tone in a more varied way. In classical painting, the artist introduced only one tone into the lettering and into the main layer within the boundaries of one color, and the picture was brought to the final glaze using only two colors.

Also in glazing we find a desire to diversify techniques within a given tone, a desire limited by the peculiar properties of the transparent layer. Therefore, modeling glaze applied in different ways is more common than toning glaze. And we can consider the pictorial-hatched glaze as one of the changing models.

A layer of glaze, especially tinting, smoothes out the details of the underpainting. In this case, it may be necessary to re-shade the shape and emphasize the details. The simplest technique is to work with the same glaze tone, a little thicker when applied to the brush. With such a brush you can shade a shape on top of an already applied glaze, apply a pattern, deepen folds, darken shadows.

It would seem that. with this method, along with the strokes applied by the brush, elements of the drawing penetrate into the painting. However, it is not. It is among the greatest painters—Rubens, Rembrandt, Tiepolo—that we find painterly line techniques in glaze. Thus, the great painters sought to introduce elements of greater mobility, energetic brushstrokes, and expressive modeling into the area of ​​the motionless transparent layer.

This is the basic scheme of classical painting techniques. But we must not forget that this, of course, is only a diagram. The living painting process was only based on its elements, combining them in various ways, varying and changing them.

The modification could go in the direction of complication, and the process of painting developed as if in a spiral, and three stages proceeded, periodically repeating. But, although rarely, we also encounter a truncated method, when one of the chain links is omitted. It is obvious that in a live creative process it is possible to obtain a perfect image using both the method of pure glaze and pure body paint. In some painting methods, deeply varying the usual techniques, the basic scheme almost eludes observation. But careful analysis can still reveal individual stages of the three-stage sequence.

In general, among the masters who professed a statuary-plastic solution of form, one can clearly ascertain traditions that more strictly protect the three-stage method; masters who cultivated picturesqueness tended to modify it, sometimes simplifying it, but much more often complicating it.

In addition, it should be noted that different parts of the same painting may have a different structure of the paint layer, depending on the artist’s intentions, conveying the character of the surface of individual objects in different ways. But the amplitude of these variations in the old masters always fits within the boundaries of a certain range of several techniques chosen by the artist.

If in the early period of the development of oil painting considerable attention was paid to glazing, then in the 16th century the emphasis shifted to the underpainting - the main layer - as an area of ​​corpus, free-painting writing. This development of underpainting proceeds rapidly in Italy, especially in Venice, and from there it spreads to Spain and the north.

The Venetians are characterized by normal strong writing in colored imprints, developed pictorial underpainting, and a wide variety of glazes. spiral, complexly picturesque development. A strict three-stage method is typical for Caravaggists; darkened writing on dark grounds, whitewashed tinted underpainting, glazes modeling the body and tinted draperies.

It was with this method that most of Ribera’s works were written, including “Antony the Hermit,” where the lead white became somewhat profane over time, and the dark color of the ground and writing material emerged through its thin layers.

A fully picturesque impasto layer, beautifully worked out with a specific sharp-feathered brushstroke, can be seen in the underpainting of Guardi’s painting “Alexander the Great at the Body of Darius.” Freely applied, sometimes retouching, sometimes very thick glazes diversify and emphasize the exceptional skill of the brush and the perfect coloring of this picture.

The three-stage method is clearly visible through the various layers of paint in Pieter de Hooch's Morning of a Young Man. In the whole picture, the bright brown tone of the copybook seems to be felt, in places clearly visible in the shadows. The highly illuminated colored underpainting is covered with color-enhancing pink and brown-red, olive, ocher-lemon glazes. The overall tone of the picture is emphatically hot. The pattern on the background and the folds of the canopy are developed in the main layer and emphasized by pictorially-hatched glaze, while the fringe of the canopy, already developed in a light underpainting, clearly shines through the thick translucent olive layer. If, after going through all three stages of the three-stage method, the master wanted to continue his work, what should he do?

Such a task practically did not arise for the masters of the 15th century. But painters of the next century faced this problem very often.

In such cases, the master resorted to a repeated-step method. As a rule, this method was used only in highlights, on top of a pasty layer, and consisted of the following. The artist conditionally accepted the final glaze as a new copy, laid over a fragment that required continuation of the painting work. Then, on top of such a second copybook, the artist had the right to apply strokes of the second main layer. And this second impasto layer was again covered with glaze. In turn, this glaze could become a third signature and be enriched with strokes of the third main layer. Thus, using the repeated-step method, the artist could create an extremely expressive, high texture in the lights.

However, there is no need to describe in detail the result of this pictorial method. Take a close look at the texture of Rembrandt’s later paintings, in particular the already mentioned painting “Artaxerxes, Haman and Esther.” True, the painting has become very dark, but the most complex layers of impasto strokes and glazes can still be clearly seen.

Yes, this painting is so expressive, so lovingly demonstrates free texture, that even time is powerless to extinguish its flame... 17th century. A hundred years have not yet passed since Titian's death! But the craving for picturesqueness, for complete emancipation from all the norms and constraining traditions of the Middle Ages, from any sign of the requirements of the workshop, gripped the workshops of painters in Italy and Spain, Holland and Flanders. And it is no coincidence that after Titian’s “St. Sebastian" the next pinnacle of picturesqueness in our collections of paintings by old masters should be considered "The Return of the Prodigal Son" by Rembrandt.

Without setting ourselves the task of a detailed description of certain paintings or features of painting schools, it is necessary, however, to note that the three-stage method, opening up many paths for the old masters to increased detail of the image (“little Dutchmen”), to the utmost power of chiaroscuro (Caravaggio, Ribera), to high academic excellence (Bolognese), at the same time provided the opportunity for exceptional pictorial freedom.

In the still life of the Spaniard Antonio Pereda, the stinginess and severity of color involuntarily catches the eye. The color scheme is based on a contrast of pinkish-brown and brick tones and a few cool blue spots. Almost the same brick-pink glaze—barely modulated in tone—covers the drapery, the jugs, the pink vase, and the shells. But it is precisely in this rapprochement that coloristic strength and courage can be read. The range of grayish-yellow-brown tones alternating with whitened ocher and smoother brick-red spots is set off by cool, greenish-blue inserts, enhanced, as usual, in the process of the last glazing. The coloring of this painting is based on a simple color system, often used by artists of the 17th century. The nose with the utmost pictorial freedom - in contrast to the Spanish still life painter - appears in the same color scheme by Rembrandt. How expressive the first glance is at odds with the information about the exceptional speed of his work. Looking closely, however, you can see how easily and artistically the impasto underpainting is applied to the darkened lettering in his paintings. The general impression of completeness is associated with the division of the painting task into two main phases: the body stroke and the glaze. It is easy to imagine that with such a division, the master could create a rather complex finished work in three days, giving each constructive layer one day of work.

The general course of work of the artists of Giordano’s circle could probably proceed in this order. A dark brown brush design was applied and shaded over the brown or brick-colored primer - a copybook. This first layer, painted with glaze paint on diluted varnish, could be applied with great freedom, since liquid paint allowed any type of processing and any changes. As a result, the writing could have, on the scale of a large canvas, the appearance of a heavily darkened free drawing in sepia or bistrome, which was common in that era.

Based on this quickly drying copybook, right on its slightly sticky, drying transparent layer, sometimes on the same day, and more often the next, work began on the underpainting.

A large quantity of prepared tinted bleaching paste in a conventionally cleared tone: yellow-pink for the body, greenish, cream, pink for draperies, was laid out in a bold, free stroke over the highlights of the objects. Of course, some paints from those already prepared for other objects could and were mixed into this light, body paste. In this way, a cooler shade was achieved for the undertones of the body, a warmer one for the face and hands. But the artist’s main focus in this layer was still only on the stroke, on the movement of the brush sculpting the form. The result of the work on the main layer, on the underpainting, was a picture maintained in sharp contrasts of chiaroscuro, extremely poor in color, but with a very masterly brushstroke, varying in various ways depending on the nature of the subject. Such underpainting usually gives the impression of being applied in one step over the copybook. At the same time, transitions to shadow were achieved by darkening the tone, thinning the layer, and using through underpainting. Considering the variety of memorized pictorial effects, it can be assumed that the second layer could sometimes be applied by masters of this circle using this technique in one day. The shadows in the main layer were touched, probably only in reflections, by a thin semi-corpus layer in a darker tone.

While the underpainting could be done according to a half-baked recipe, which played the role of an adhesive varnish, even more firmly binding the body layer to the ground, after the underpainting a sufficiently long period had to pass for the paint to dry completely before glazing. That is why masters often worked on several paintings simultaneously.

Although the glazing was probably carried out in several stages, gradually intensifying, it could hardly have taken more than one day given Giordano’s artistry. A solid knowledge of the coloristic task guided the artist in quickly covering large surfaces of the canvas with abundantly prepared liquid transparent paints.

Fabrics were often tinted with a smooth layer, and the body was covered with a modeling glaze, warm in the highlights and cold, greenish in the midtones, and the shape was softened and once again controlled. A variety of shades and soft transitions were created by glazing without difficulty. With this method, uneven paint could be smoothed out and excess removed with a cloth or soft brush.

The background could be glazed once again, and the same dark transparent paint, going to the edges of the forms, softened the contours, and sometimes led an entire arm, shoulder or part of the back into shadow.

Even those masterpieces of painting that seem familiar to us have their secrets. Recently, a strange and unusual discovery was made in art history - an American student deciphered the musical notation depicted on the buttocks of a sinner from a painting by Bosch. The resulting tune has become one of the Internet sensations of recent times.

Hieronymus Bosch, "The Garden of Earthly Delights", 1500-1510.

Fragment of the right side of the triptych.

Disputes about the meanings and hidden meanings of the most famous work of the Dutch artist have not subsided since its appearance. The right wing of the triptych entitled “Musical Hell” depicts sinners who are tortured in the underworld with the help of musical instruments. One of them has music notes stamped on his buttocks. Oklahoma Christian University student Amelia Hamrick, who studied the painting, translated the 16th-century notation into a modern twist and recorded “a 500-year-old butt song from hell.”

Nude Mona Lisa

The famous “La Gioconda” exists in two versions: the nude version is called “Monna Vanna”, it was painted by the little-known artist Salai, who was a student and sitter of the great Leonardo da Vinci. Many art historians are sure that it was he who was the model for Leonardo’s paintings “John the Baptist” and “Bacchus”. There are also versions that Salai, dressed in a woman’s dress, served as the image of the Mona Lisa herself.

In 1902, the Hungarian artist Tivadar Kostka Csontvary painted the painting “The Old Fisherman”. It would seem that there is nothing unusual in the picture, but Tivadar put into it a subtext that was never revealed during the artist’s lifetime.

Few people thought of placing a mirror in the middle of the picture. In each person there can be both God (the Old Man's right shoulder is duplicated) and the Devil (the Old Man's left shoulder is duplicated).

Doubles at the Last Supper

Leonardo da Vinci, "The Last Supper", 1495-1498.

When Leonardo da Vinci wrote The Last Supper, he attached particular importance to two figures: Christ and Judas. He spent a very long time looking for models for them. Finally, he managed to find a model for the image of Christ among the young singers. Leonardo was unable to find a model for Judas for three years. But one day he came across a drunkard on the street who was lying in a gutter. He was a young man who had been aged by heavy drinking. Leonardo invited him to a tavern, where he immediately began to paint Judas from him. When the drunkard came to his senses, he told the artist that he had already posed for him once. It was several years ago, when he sang in the church choir, Leonardo painted Christ from him.

The innocent history of "Gothic"

Grant Wood, American Gothic, 1930.

Grant Wood's work is considered one of the most strange and depressing in the history of American painting. The picture with the gloomy father and daughter is filled with details that indicate the severity, puritanism and retrograde nature of the people depicted. In fact, the artist did not intend to depict any horrors: during a trip to Iowa, he noticed a small house in the Gothic style and decided to depict those people who, in his opinion, would be ideal as inhabitants. Grant's sister and his dentist are immortalized as the characters Iowans were so offended by.

"Night Watch" or "Day Watch"?

Rembrandt, "Night Watch", 1642.

One of Rembrandt’s most famous paintings, “The Performance of the Rifle Company of Captain Frans Banning Cock and Lieutenant Willem van Ruytenburg,” hung in different rooms for about two hundred years and was discovered by art historians only in the 19th century. Since the figures seemed to appear against a dark background, it was called “Night Watch,” and under this name it entered the treasury of world art. And only during the restoration carried out in 1947, it was discovered that in the hall the painting had managed to become covered with a layer of soot, which distorted its color. After clearing the original painting, it was finally revealed that the scene represented by Rembrandt actually takes place during the day. The position of the shadow from Captain Kok's left hand shows that the duration of action is no more than 14 hours.

Overturned boat

Henri Matisse, "The Boat", 1937.

Henri Matisse's painting "The Boat" was exhibited at the New York Museum of Modern Art in 1961. Only after 47 days did someone notice that the painting was hanging upside down. The canvas depicts 10 purple lines and two blue sails on a white background. The artist painted two sails for a reason; the second sail is a reflection of the first on the surface of the water. In order not to make a mistake in how the picture should hang, you need to pay attention to the details. The larger sail should be the top of the painting, and the peak of the painting's sail should be toward the top right corner.

Deception in self-portrait

Vincent van Gogh, Self-Portrait with a Pipe, 1889.

There are legends that Van Gogh allegedly cut off his own ear. Now the most reliable version is that van Gogh damaged his ear in a small brawl involving another artist, Paul Gauguin. The self-portrait is interesting because it reflects reality in a distorted form: the artist is depicted with his right ear bandaged because he used a mirror when working. In fact, it was the left ear that was affected.

Two "Breakfasts on the Grass"

Edouard Manet, Luncheon on the Grass, 1863.

Claude Monet, Luncheon on the Grass, 1865.

The artists Edouard Manet and Claude Monet are sometimes confused - after all, they were both French, lived at the same time and worked in the style of impressionism. Monet even borrowed the title of one of Manet’s most famous paintings, “Luncheon on the Grass,” and wrote his own “Luncheon on the Grass.”

Alien bears

Ivan Shishkin, “Morning in the Pine Forest”, 1889.

The famous painting belongs not only to Shishkin. Many artists who were friends with each other often resorted to “the help of a friend,” and Ivan Ivanovich, who painted landscapes all his life, was afraid that his touching bears would not turn out the way he wanted. Therefore, Shishkin turned to his friend, the animal artist Konstantin Savitsky.

Savitsky painted perhaps the best bears in the history of Russian painting, and Tretyakov ordered his name to be washed off the canvas, since everything in the picture “from the concept to the execution, everything speaks of the manner of painting, of the creative method peculiar to Shishkin.”

If you would like to take part in the training, please fill out the pre-registration form. We will notify you of the start of the course by email.

Who are the “old masters”? This is the name given to artists, starting with Jan van Eyck, who discovered oil painting for the world and showed its stunning beauty. The painting of the old masters reached its heyday in Holland and the Netherlands in the 17th century, when hitherto unsurpassed painters such as Rembrandt, Rubens, the “Little Dutchmen” and their followers worked.

In the 18th century, this painting gradually faded away, replaced by the academic school, and, later, by impressionism. By the beginning of the twentieth century, the painting secrets of the old masters had already been lost, and it seemed that they had sunk into oblivion forever.
Many artists of the twentieth century and our time are trying to unravel what painting techniques the “old masters” used to achieve in their works the stunning expressiveness of still lifes, the vitality of portraits and bewitching, almost mystical realism.

Many people know that this technique is based on glazes - the thinnest layers of paint, like filters covering paintings. But to say that this is glaze painting is to say nothing about the technique of work. Indeed, in this painting, the secrets begin with the most seemingly simple and ordinary processes: with the preparation of the canvas, the choice of paints. And if in general the stages of work on a painting are generally known, then the actual secrets and methods of work remain secret.

Arina Daur has been studying the art of old masters for many years, collecting knowledge bit by bit from ancient books, in conversations with restorers, copying masterpieces of the past in museums. She not only unraveled many of the secrets of this painting, but also created a school where everyone can learn this skill.

In the old days, the only school for a novice artist was the practice of copying: the student copied the teacher’s work, learning all the secrets of the craft. And we will do the same.

What will you do on the course? You will copy the work of the Dutch artist Jacob van Hulsdonck. This still life with a jug has become a kind of calling card of Arina Daur’s studio. It is by copying this picture that all beginners begin their training here. Despite its small size, this painting provides a chance to learn the basics of the old masters' techniques, conduct research and paint your own "Jug" with all the details of this still life. You will learn how to convey the texture of warm clay and cold metal, the vibrant shine of berries and the mesmerizing shimmer of glass, you will learn how to “immerse” an image in a mysterious haze and show light on objects. This still life, filled with golden light, will become the basis for your success in oil painting.

And no matter what style you prefer to work in, even if you write modern subjects, choose unexpected compositional solutions and bright colors to work in the a la prima technique (in one session), the ability to work in the technique of the old masters will give you a huge advantage. Salvador Dali, an artist who cannot be suspected of adherence to antiquity, said this best: “First, learn to draw and write like the old masters, and only then act at your own discretion - and you will be respected.”

For everyone who cannot attend the school of painting by the old masters in St. Petersburg, our online course is intended. And in this video you can find out Arina Daur’s recommendations on which books will be useful on this topic.

Materials and tools

Canvas on a stretcher (fine-grained), primed with water-based or acrylic primer, size 30x40 cm;
. primed cardboard 24x30 cm for making your own palette;
. wooden oval palette for paints (or the one you have);
. double oiler;
. acrylic primer and acrylic paint (ochre or natural sienna);
. polymerized oil;
. dammar varnish;
. "Pinene" odorless or thinner No. 4;

. Brushes:
- No. 1 round for small parts,
- No. 2 or 3 round columns,
- synthetic brush, cut into a corner.

. oil paints "Master class":
1) titanium white;
2) light ocher;
3) red ocher;
4) Mars is orange;
5) ultramarine;
6) Indian yellow;
7) olive;
8) natural umber;
9) dark kraplak;
10) cadmium light red.

There are artists who feel a calling to one type of creativity and are passionate about it all their lives. They reach heights in their chosen direction, but are known in one single role. There are other masters who try many things and improve in several types of art. The world knows them simultaneously as watercolor and stained glass painters, architects and graphic artists, illustrators and sculptors. Arina Daur is just such a versatile artist.

Arina was born in Krasnodar, but in early childhood she ended up in Leningrad. By her own admission, she felt like an artist at the age of four. And from that moment on, creation became the work of life.

Then there were bright years in art school, difficult admission to the school named after V.I. Mukhina in Leningrad, there was misunderstanding in the Union of Artists and happy coincidences of circumstances that gave hope of being understood by the viewer and colleagues in the profession. In various complex ways, life led to society recognizing the value of what Arina invested time and effort, knowledge and soul energy into.

As an artist, Arina did a lot of things: she painted finds and earthen walls in the excavations of archaeological expeditions, worked on creating animated films, and was fond of sculpting and clay casting. Her creative energy was used in the creation of dolls and theatrical costumes, in painting and graphics. And inspiration was drawn from the cultural atmosphere of the places where fate led.

One of such iconic places in her life was the Pushkin Mountains, where Arina spent the summer months, “relaxing” while working in the workshop. Here she taught children “all sorts of fine art things”: to work with the special clay of those places, to look for images in the shapeless blots of monotypes. At the same time, I was imbued with the “spirit of the place” and read Pushkin thoroughly. As a result of this immersion, illustrations for the works of Alexander Sergeevich appeared. And in 2012, the novel “Eugene Onegin” was published with drawings by Arina Daur.

A person with a philosophical mindset, Arina tries to comprehend each of her practical experiences, to “take” the topic deeply and broadly, studying the works of her predecessors, establishing connections with various phenomena in the history of culture, and gathering like-minded people around her. When silhouette drawings caught her attention, her own exercises with paper were followed by historical research. And naturally, chance brought Arina together with the descendants of the famous Silver Age artist Elizaveta Kruglikova, whose engravings, monotypes and silhouette graphics became a bright page in the history of Russian art. And in April 2009, Arina organized the Fourth International Monotype Festival in St. Petersburg, dedicated to the memory of the famous artist.

Arina Daur knows how to “infect” others with her interest - many. Her sincere passion, kindness, and understanding of the deep essence of art amaze and attract not only creative people, but also non-artists. The energy of human relationships is seething and seething around Arina, and joint efforts produce amazing results. This is how many festivals were organized, including international ones, dedicated to monotype. This technique, which is seriously practiced by professionals, attracted many artists of the past, and simply bewitched Arina. Since childhood, she was attracted by the ability to “get” an image from the colorful chaos. The ability to look and see, multiplied by artistic experience and many years of practice, yielded results: in 2002, at an exhibition at the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, the name of Arina Daur thundered and became literally a discovery for the European public. “The Queen of Monotype,” as she was presented at this event, inspired by success in foreign countries, thoroughly “immersed” herself in the topic, studying history and finding like-minded people. Exhibitions, master classes, lectures, and the organization of festivals filled the 2000s.

And in 2013, Arina opened her own studio, where she teaches painting techniques of the old masters. And this is not a sudden change of interests, this is another facet of the life of the same person.

Every conversation with Arina reveals her personality from an unknown, often unexpected side: for example, her graduation project - a pottery service for the sailing ship "Nadezhda" of thirty-six items is in the collection of the museum of her native school, which has long since changed its name to its original one - the Academy of Arts and Industry them. A. L. Stieglitz. She also illustrates fairy tales and hosts an author’s program on Radio Russia, talking about artists in the series “Ours for You with a Brush.” Arina's works are in the collections of museums in different countries. The film “A Man Came Out of the House,” in the creation of which she participated as an animator, received a Big Gold Medal at the Baltic Film Festival in 1990. These are just some striking facts from the artist’s biography. She works in different types, techniques and genres of art and captivates others with them. Children and adults learn the main thing in communicating with Arina - the ability to see beauty: in the paintings of old masters and in a black blot on paper. And having seen it once, they remain captivated by the endless process of learning about artistic creativity in its most varied manifestations.

Do you want to become a creative person? Watch Arina Daur's lessons.

Works by Arina Daur

Course program

The video course “Technique of the Old Masters” consists of 21 lessons. These are theoretical and practical video lessons with 16 tasks for mastering the material. In each lesson, Arina tells and shows one stage of working on a painting, and you repeat it yourself at a speed convenient for you. Through the feedback form, you show the results to Arina, get answers to questions and move on, mastering the material step by step.

Program:

1 part. Preparatory. Theory. Talk about paints and canvas. Making your own palette. Preparing the canvas. 6 lessons, 3 practical tasks.

Part 2: “Ghost” of the painting. 1 lesson, 1 task.

Part 3: The main stage of writing. 7 lessons, 4 tasks.

Part 4: The pictorial stage of writing. 7 lessons, 8 tasks.

What will you receive at the end of the course? A self-painted copy of a painting using the technique of the old masters and a huge amount of knowledge, with the help of which you can create many more copies and independent works using the technique of the old masters.

Required Skills: This course does not require oil painting skills.

Who is this course for? It will suit:

• for those who admire the paintings of the old masters and want to master their working method,
• creators who love to try new things to diversify their skills, to enrich their own writing style.
• and even to beginners in painting who have not yet practiced much or have barely touched their brushes. Don't believe me? Watch a video with students of the St. Petersburg School of Old Masters, in which they talk about themselves and their training in the studio.

Who exactly is this course not suitable for?

Those who do not like the still lifes of the old masters, who are indifferent to the paintings of the small Dutchmen, Rembrandt and Rubens, who are sure that they already know everything and nothing can surprise them.

Your work will be displayed here soon.

Yellow Barn, 1909

Secrets of tonal painting by Nikolai Krymov. Mastery Lessons

Krymov never sought to create huge canvases. In his youth, this was due to limited funds: outwardly smart and respectable, the artist was in great need during his years of study. Having no money for painting supplies, he used those paints that were removed from their canvases by wealthy students who preferred a “broad” painting style. “It is not at all necessary to paint huge canvases with broad strokes. You can paint with one small brush on a small canvas and spend a penny’s worth of paint,” he instructed his students much later. In his mature years, large canvas sizes could no longer add anything to the master’s individuality: his intimate-sized landscapes always remained monumental. But the latent need for large canvases still existed, and the creation of such a work was always both joy and revelation for Krymov.
In the painting “Summer Day” (1914), depicting bathers on the banks of a small river, he was able to convey that Dionysian connection with nature, which symbolist poets loved to glorify. Krymov observes the effect of reflection with attention and interest: the “inverted”, reflected world on the canvas doubles and changes in tone. “If you paint water and reflection in water, then remember that all contrasts come together,” the artist instructed.
In the European 17th century, which was prized by an artist, such a work would have been called “Landscape with Bathers.” This title would allow the author to bring specificity and accuracy to the picture. Krymov called his work simply - “Summer Day”. It gives the viewer the opportunity to speculate, to further fantasize, without depriving the work of authenticity. Pleasant bliss seems to be spilled along the green shore, where five bathers are located. Their softly glowing pink-golden bodies, permeated by the sun and shrouded in moist vapors, gently contrast with the light grass. Sliding shadows intricately decorate them. Compositionally, they are the unifying principle on the canvas, but still the image of nature is the main one here.
Immersed in the contemplation of this or that landscape, we sometimes forget that this name, coming from the French word paysage (and it in turn is derived from the word pays - country, locality), means a genre of fine art in which the main subject of the image is wild nature or, to one degree or another, transformed by man. And if nature as such is unchangeable, then there are many ways to depict it. Heroic, epic, romantic landscapes follow each other in the same sequence as centuries. Changes in tastes and preferences in the work of the same author make it possible to see his works different and changed over the decades.
In the painting “Autumn,” unpretentious in theme, but sonorous and decorative in color, Krymov justifiably boldly uses the traditions of Russian signage, lubok. Laconism, clarity, and parsimony of visual means exactly correspond to the creative concept. It would seem that the artist’s creative rethinking of what is called “primitive” in art is far behind (in 1907-1909). But the elements of this “naive” vision of the world are obvious.
The entire Krymov family (he, his wife, sister, nephews) spent the summer of 1917-1918 in the Ryazan province on the estate of Vsevolod Mamontov, a friend of Nikolai Petrovich. Usually, when choosing housing for the summer, the artist always tried to find a house that had a balcony on the second floor, from where it would be convenient to paint landscapes. That is why in this painting a “top view” was chosen, as if the painter was flying low above the ground on a fabulous magic carpet. The low flight allows you to get a good look at the “toy house”, although by definition it should be a good-quality village hut. The bright sunlight seemed to deprive him of his weight, and the logs of heaviness. A leisurely movement of the gaze along the canvas allows you to see a small clearing framed by fir trees, and on it - cozy housing and golden trees. The poetic-contemplative state of the artist dominates everything, allowing him to look equally attentively at the earth and at the sky.
Krymov worked on location only in the summer. But, despite the fact that the winter landscapes are painted from memory (with the exception of the “roofs” seen through the window) and there is an element of fantasy in them, they are at the same time very reliable in conveying the state of nature, the landscape environment, lighting and color.
The artist’s winter landscapes, arranged in a certain order, could give a detailed and sonorous story about this time of year: winter is a time of short days and long evenings; winter is a rest of nature invisible to the eye and a very noticeable pause for villagers between suffering; winter is a time of holidays and games, but also a time of tireless daily work; Winter is a caring and tidy housewife, covering all unattractiveness with snow. And the snow! It can be dry, prickly, hard, or it can be soft and fluffy. His coldness is deceptive: he carefully covers the winter crops so that in the spring they will sprout new shoots. And it is also an optical instrument, refracting through which the world is painted in fabulous colors.
This is exactly how he is in the Krymov “Winter Evening” (1919). The shaded foreground reveals to the world the lilac-blue snow, from under whose protection the bushes are difficult to get out. And in the background, where people are walking leisurely, and in the third, where sleighs heavily loaded with hay are moving slowly, it is pinkish-lilac. It is whitest on the roofs of huts, but having absorbed the ghostly warmth of the short rays of the setting sun, it is illuminated with pale ocher and silver.
An artist for whom the beauty of the surrounding world is valuable in itself, no matter what fateful events may occur, should be happy!
From 1920, for eight years, Krymov with his wife and family went for the summer near Zvenigorod: after all, these were the famous Levitan places - Savvinskaya Sloboda. They lived in the house of the artist Alexei Sergeevich Rybakov, who was located near Krymov. The charm of these places gave creative impetus to the artist.
It is difficult to find a more modest and everyday look than in the painting “Gray Day” (1923). How not to remember Alexander Blok: “But even like this, my Russia, you of all lands are dearer to me...”
Wanting to expand the boundaries of the painting in depth, the artist did not isolate himself in a narrow horizontal space along a wicker fence, but gave a panoramic view of distant meadows stretching to the horizon. Almost half of the canvas (in the found position of the horizon line the “a little bit” so valued by the artist is manifested) is devoted to the sky, along which intermittent gray rain clouds are quickly moving. These two elements - sky and earth (the word “element” seems too strong for such a chamber landscape) - are inextricably linked: the rain that poured from the clouds made the grass, bushes, thatched roofs wet, and the swift wind ruffles and tears the foliage of the old willow in the center paintings. In this small canvas, Krymov seeks to capture a certain moment or “state” he saw in the landscape.