In a unique research project, Anders Zorn’s art is examined using techniques such as UV light and X-rays. The goal is to gain new knowledge about everything from painting techniques to colors. And even now it is possible to re-evaluate certain “truths” about Zorn.
– When you think of research in a slightly broader context, it is very exciting to be able to re-evaluate such a well-known artist in this way and actually get new information, says Emma Jansson, doctoral student in art history at Stockholm University and the one who conducts the research.
The project, which has been ongoing since 2018, takes place in collaboration with the Swedish National Heritage Board, and thus aims to study Anders Zorn’s paintings with the help of modern technology. Emma Jansson has looked at both things that Zorn has left behind in his studio, from color tubes to receipts on canvases. And then 30-40 oil paintings and sketches. For example, people have photographed and looked at the paintings in different light sources, such as infrared and ultraviolet.
– And through these different methods we can find out information about the different materials he uses and then the structure of his paintings, says Emma Jansson.
Using X-rays, says Emma Jansson, she has been able to get a good picture both of Zorn’s brushwork and of the changes that the painting has undergone during the work.
– There is a painting called Midnight at the Zorn Museum where he has repainted the painting quite large and changed as well as the attitude of the figure in that painting and also changed the whole background. So we have managed to see that with X-rays, says Emma Jansson.
Anders Zorn is a big star in Swedish art history as it is written column meters about. But Emma Jansson says that she has already been able to show that certain accepted “truths” about Anders Zorn, which have long been taken for granted, are simply not true.
– There is a myth about the Wrath Palette. In “Self-portrait with model” at the National Museum, he presents himself, for example, with a very limited color scale. Where he only uses four colors: lead white, light sugar, cinnabar and black. But through analyzes, it turns out that his pigment scale is much wider than that. He also uses chromium oxide green, cadmium yellow and cobalt blue. Although it is said that he did not like cobalt blue at all, says Emma Jansson.
And the new knowledge helps to update our perception of how he actually works, she says.
The project around Anders Zorn is the first in which a Swedish artist is investigated in this comprehensive way through so-called technical art history.
Source: ICELAND NEWS