The Red Vineyard

The Red Vineyard was painted by Vincent van Gogh in 1888 and sold to Anna Boch for about 400 francs(around $1000 today according wikipedia). It is said to be the only painting Van Gogh sold during all his life. Food for thought

 

The Good, the Bad, the Ugly

Borrowing the title from Sergio Leone’s film, I’m going to share my impressions on 3 brushes I have in my studio. On the bottom of the picture below we have Winsor & Newton 13mm/ 1/2″  Artist’s Water Colour Sable ‘ One Stroke.

In the middle we have a very cheap Chinese brush that I bought 6 for $0.99 with shipping included (!) to Brazil. I can barely read the gold lettering on red handle but where I can read it says “820 / Cheng Zhen. The third is a Keramik 6 – 916 brush sold by Keramik Imports in Brazil, that I suspect it comes from China as well.

So, the Good is obviously the Winsor & Newton’s brush that while is not expensive, is made of selected Kolinsky sable hair. The handle is well balanced and ferrule is well constructed.

The Bad, is the second brush. While the Hair is fairly decent synthetic fibers, the handle leaves much to be desired. Ferrule is poorly constructed and the handle is very light weight. It is clear when you hold it that no attention given to the balance of the brush.

The Ugly is this Keramik brush. The hair fibers appears to be made from the poorest bristle available on Earth, it is extremely hard and pointed to various directions. The ferrule is as poor as the Chinese in the middle and on top of that, no balance to the handle as well. I have this brush in my studio to remind me to not buy any brush from this brand ever again.

Mona Lisa Twin

There are many copies of Leonardo’s famous painting but the articles spreading around regarding this Mona Lisa copy is really interesting; Conservators at Prado museum found out to this one was painted at same time as the original on the Louvre so much likely to be painted at Leonardo’s studio by one of his pupils.

The Mona Lisa copy had black paint over the background, added in 18th century as reported and was carefully removed by restorer, revealing interesting details not so well preserved in the Louvre painting.

Left: Louvre’s Mona Lisa. Center: Prado’s Mona Lisa copy with black background. Right: Prado’s Mona Lisa copy with restored background.

For more information (highly recommended), see article at

FT
Guardian(UK)
The Art Newspaper
Anorak (UK)

Monalisa Restoration

Still about Mona Lisa, the Louvre’s version have been virtually restored in 2004 by Multispectral camera technology. According to the article, at Lumiere Technology website,

“The hidden knowledge of the true colors was revealed by multispectrally scanning the painting in thirteen channels – from Ultra Violet to Infra Red.  Then the spectral response curve of the varnish in each pixel was isolated and subtracted from the digital file to virtually reveal the surface of the painting when it had freshly exited Leonardo da Vinci’s workshop.”

Left: Actual painting. Right: Virtually restored painting.

There is a lot of good information about the process, including other paintings scan on Lumiere website:

True Colors of the Mona Lisa Revealed

Mona Lisa: Inside the painting

Around Mona Lisa scan

Lumiere Technology’s home