Browsing by Author "Helvaci, Yigit Zafer"
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- Italian Influence in a Portuguese Mannerist Painting (Part I): A New Palette with Original Orange and Green PigmentsPublication . Melo, Helena Pinheiro de; Valadas, Sara; Cruz, António João; Cardoso, Ana Margarida; Miguel, Catarina; Manhita, Ana; Helvaci, Yigit Zafer; Dias, Cristina Barrocas; Candeias, AntónioThe palette used by the Portuguese painter Pedro Nunes (1586–1637) in the large panel depicting The Descent from the Cross (460 × 304 cm) painted in 1620 for Évora’s cathedral was investigated with a combination of the visual inspection of the paint surface and the analysis of the paint layers with microscopic, spectroscopic, and chromatographic techniques. Green earth and an orange artificial arsenic sulphide, two pigments identified for the first time in Portuguese paintings of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, were found to be abundantly used in large areas of the composition. The results further reveal the choice of a rich palette also containing lead-white, lead-tin yellow, ochre, vermilion, verdigris, smalt, azurite, vegetable carbon black, and a red lake made of brazilwood and cochineal. All the pigments were bound in an oil-based medium. The introduction of two pigments new to the Portuguese conventional palette is a direct consequence of the painter’s training in Rome in the first decade of the seventeenth century.
- Italian Influence in a Portuguese Mannerist Painting (Part II): A Matter of Image or a Matter of Technique?Publication . Melo, Helena Pinheiro de; Cruz, António João; Valadas, Sara; Cardoso, Ana Margarida; Helvaci, Yigit Zafer; Candeias, AntónioThe panel depicting The Descent from the Cross, painted in 1620 by the Portuguese artist Pedro Nunes (1586-1637), shows a clear Italian formal influence. The painter’s colour palette was identified in another paper. The panel is now investigated from a technical perspective, discussing aspects related to the support, preparatory system, and paint layer build-up. The research is based on the visual inspection of the painting’s surface with complementary imaging techniques and on the analysis of the materials from the preparatory layers with microscopic and spectroscopic techniques. The characterisation of the painting technique revealed an ingenious use of colour that is based on the understanding of the optical and handling properties of oil paint. This knowledge is illustrated by the painter’s ability to exploit and combine a range of different oil painting techniques, such as glazing, scumbling, wet-in-wet, or wet-in-dry painting; by his formulation of a wide variety of pigment mixtures; and by his use of diverse and often complex layering systems - some quite unconventional for Portuguese painting practice. The material and technical originality of this painting clearly reflects Nunes’ international Roman experience and his desire to update the Portuguese mainstream practice of his time.