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Mona Lisa larger than life
In the 15th century, oil painting enjoyed a real boom. It gradually replaces tempera [1] techniques, conferring a greater freedom of expression to the painter thanks to a shading of shapes and colours made possible through the successive application of thin translucent coloured layers : glazes.
What is so special about the work of Leonardo da Vinci that makes it so famous ? Indeed, his painting fascinates through the subtlety of optical effects (called "sfumato"), which give a hazy illusion that blurs contours, softens transitions and dissolves shadows like smoke. Although optical measurements and reconstructions have already described the sfumato effect, new X-ray fluorescence spectrometry analyses conducted by researchers on seven of his paintings kept at the Louvre Museum confirm the process used to render shading.
X-ray fluorescence spectrometry consists in illuminating an area of the painting with X-rays and collecting other X-rays (X-fluorescence) emitted by the material and characteristic of the area under study. The study of paint layers was conducted directly on the works, inside the museum, without any sampling. It allowed the composition and thickness of each layer of material to be determined for nine faces, including that of the Mona Lisa. The recipes used by the artist to create shadows on faces are characterised both by a technique (use of layers of glaze or very fine paint) and by the nature of the pigments or additives. In the case of glazes, thin layers of 1 to 2 microns have been carefully applied to obtain a total thickness that does not exceed 30 to 40 microns. All the data collected lifted a veil on Leonardo da Vinci’s constant research in rendering the living details of the characters in his paintings.
Laboratoire du Centre de recherche et de restauration des musées de France, CNRS-Ministère de la culture et de la communication
- Dans les secrets des œuvres d’art (extrait)
Réalisation : Didier Deleskiewicz - Production : CNRS Images (2008)
[1] Techniques a tempera : paints based on a natural emulsion such as egg yolk.
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