I learn something new everyday, but today was exceptional. "Pentimento" was my vocabulary word for the day. I met an antique dealer (which I am, too) who's business name is Pentimento. She explained the meaning to me, and then I did a search and came up with the following for starters.
Pentimento is an art term meaning to obscure what was once there, such as painting a new picture over an older one on a canvas. But as it ages, oil paint on canvas can become transparent and slowly, what was there before can be seen again and the whole truth of the picture, once lost and obscured, can be rediscovered.
(p n´´t m n´t ) (KEY) , painter’s term for the evidence in a work that the original composition has been changed. Often the opaque pigment with which the artist covered a mistake or unwanted beginnings will, with time or injudicious cleaning, become transparent, and a revelation of original intentions will become visible through the finished composition. A celebrated example is Caravaggio’s Lute Player (Metropolitan Museum of Art) in which X-ray photography was used to uncover evidence of the painter’s original intention.
pentimento n. An underlying image in a painting, as an earlier painting, part of a painting, or original draft, that shows through, usually when the top layer of paint has become transparent with age.
Have any of you actually seen this on an old canvas painting? I think this is the neatest thing to be on the lookout for.
Pentimento is an art term meaning to obscure what was once there, such as painting a new picture over an older one on a canvas. But as it ages, oil paint on canvas can become transparent and slowly, what was there before can be seen again and the whole truth of the picture, once lost and obscured, can be rediscovered.
(p n´´t m n´t ) (KEY) , painter’s term for the evidence in a work that the original composition has been changed. Often the opaque pigment with which the artist covered a mistake or unwanted beginnings will, with time or injudicious cleaning, become transparent, and a revelation of original intentions will become visible through the finished composition. A celebrated example is Caravaggio’s Lute Player (Metropolitan Museum of Art) in which X-ray photography was used to uncover evidence of the painter’s original intention.
pentimento n. An underlying image in a painting, as an earlier painting, part of a painting, or original draft, that shows through, usually when the top layer of paint has become transparent with age.
Have any of you actually seen this on an old canvas painting? I think this is the neatest thing to be on the lookout for.
