Royal Institute for Cultural Heritage
Publications
IRPA publishes different types of documents with the results of its research.
The collection Scientia Artis - monographs, exhibition catalogues and conference proceedings - presents the results of research projects and scientific events (co)organized by KIK-IRPA.
Since 1958, the Bulletin presents the results of the Institute’s main research studies and interventions on a regular basis.
Every department in the Institute publishes other publications on more specific subjects.
EXPECTED IN MAY 2012
The Brueg(H)el Phenomenon. Paintings by Pieter Bruegel the Elder and Pieter Brueghel the Younger with a Special Focus on Technique and Copying Practices
Authors: Christina Currie & Dominique Allart
Scientia Artis 8. Expected for the beginning of 2012.
Royal Institute for Cultural Heritage, Brussels, 2012, ca. 900 p., 3 vol. & website
Language: English
ISBN: 978-2-930054-14-8
Click here for the table of contents
This volume is the culmination of a long-term research program carried out by the Royal Institute for Cultural Heritage in partnership with the University of Liège; it has benefited from the generous collaboration of 19 Belgian and foreign museums and numerous private collections.
The fascination for the works of Pieter Bruegel in the decades following his death in 1569 is only matched by the public interest they stimulate today. At the end of the sixteenth century and in the first half of the seventeenth century, the most ambitious art collectors fought over the rare paintings by the master that were still on the market. This context was the catalyst for the appearance of copies and pastiches; genuine forgeries were also produced.
It was then that the elder son of Pieter Bruegel, known as Brueghel the Younger (whose name is spelt ‘Brueghel', conforming to the signature that he adopted during the initial phase of his career) emerged as a legitimate successor, using working material inherited from his father. He produced astonishingly faithful replicas, all the more surprising given that they were often reproductions of paintings that were by then scattered in diverse and often inaccessible private collections. Working together with his studio, in which there was a streamlined organisation of work following a well-established practice in Antwerp during the period, Brueghel supplied the market with hundreds of copies of variable quality according to the client. This fascinating phenomenon merited an in-depth study and re-evaluation, taking into account the historical and economic context.
The examinations undertaken within the framework of a wide-reaching program of study comprise a representative sample of paintings by Pieter Brueghel the Younger and Pieter Bruegel the Elder. In relation to the latter, crucial discoveries were made, leading to a reconsideration of his art as well as the evolution of painting practice in the Southern Netherlands in the sixteenth century. The study therefore also provides an in-depth account of Pieter Bruegel the Elder's working techniques. Aside from the examination of a series of works by the latter artist, and in the light of observations made on them, the controversial Fall of Icarus from the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium is re-considered.
As to the works produced by Pieter Brueghel the Younger's studio, new scientific imagery and analysis enabled an intimate comparison of their techniques of execution. This revealed common technological traits that distinguish works produced under the master's direct control from those produced outside his workshop. Practical reconstructions of procedures used in his studio bring these techniques to life and make them more easily understandable. Subtle stylistic characteristics were also detected amongst the paintings examined, making it possible to identify in a significant number of cases the individual hand of Brueghel the Younger as opposed to that of one or other of his assistants.
More than a thousand images illustrate this volume, on the text and the accompanying DVD. In this way, visual material relative to the over 70 works studied is available to art historians and the wider scientific community: detailed examinations of the surface, infrared reflectography, X-radiography, dendrochronological data, chemical analyses (notably Raman spectography, GC-MS and SEM-EDX).
MOST RECENT PUBLICATIONS
Tree Rings, Art, Archaeology. Proceedings of the Conference
Edited by Pascale Fraiture
Scientia Artis 7
Royal Institute for Cultural Heritage (KIK-IRPA), Brussels, 2011, 376 p.
Language: English
ISBN: 978-2-930054-13-1
Price: 40 €*
In 2010 IRPA-KIK organised the Tree Rings, Art, Archaeology conference. The various articles gathered in the proceedings reflect the practices of fifteen European countries. The first objective of the conference was to review the notable advances over the last ten years. The second aim, focused more on the future, was to bring together dendrochronologists and other players in the field - historians, archaeologists and art historians - to discuss the ‘Good use of dendrochronology'. The articles successively explore the different facets of the dendrochronological prism.
Indeed, dendrochronology is a discipline at the crossroads of human, exact and natural sciences. This explains the disparity in the training of dendrochronologists. Botanists, statisticians and archaeologists each provide their version of dendrochronology, while respecting the fundamental principles of the method. From this follows a multiplicity of applications under a single label. Dating is not considered as an end in itself, but as a single indication - among others, whether archaeological, historical or artistic -, which the dendrochronologist complements with other information obtained from his measurements, e.g. the origin of the wood, growth type, environment, etc. However, the dendrochronologist alone cannot explain the entirety of a research question. The need to compare different approaches is self-imposed and serves to enrich or even to question an approach that remains necessarily empirical, and whose conclusions are irremediably tentative.
Imitation and Illusion
Applied Brocade in the Art of the Low Countries in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries
Authors: Ingrid Geelen & Delphine Steyaert
Scientia Artis 6
Royal Institute for Cultural Heritage, Brussels, 2011, 660 p.
Language: English
ISBN: 978-2-930054-11-7
Price: 90 €*
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In the late Middle Ages luxurious textiles were among the most highly prized indicators of status and wealth and an essential requirement of prestigious secular and ecclesiastical life. The depiction of these sumptuous silks and gold brocades was a crucial element in the visual arts, and their realistic and recognizable representation was a challenge to every artist. Painters and polychromers strove to imitate the fashionable fabrics by using applied brocade, a highly sophisticated form of relief decoration that adhered to panel paintings, murals and sculpture and through the play of light and shadow evoked the dazzling illusion of gold-brocaded cloths.
Imitation and Illusion is the result of a detailed study of applied brocade in the art of the Low Countries. Eleven fascinating and innovative chapters offer an in-depth examination of the historical, geographical, morphological and technical aspects of this cast tin relief technique. New light is also shed on artistic collaboration and workshop practice in the fifteenth and early sixteenth century. The catalogue includes 86 well known and lesser known panel and wall paintings, sculptures, altarpieces, and architectural elements produced between 1420 and 1540, decorated with applied brocade and providing stunning testimony to the visual variety and material magnificence of late-medieval art.
Abundantly illustrated, Imitation and Illusion investigates the artistic production of the fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Low Countries from an intriguing and original perspective. It represents a significant contribution to our understanding of medieval polychromy and will appeal to everyone whose curiosity is aroused by the illusionistic ingenuity of the medieval artist.