Technology has once again succeeded in revealing secrets that the naked eye could not see.
Technology has always taken a crucial role in the conservation of all kinds of art. Only the storage capacity in the cloud is an example that now, almost everything can be recovered if it has passed through the internet at some point. Somewhat more difficult (but not impossible) is to use technology to recover something that has been lost for hundreds of yearsor even discover things that our naked eye could never see.
This is exactly what has happened recently in the Royal Scottish Academy from Edinburgh, who while preparing a new exhibition, ran into an unexpected surprise. The exhibition was a tribute to the legendary impressionist painter Van Gogh, and it exhibits some of the most important works of the artist. Before arranging the paintings for their exhibition, a cleaning and “set-up” task is always carried out, but in this case it has been much more than that.
The Scottish National Galleries (NGS) found that the back of the picture canvas “Portrait of a Peasant Woman” was covered with strange layers of glue and cardboard. Scratching a painting that would be worth millions of dollars to see what is underneath is not a good idea, so the solution was use x-rays. Beneath that thin layer of glue, a team of conservators discovered a self-portrait of Van Gogh himselfa hidden and unpublished piece that has remained hidden in the painting for hundreds of years.
It may seem like a mystery worthy of a movie, but the explanation is actually very simple.
Many art lovers and curators they did not believe the discoveryWhy would Van Gogh hide a portrait of himself in another work? The discovery has raised many questions, since it is not usual to find “hidden pictures” within other works. In the end, as explained by the team responsible for the NGS, The explanation is very simple:
“Van Gogh often reused canvases to save money. However, instead of painting over previous works, he would turn the canvas over and work backwards”
Experts say that the impressionist painter would have made this self-portrait shortly after moving to France, in the highest point of his entire career. It was the time in which the painter adopted a much more colorful style and is believed to also coincide with the legendary incident in which he cut off an ear. In any case, the painter decided to “hide” the portrait in the back of one of his most popular paintings “Portrait of a Peasant Woman”.
With this new and unexpected acquisition, the National Galleries of Scotland will open an exhibition with much more value and importance at a historical level. You can enjoy “A Taste for Impressionism” from the Royal Scottish Academy from July 30 to November 13. So that the self-portrait can be seen in the exhibition, the NGS has surrounded the painting with an x-ray light box so that everyone can marvel at this unpublished work by Van Gogh.
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