58 Survey on the correlation of painting technique and craquelure, shown on selected X-ray images of the Thomas Brachert archive KEYWORDS: Panel painting; craquelure; painting technique; Andrea del Verrocchio; Leonardo da Vinci. In this Bachelor thesis five paintings of Andrea del Verrocchio and Leonardo da Vinci are examined on correlations between painting technique and craquelure. First, the general painting techniques of the artists as well as the formation of crack phenomena are described. Second, 20 sections of X-ray images of the paintings from the collection of Dr. Thomas Brachert are compared with one another, which lay in the areas of flesh, sky and fabric. The painting technique describes how the artist brings which materials on the panel. These paintings of the Italian Renaissance follow the classical layer structure of a panel painting. The five paintings have in common the panel of poplar and a gesso ground. Verrocchio worked mainly with tempera colours, but his workshop is also described to work with a wide range of media. Leonardo da Vinci is known to have experimented with various binding agents, but mainly painted with nut-oil-based colours. He also frequently spread the paint with his fingers, which leaves fingerprints and grooves on the surface. Craquelure in the painting‘s surface is created by movement and tension in the paint layer, so microscopic weak points develop to tiny cracks, which spread and branch out. The craquelure patterns between the paintings and different areas in one painting are various. A few correlations between the painting technique and the craquelure pattern are found: The small grooves caused by the finger painting technique of Leonardo da Vinci seem to set the main direction of the craquelures. Further there are hints, that the pigments used influence the pattern of cracks. For example, the green and brown areas mainly showed an ordered pattern, whereas blue fabric areas showed disordered craquelure patterns. The brushwork has no observed effect. In the end it is clear, that the structure of the wooden panel beneath has a predominant effect on the craquelure over the composition and technique of the paint layers. That can be explained by the fact, that the anisotropic panel warps more than the other layers in climate fluctuations and therefore sets the general direction of the craquelure. mena[at]freystatzky.de
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