You see these cracks?
I can tell you that this painting is probably Italian and not just because it's the Mona
Lisa.
Earlier today, I went on a field trip to explore this for myself.
I am outside my local art museum right now because I'm going to run in there, art thief
style, and try to find something that — full screen on this word, please — is called
craquelure.
The cracks in paintings are in entire discipline within conservatorship. And when you decipher
the code that is inside them, it tells a story about history.
Before I tell you why these cracks are French and these are Dutch, you have to rethink how
you imagine a painting.
We think of paintings as flat, but really they are super thin sculptures. I will explain
that. So it sounds slightly less like I’m really high.
You have the back, the support. Think of the canvas wood or paper in the backing. Then
there's animal glue between the support and the next layer. The ground layer, the ground
is...maybe imagine a crucial primer. A lot of the time this is gesso: often animal glue,
chalk, and a white pigment. Then you've got the paint, which is actually pigment, basically
the color, and binder, the sticky stuff.
It's kind of easy to imagine a Jackson Pollock is sculptural because you've got all these
globs of paint busting off of the campus, but, really, every painting has a sculptural
aspect to it. These materials, they all affect the cracks in paintings. And different places
and time periods used different materials.
So the cracks can tell a story about the material history of a painting.
On Italian Poplar panels, cracks run perpendicular to the grain. On Flemish Oak panels, cracks
go parallel. A thick ground layer means the cracks are basically separate from the support.
So you get smoother or swirly or cracks that are mostly on that ground layer.
A thin ground means that the support plays a part and cracks are usually thinner and
more rectangular. And all of this is so predictable that it can actually help you identify where
painting comes from.
All right. I’m gonna head in there now. Hope you appreciate this shirt, mask coordination.
So all this stuff that I'm talking about, it mostly comes from the work of Spike Bucklow.
He has done so many fascinating experiments with cracks in paintings.
He has identified different types of cracks. He's had novices face off against conservators
using cracks to identify paintings. He has even trained a computer to identify paintings
through just the cracks.
After making a study of these cracks and paintings, he developed some key factors like direction,
distance, connections, and he built some rules of thumb.
Italian paintings had jagged cracks that ran perpendicular to the grain.
Flemish ran parallel to the grain, while Dutch craquelure was perpendicular and larger.
French paintings in the 18th century, they had a thick ground. So they ended up having
craquelure that was smooth and swirly. I like to think of like knife lines on frosting on
a cake, because that's what the thick ground is kind of like. This craquelure tells stories
about the cultures that made them.
For example, Flemish craquelure had less variation, maybe because the Guild system trained artists
more thoroughly. I had a question about what role weather played, but it seems like the
painting itself was super important. Bucklow found one painting that had really French
looking craquelure. The problem? The painting was Dutch. But there was a reason. The subject
was Paris. So the canvas was probably purchased in Paris, meaning that the Dutch painter used
French methods for that painting. And as a result, it has French craquelure.
Okay. I’m not a professional. But I feel like I kind of found some craquelure, uh,
One painting was Pierre Jacques Volaire. Uh, it's from 1780. So, 18th century French. So
I'm going to amp up the clarity and the texture, which is going to help make the cracks appear
more vivid. And you can see it right there. That very wavy French craquelure.
Let me keep going here. What else did I find here is another one. This is by Giovanni Batista
Moroni. It's from 1557 Italy. Uh, so you kinda know what to expect. Kind of looks like an
album cover to me. Like, I feel like this could be a rap album. You can totally see
that Italian craquelure, these small islands, jagged thin lines.
It's completely typical. I mean, just look at this guys nose. Look at his Italian nose
cracks. So, yeah, I don't think honestly that I'm, well-trained enough to be able to identify
paintings just by the craquelure. But I think I could tell you the difference. And if I
looked really carefully, I could make a pretty good educated guess just by looking at the
cracks.
And this is basically after I've only read a couple of papers.
So who cares?
Bucklow says that it makes work easier for conservators and easier for newbies to get
into it. I definitely got a taste of that today. Craquelure is also a fingerprint that
some people have floated for forgery detection and even as a basis for blockchain identification.
Beyond identifying art, it can tell a story about a single painting’s history. The conservator
of Girl with a Pearl Earring describes how they analyzed all the cracks in the painting,
spotting where the painting might've been pressed or where restorers screwed up.
For me, it's a reminder that these paintings are physical objects, bound by the material
realities of the time in which they existed.
Italian art doesn't look like French art stylistically, but it also doesn't look the same down to
the very bones of the painting. Sometimes, you can only see that when you ignore the
painting and look in the cracks.
All right, that's it for this one. Thank you for watching. I've placed a link to the sources
in the description, and hopefully the next time you go to a museum, you're going to be
the weirdo who is standing too close to the painting, peering at the cracks.
It is pretty early in the life of this channel. So if you are able to comment or like, or
subscribe or do anything else that will feed the voracious algorithm, I would be appreciative
of it.
I do history and personal type videos on here, and I'm looking forward to doing the next
one. I will hopefully see you there. All right, bye.