This news has been floating around Venetian studies' circles for a little while now... Nice to know that it's finally hit the mainstream! (Thanks for the link, Tom!!)
Makes a lot of sense, when you think about it, that the nearby glassmaking island of Murano didn't simply inspire Venetian painters just to employ bright colors, but also to use the very glass itself in their artworks!
"How did paintings by Tintoretto and other Venetian Renaissance artists get their special glow? Using an electron microscope, Barbara Berrie, senior conservation scientist at the National Gallery of Art, discovered one of their secrets: tiny bits of glass the artists mixed with their pigments." (from CNN.com - Venetian secret ingredient -- glass - Aug 25, 2005)
UPDATED: For more info (from this past spring) on the science behind this discovery, see "Venetian Grinds".
Categories: Venice, History, Art, WeirdScience
1 comment:
You know, Renaissance Venetian glass is what kept Renaissance Venetian breakfast cereal crunchy, too.
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