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Front Cover: Physics and paintings – a note on the cover (Phys. Status Solidi B 5/2013)
Author(s) -
Bucklow Spike
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
physica status solidi (b)
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Reports
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.51
H-Index - 109
eISSN - 1521-3951
pISSN - 0370-1972
DOI - 10.1002/pssb.201390013
Subject(s) - front cover , cover (algebra) , painting , layer (electronics) , polymer science , oil painting , art history , art , optics , materials science , visual arts , nanotechnology , physics , engineering , mechanical engineering
Details of the sophisticated scientific and technological infrastructures that supported the creation of European art are elucidated by Spike Bucklow on pp. 927–930 . Recently, Stephen Elliott's group at Cambridge University has undertaken multivariate analysis on the combined results of different methods (FT Raman and fibre‐optic reflectance spectroscopy) applied to model paint systems constructed following the traditional artists' materials and methods. The front cover shows a cross‐section through a sample of paint (ca. 200 μm) taken from the now‐faded purple trousers of the man in the sixteenthcentury portrait (insert). Ultraviolet fluorescence makes the layer structure visible. The top layer shows soot in varnish. This lies above a layer of synthetic alumina particles, which provide the substrate for a red dyestuff extracted from insects, together with discoloured particles of once‐blue cobalt‐rich glass, all distributed through polymerised linseed oil. The large black structures in a lower preparatory layer are charcoal and show the cell structure of the tree from which the pigment was sourced. (Inset image: Cornelis Ketel, A Giant Porter, 1580. Reproduced by kind permission of The Royal Collection, London.).