In a New Light: Bellini's St. Francis in the Desert
May 22, 2011, through August 28, 2011
Technique and Working Method
In March 2010 Giovanni Bellini's St. Francis in the Desert traveled to the Sherman Fairchild Paintings Conservation Center of The Metropolitan Museum of Art for technical examination by a team of specialists. They explored the artist's working process and the distinctive means by which he created this masterpiece.
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Fig. 1: The whorled pattern of fingerprints and palm prints in this image belongs to an overall priming layer, applied by hand before painting began. Hover over image for details. |
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Bellini painted St. Francis on a large panel constructed of poplar wood. To
prepare the support for painting, a gesso ground was applied, followed by a
thin priming layer consisting of lead white bound in oil. This layer was
smoothed on by hand, leaving behind the impression of numerous fingerprints
and palm prints, which have become visible on the picture surface over time (Fig. 1). The brilliantly reflective white preparation imparts luminosity to the overlying paint, lighting it from within.
The artist planned the painting with extreme care. He drew his composition on the white ground using a brush and black paint; we can detect this initial drawing or "underdrawing" using an infrared camera. The underdrawing varies according to different sections of the painting but throughout reflects the artist's prime concern: the fall of light (Fig. 2).
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Fig. 2: Detail of infrared reflectogram showing the artist's underdrawing, his preliminary design for the composition. The underdrawing of the saint's head is akin to a fine portrait sketch: in addition to planning the outlines of the face, Bellini described the fall of light and shadow with hatched lines. |
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Despite his meticulous working process, Bellini made certain thoughtful improvisations and changes. Most significantly, in the hut at right, he added the flat shelf at the back of the lectern, along with the skull that sits on it and the reed cross behind (Fig. 3).
Bellini played a key role in the transition from egg tempera to oil as the
predominant paint medium in Venice, and this work shows his early mastery of oil, with its broad tonal range and rich, saturated color. The artist quickly recognized the potential of oil to create texture with his brushstrokes, for example in the effulgence of golden light in the sky at upper left (Fig. 4). In other areas, he manipulated the medium to achieve a high degree of precision, as in the minuscule grapevine tendrils at the top of the saint's shelter.
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Fig. 3: Detail of infrared reflectogram. Originally, the saint's desk terminated at the top of the slanted
reading surface. Bellini added the skull, the ledge on which it rests, and the slender cross behind at a later stage of painting. These were painted over the existing willow fence, which appears in the infrared reflectogram. |
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Fig. 4: The artist employed a bold impasto, or raised and textured surface of oil paint, to describe the golden light in the upper-left corner of the sky. |
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