An exhibition of a seldom-studied artist enables us to analyse selected works in far greater depth. The Nicolas Tournier exhibition has given rise to the restoration of six paintings. A scientific analysis of a group of paintings from the Musée des Augustins was implemented in Toulouse and Versailles. X-rays, scientific photographs, infrared, ultraviolet, tangential light and ultraviolet fluorescence were used.
These last techniques, in particular, ultraviolet were particularly useful for the study of one of the museum's own works, the Saint Paul. Calling on science for the service of art becomes indispensable when attempting to attribute paintings that present too many uncertainties such as in Tournier's case. Moreover, like many other works by Caravaggesque artists, paintings by the Montbéliard artist have often been badly stored and sometimes clumsily overpainted. The simple and direct technique used by the painter actually generated this very problem.
The exhibition has resulted in significant revelations. For example, an inscription discovered at the back of an original canvas, a hidden, underlying composition, additional features later removed thus modifying an iconography and innumerable pentimentos*.
(* reappearance on the surface of an oil painting of paint or drawing that the artist had covered by overpainting, as the result of the increasing transparency of the overpainting on aging).
|
