Tom Irizarry

Learning from artists' manuscripts, a contemporary artist adapts a 15th-century recipe for preparing grounds for oil painting on wood panels. In her book, The Art of Arts, Anita Albus discusses materials and practices of oil and tempera painting that have either been lost or fallen into disuse. Albus makes a poignant observation that ever since the industrial revolution, it has been an industry that dictates what materials are available to artists. Gesso production falls into this category alongside the preparation of paints and mediums. Artists have succumbed to the materials handed to us. She reminds us that before industrialization and typical of the European artist's guilds of the 15th and 16th centuries, it was largely the artists who prepared their own formulas and concoctions in painting...