The availability of gloss and matte house paints (enamel paints) at the beginning of the 20th century had a profound impact on artists such as Pablo Picasso and many others of his generation. These artists used enamel paints because of their surface qualities, handling properties, and an avant-garde interest in unconventional painting materials that subverted the traditional vocabulary of academic painting. Although the 20th century also saw the introduction of a wide variety of synthetic polymers for use as paint binding media, it is only from the early 1960s that the supremacy of oil-based paints in artists' practice has been diminished by the wide popularity of acrylics and other synthetic resins. Many artists still use oil-based paints today, as attested by the high number of oil media descriptions in major modern and contemporary art collections.
As a result, the in-depth study of oil paint formulations of the last two centuries continues to be as important as the study of the oil media of the Old Masters. Recent interest in this area is reflected in the popularity of conferences such as “Issues in Contemporary Oil Paint” (Amersfoort, The Netherlands, March 2013) and “From Can to Canvas: Early uses of house paints by Picasso and his contemporaries in the first half of the 20th century” (Marseille and Antibes, France, May 2011). It is precisely the latter meeting that gave the inspiration for the collection of papers gathered in these two special issues.
While research has been conducted on modern and contemporary artist's tube paints, surprisingly little attention has been devoted by the scholarly community to the study of early enamel paints, aside from anecdotal evidence and visual observations. The articles featured in these two special issues aim to fill this gap, with a special focus on the historic house paints manufactured by the French company Ripolin. At the same time as Picasso's star was rising in the art world, the brand gained such popularity in Europe that the term “ripolin” became synonymous with enamel paints in general.
This rich collection of essays for the first time fully explores the extent of use of oil-based enamel paints in the work of modern avant-garde artists with deep scientific rigor and far-reaching interdisciplinary inquiry. The papers explore topics relating to the use of non-artist's enamel paints in the first half of the 20th century, including: intended and unintended meanings of artists' material choices; techniques of paint application; issues of preservation; the materials and technology of paint production; and the challenging and multifaceted scientific characterization of non-artist's paints.
Part two of the special issue explores the potential use of Ripolin and other brands of non-artist's paints by contemporaries of Picasso during the first half of the 20th century. While the six papers detail similar scientific approaches to identifying these materials in paintings, the authors face distinct challenges in evaluating their findings in the context of each artist's practice and the available supporting material and written evidence. In studying Sidney Nolan's use of Ripolin brand paints, Dredge et al. were in the enviable position of having access to over a dozen cans of Ripolin from the artist's Wahroonga studio, in addition to writings explicitly detailing his use of the paint in his works. Their study of the pigment and organic components of glossy and flat tints provides invaluable information about Ripolin formulations produced in England beginning in 1932 and made it possible to confirm Nolan's use of the paint based on close matches of FTIR and XRF results from his works and paint-outs from Ripolin cans. This correspondence is encouraging in light of Harriet Standeven's article in the first part of the special issue in which she cautions about frequent reformulations by paint manufacturers.
The technical study of a 1915 Giacomo Balla painting by Piccirillo et al. represents the other end of the spectrum when it comes to pursuing evidence for the use of non-artist's paints. Lacking specific written references to the artist's material choices, the authors turned to detailed studies of paint layers to tease out how Balla might have pursued the Futurist program. Piccirillo et al. highlight the need for research into non-artist's paint formulations available in Italy in order to improve our understanding of how artists implemented Futurist manifestos and their explicit embrace of modern industrial materials. While László Moholy-Nagy made specific references to using industrial paints in the mid-1920s, the verification of this practice in his painting Z VII (1926) represented a challenge to Tsai et al. Not only did Moholy-Nagy use various techniques, such as selective varnish application, to achieve “enamel-like surfaces,” he also reworked the painting with enamel paints in 1934. The finding of heat-bodied drying oils and highly oxidized resins indicating heat treatment of the oils in oxidizing conditions in both the Moholy-Nagy and Nolan paintings gives a strong indication of the use of household enamel paints.
In the case of Francis Picabia, his contemporaries made references to his use of Ripolin house paints and this reported preference has widely been accepted. King et al. are the first to corroborate Picabia's use of Ripolin based on the close correspondence between paint components in layers of The Fig Leaf (1922) and Ripolin reference samples. McMillan et al. were similarly successful in finding material evidence for the use of Ripolin by Vasily Kandinsky, who recorded that he used oil paint and “rip” in four of the five paintings studied. The availability of Kandinsky's studio materials, such as dry pigments, paint cans and tube colors, also permitted the researchers to identify instances in which the artist mixed these with Ripolin to achieve the desired hue. A cautionary tale on relying too heavily on artists' statements in determining the use of specific materials comes from the work of McGlinchey et al., who found no evidence of nitrocellulose enamels, but rather an oil medium for a painting David A. Siqueiros made in 1933, despite the artist having made that claim decades later. This observation underscores the crucial importance of critically evaluating both written sources and analytical data when conducting interdisciplinary research. Only a constant dialogue and cross-referencing process between primary sources and scientific data affords a true insight into each artist's aesthetics and creative agenda, while also gaining a scientifically grounded understanding of “how new materials transform artists' practices” (Tsai et al.).
The contributions contained in this volume, along with those from part one of this special issue, represent the most comprehensive exploration to date of the use of oil-based enamel paints by modern artists. The range of applications and experimental use of this material creates interesting challenges for the researcher but also provides fertile ground for further characterization and better understanding of works produced with enamel paints. It is our sincere hope that these rigorous, interdisciplinary studies provide a springboard for further research and new lines of inquiry into artists' uses of oil-based enamels.