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Abstract
The study focuses on the range of pigments and media that the Italian artist Lucio Fontana (1899–1968) employed for selected works dating between 1949 and 1968. Samples were taken from ten groups of works, all on canvas support, as well as from painting equipment that survived in the artist's former two studios. Techniques of analysis used were pyrolysis-gas chromatography–mass spectrometry for media identification, and laser desorption ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry and Raman microspectroscopy for pigment identification. Fontana's reputation as a daring and experimental artist, best known for his group of slashed paintings called tagli, is seen to correspond with certain unusual material choices he made. The study also points to several links that exist between seemingly unrelated cycles. These links are, among others, based on experiences with in part novel media such as oil, alkyd, polyvinyl acetate, acrylic, acrylic–vinyl, and mixtures of them. With regard to pigments, the selection of samples showed that they were mostly of a synthetic organic nature.
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank the various owners of works and materials for their generous permission to take samples. We are also grateful to the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) Center for Systems Biology and Michelle Li for access to their LDI-MS system; Robin O'Hern for help in analyzing and contributing to the LDI-MS database; Jens Stenger and Erin Mysak for their assistance in preparing figures; and to the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation for funding provided to Lynn Lee and Daniel Kirby.