This amazing book celebrates the beauty of the structures that Iie hidden beneath the surface of paintings. This collection of microscopic cross sections of thirteenth to twentieth-century paintings was selected from about 7,000 paint samples held in the archives of the Hamilton Kerr Institute at the University of Cambridge.
The paint samples used, each no bigger than a printed full stop, each contain their own universes - abstract and otherworldly landscapes streaked with strata of the most beautiful colours. A sample taken from a painting of flowers by Monet turns into a iridescent and bejewelled galaxy of yellows and purples, a Canaletto morphs into a slice through the earth's hot core, all liquid oranges and reds.
These samples, extracted from the very edges of paintings, taken to study the physical nature of the paint, or to throw light on an artist's technique or materials, find their own form here. The purposeful stroke of the artist reveals, at a microscopic level, another art beneath, one that could never have been dreamed of, and one that holds our gaze as the original paintings do.
Size: 155 x 202mm (Hardback)
Pages: 160
Publisher: CentreCentre
