Da Vinci's Secret Art Technique

Jacques Franck, consultant scholar at the Armand Hammer Centre for Leonardo Studies in LA, believes the Mona Lisa was painted in hundreds of sessions with a technique of ultra-fine hatching - or criss-crossing of brush strokes - some as tiny as a fortieth of a millimetre long. He says layers of extremely diluted oil paint were piled up on one another over many years - using perhaps 30 coats. For his finer work, Leonardo probably painted with a brush in one hand and a magnifying glass in the other. It was through this method, Franck says, that Da Vinci achieved the sublime effects which astonished and irritated fellow Italian painters at the time and have puzzled art historians ever since. Light and shadow on the enigmatic face and folded hands of the Mona Lisa move from one colour to another, and from one gradation of light to another, without perceptible "boundaries". Even the darkest shadows on her flesh seem to glow with an inner light. Other Renaissance painters went on to achieve something close to this effect. But Leonardo was the first to abolish the impression of a painting as a "coloured-in" drawing. His achievements in this area have been approached but never surpassed. Da Vinci took almost two decades to paint the portrait of Lisa del Giocondo, nee Gherardini, a Florentine gentlewoman. The Mona Lisa (an English-language spelling mistake for monna, or "my lady", Lisa) is believed to be the only painting Leonardo finished to his own satisfaction.
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Irish Art

Art Investment Fund Booms

Art investing is firmly back in fashion as prices soar for paintings from Old Masters to edgy contemporary works, and a range of new art funds is hoping to attract investors with promises of big returns. About six art funds are hoping to get off the ground, but in spite of a flurry of publicity in the past year, Britain's 'The Fine Art Fund' is the only fully-fledged venture open for business to investors with at least $250,000 available. "We've been averaging returns on art sales to date of around 35 percent in the last 12 months," said chief executive Philip Hoffman, former Christie's European deputy managing director. "Investors realise this is an interesting asset class." The fund has spent about 30 percent of its money on Old Masters painted between 1300 and 1800, and another 30 percent on post-1960 contemporary art more popular with younger buyers, and 25 percent on impressionist art. Industry sources say it is now planning to raise up to $100 million for a second fund, although Hoffman declined comment.
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Irish Art

Art Auction House Shares Sell-Out

Sotheby’s biggest shareholder has sold its entire stake in the auction house, a move that suggests it believes the booming art market has reached a peak, the Financial Times reports. Ariel Capital Management, a value investor, has sold its 12.3 percent stake in the art auction group. The investor first bought into Sotheby’s five years ago during a price-fixing scandal, when prices were low. Ariel said they still think very highly of the company and its management, they just don't think the stock is very cheap any more. Today Sotheby’s shares are at a six-year high, having risen 70 percent this year alone. Last month the group reported 2005 had been its best year in 15 years, with $513 million in revenue and a net income of $63 million, up 85 percent. The recent escalation in art prices has raised questions about how long the boom can be sustained. The biggest price hikes are in contemporary art and Asian art, where speculation appears to be creeping in.
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Irish Art

$5m Hidden Art

'Breaking Home Ties', which hangs at the Norman Rockwell Museum is one of the American artist's best-known and most popular works, worth an estimated $5m on the art market. Or it would be, if Rockwell had actually painted it. In fact, the museum's prized art exhibit has been exposed as a fake, almost certainly created by the cartoonist Don Trachte, who bought the original art from Rockwell in 1960 for a mere $900. Trachte died in 2005, but his sons discovered the original painting hidden in a secret compartment behind the walls of their father's house. It had lain there undisturbed, along with seven other valuable art works by contemporary artists, for the best part of 35 years. Why did Trachte forge a set of paintings that he already owned? It is most likely that he painted the fakes in the 1970s, before or during his divorce from his wife Elizabeth.
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Irish Art

Iraq's Greatest Art Treasure

The international tour of Iraq’s greatest art treasure, the Nimrud gold, should begin in Washington, DC, next February. There are likely to be around ten venues, after Washington, and these will probably include museums in Berlin, London and Paris. The tour of “The Gold of Nimrud” should raise around $10m for Iraq’s National Museum. The centrepiece of the show will be an accurate full-size reconstruction of the throne room of the Assyrian king Ashurnasirpal II at Nimrud. The site was discovered by Sir Austin Layard in 1848. British Museum archaeologist Max Mallowan (husband of Agatha Christie) excavated the throne room in 1950, but failed to locate the tombs of the queens. In 1991 Iraqi archaeologist Muzahim Mahmu found the tombs, with the thousands of pieces of gold. The treasure was then stored in the vaults of the national bank. Those who have seen it compare it with that of Tutankhamun.
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Irish Art

The Spirit Of Art

Bert Isaac, who has died aged 83, was one of the senior artists of Wales. His creativity never faltered through more than 60 years. Even in the face of advanced Parkinson's disease, he drove himself to make some of his most original and vibrant works. There was one subject Isaac made his own: the return of nature to abandoned places. From overgrown quarries to tin-shacked moors, he was fascinated by the transformation back to wilderness. His energetic marks and vital colours echoed the redemption wrought by the cycle of nature.
A remarkable outflowing of fresh, new work was represented in his final exhibition, just months before he died. It seemed impossible that the frail man in a wheelchair could have created this triumphant display, yet he filled three large rooms with recent pictures. He was working until two days before he was taken into hospital for the last time, his determination so strong that nurses found themselves handing him his brushes or changing his painting water. Even when the physical challenges he faced seemed unbearable, Isaac never referred to his illness and made work that was ever more vital and expressive. He and his paintings demonstrated powerfully that the human spirit - like the natural forces that were his theme - could be indomitable.
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Irish Art

Putin And The Art Scam

A sophisticated Russian art fraud worth tens of millions of pounds in which paintings by minor western European artists have been skilfully doctored to make them look like authentic 19th-century Russian masterpieces were then sold on for as much as 100 times more than they fetched at auction in the West. The dozens of other victims of the scam are said to include a leading Russian politician given as a present a canvas bought for £500,000 - persistent rumours in the art world that say it was President Vladimir Putin. Experts estimate that as many as 200 paintings were “Russified” to cash in on the fast growing passion among the country’s wealthy businessmen for home-grown art.
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Irish Art