THE HOW: My Involvement with the SOS Classroom Project

When Dr. Mark Marino first unveiled the Save Our Summer/SOS Classroom project around Mid June 2009, our Advanced Writing 340 class became immediately involved with his groundbreaking concept. Unbeknownst to many of us studying at the University of Southern California, we learned from Dr. Marino that the Los Angeles Unified School District had fell victim to severe budget cuts and was being forced to cancel summer school. It was clear that vital educational services would cease to be delivered to struggling students. As we listened to Dr. Marino’s presentation, the scope and impact of the school district’s cutbacks gripped each one of us like witnessing a train wreck. I myself experienced an almost emotional reaction to thinking about kids who would be prevented from accessing their classrooms at key stages of their academic development, especially in grades K through 8 that would affect their future.

Listening to Dr. Marino, I found the SOS Classroom project to be deeply appealing because I could see the whole class coming together to create something that would reach out to our local community and perhaps even the larger national community to further important educational goals. The project wouldn’t be about one person; from the outset it was clear about bringing multiple talents and ideas together to shape a significant resource. In thinking about it, the SOS Project wouldn’t just be about summer. It’s a larger project with the potential to be helpful to different kinds of students in different locales at different times of the year through the creation of a website where students can access a wealth of academic resources at www.sosclassroom.org. I was immediately excited that the project would use cutting-edge Web 2.0 technology in ways that haven’t been utilized before. The project creates an educational locus with unique social bookmarking tools like Diigo and del.icio.us, giving students an opportunity to explore the capabilities of these new technological tools in academia.

Enthused, I was given the position of School Liaison and immediately went to work in preparing to interface with LAUSD schools. My assignment from Dr. Marino was to obtain a list of principals' emails in anticipation of getting the word out about the SOS site. In a very real sense, the School Liaison position seemed to complement my ongoing appointment as a Congressional intern, where I’ve assisted the Director of Homeland Security. From my Congressional office experience, I’ve witnessed how first impressions and phone contacts can affect future dealings with interested persons and institutions. I felt my position as a School Liaison would require tact as well as gaining an understanding of the sensitive parameters within which to act most effectively.

First efforts in acting effectively and efficiently were aided by Dr. Marino. A great tool that has created momentum and organization has been Dr. Marino’s SOS Project Group Diigo daily update. Coach has consistently emailed these communications around midnight so that daily updates are accessible early in the morning. Additionally, pulling everyone into a zone of involvement, our emails from Coach constantly put us on track, placing everyone’s task progress on an organized list. Thus, through planning, the professional character of the project was established early on.

I went to work creating a phone log and daily activity journal in the same manner that I conduct work for the Congressman’s offices. Keeping track of phone calls, conversations and progress, I called the Superintendent of LAUSD’s offices and found a warm initial reception to my description of the SOS project. In that conversation, I enquired about getting principals’ emails but was denied this information by the LAUSD staff who declared the list off-limits. However, another administrative assistant offered to put me through to the Superintendent to speak with him directly about the SOS Project. Instead, I offered a follow up with literature and a future contact. That particular conversation describing the SOS Classroom project went well and I gained the telephone number of a key LAUSD team member. My unstated thought that ruled my conduct was that I was not personally authorized to speak in place of the authority of Dr. Marino and that such contact would be premature as I was simply charged with putting together a list of emails. At the point I made my calls, the final materials of the SOS project and the website were still under development per the Daily Diigo updates. As of the July 15th update, we’re awaiting the announcement of the official press release.

From phone numbers and further enquiries, I discovered hubs of authority within the LAUSD that could get the word out to schools. I compiled this list after making a number of long distance phone calls that enabled me to put together this short list as well as a list of schools’ emails that could be accessed on a per school basis. Some schools offered individual message boards to principals but no direct email addresses, while others did not offer the message board feature on their sites which I observed in more than a hundred schools. I put together a list of schools and remain ready to individually paste in emails to principals where message boards are available. Working with Taylor Randall, my school liaison colleague, we’ve kept each other updated on events and have kept in contact with Liz Warden and Matt Schrader who continue to spearhead the PR effort.

In continuing a deeper search for principals' emails, I contacted educators and discovered that the Orange County School District is more open about providing access to principals and the dissemination of information. However, my assignment was within the LAUSD and in this forum, I constructed my list as thoroughly as was possible from my limited access to information. Undaunted, I continued my enquiries, but came to the conclusion on legal advice that any emails I found other than those obtained on authority from the LAUSD would be considered an invasion of privacy and a matter for legal action. Nevertheless, I’ve continued to work independently on the SOS project.

From my combined experiences interfacing with schools and making connections, I’ve written a short report that contains suggestions for conducting school liaison activities. Independent from the update I posted, this document is a draft of some creative recommendations for the SOS project that take it beyond its present purview. I would be delighted to submit this paper for consideration if asked to do so.

Above all, I’ve wanted to continue the positive excitement of the SOS vision. I combed the web in order to post a dozen quality sites for students to log onto within the SOS classroom. I found Math Forum offering tips on math that would be useful to students studying at various levels of mathematics. I also selected the teaching and English language learning portal Waylink English, that links to the United Kingdom. Through the SOS classroom, right at children’s fingertips at their computer, worldwide educational resources can become available in an expanded learning environment.

Building on excitement in getting the word out, as an artist I’ve responded to the “Dream List” posted on the Save Our Summer update that appeared on Google Docs. The SOS lunch box, t-shirt and SOSIE doll are eventually doable but prototypes at some point will need to be built in order to obtain bids from production companies. In pursing the development of these types of promotionals, a lot of budget can get eaten up in commissioning professional resources to prototype these items. I’ve gone ahead and concepted some models for this commercial end of the project that can be stored in anticipation of a developing market. Additionally, I’m involved with building an advertising kiosk in support of my up-coming presentation promoting Save Our Summer. The SOS Classroom project is an innovative milestone of tremendous excitement and consequence. We're working together as a group on the SOS, and I believe the project is creatively moving forward!

Mediating Nature Through Paint: the Search for Meaning in the Canvases of Jackson Pollock

The seminal paintings that Jackson Pollock produced around the mid 1940’s and on into the early 50’s were perceived to distort normal frames of reference for viewing pictorial art. For art critics coming into a gallery space, each painting by Pollock posed something of a quagmire that seemed like a mirage of depthless space. Raw energetic networks of dripped lines eroded the boundaries of the picture plane to merge with the broader reaches of landscape. For many viewers, Pollock’s large scale works were indistinguishable from the traceries of canopied trees and the larger impression of the natural world.[1] For others coming into galleries, Pollock’s canvases seemed to function as broad dripping texts. These artistic manifestos posed a radical departure in shaping an inflammatory discourse that questioned the role of painting as a commodity as well as an object beyond the intentional manufacture of the artist.[2]

Over time, art historians, curators and critics have viewed Pollock’s art as embodying various liberations associated with Surrealism and the dreamscape, the trance-like automatism that seems to connect his methods to Dadaism and the child-like responses of Primitivism, all the while carrying the emotional and gestural baggage of Abstract Expressionism.[3] Yet, against each of these interpretations, Pollock’s art continues to remain elusive. Pollock’s paintings escape any easy categorization as his canvases continue to pose more questions than answers. As art historian Michael Schreyach observes, it is precisely these problems with various interpretations “that sustain repeated engagements with Pollock’s achievement in the first place” (Schreyach, 43).[4]

Of all the categories art scholars and analysts have devised to characterize Pollock’s protean accomplishment since his death in 1956 at the age of 44, perhaps the most compelling is our own view of him coming upon his work almost as a new discovery more than half a century later in 2009. Going beyond textbooks, as we stand perhaps for the first time before an actual painting such as Autumn Rhythm created in 1950, it is readily apparent that the Modernist-Cubist perception of instantaneous dimensionality radically transforms in Pollock’s art. In a canvas like Autumn Rhythm, we find ourselves at the brink of layers of latex poured onto a canvas that lures us over the cliff of the picture plane into a web of new territory. In navigating any one of Pollock’s works, the viewer inevitably comes to confront the impenetrable mystery of the artist himself.

Despite the debate surrounding the interpretation of Pollock’s oeuvre in the academic community, the purpose of this paper is to explore the aesthetic rationale of Pollock on the level of his own stark statement of intention. Indeed, this essay's goal is to engage in a new and expanded interpretation of his paintings that were created in the late 40’s and early 50’s during his “Springs” period that seeks to answer a basic question that continues to remain open-ended for art historians and the larger art and scientific community: What does a Pollock drip painting communicate? In exploring this question, this paper will look at Pollock’s canvases, Lavender Mist [1950], particularly concentrating on Cathedral [1947], through the lens of advancing science that has come to redefine and expand our notions of nature and reality. The paper will research some threads of the current debate over the rationale of his work, looking beyond the insights forwarded by physicist Dr. Richard P. Taylor in his paper, “Fractal Analysis of Pollock’s Drip Paintings." Instead, this paper will strike experimental new ground in coming to look at Pollock’s canvases as quantum diaries, extending the relationship of cutting-edge quantum physics espoused by Dr. William Tiller of Stanford University. Ultimately, the paper will explore Pollock’s paint as a door that mediates our expanding conceptions of reality and nature, leading us back to perhaps a closer understanding of Pollock both as a man and as an artist.

In seeking to understand Pollock’s art, scholars have turned to his paintings and his words. In 1947, Pollock issued his famous lightning statement about his art: where his wife, Lee Krasner, recollected in response to Hans Hoffman’s admonition that he should paint from nature, Pollock stated, “ I am nature” (Varnedole et al, 28). Yet, whatever Pollock may have ascribed to himself or to his aesthetic by way of that terse statement, prominent contemporary cultural historians such as Davidson and Lytle tend to discount oral statements and testimony as disruptive over the larger truth of probing Pollock’s life; a life best recounted in terms of his bare-bone artistic activities conducted where he lived.[5] Indeed, Pollock’s move to a new home at “the Springs” located in upstate New York in 1945, can be seen as a watershed point for Pollock’s productivity and inspiration. Physicist Taylor tells of the efficacy of “the many hours that Pollock spent on the back porch of his new house, staring out at the countryside as if assimilating the natural shapes surrounding him” (R.P. Taylor, 1).[6] More than 26 new canvases were created in the relative isolation of Springs, through concentrated artistic efforts that were photographically documented in Pollack’s studio over the next decade. Yet, to many eyes, Pollock’s drip paintings have continued to remain incomprehensible. As Taylor relates as late as 2005, “despite the millions of words written about [the artist], the real meaning behind his infamous swirls of paint has remained inscrutable.”

To many observers, Pollock’s statement, “I am nature,” carried the seeds of pure revelation that ushered in new ideas relating to natural fractal forms. Pollock’s Springs studio formed a rich focus of nature and art and there is no reason to doubt Pollock’s documented love of the countryside after having moved from the concrete jungles of New York City. As his agent, Betty Parsons, remarked about him, "There was a desperation about [Pollock]. When he wasn't drinking, he was shy, he could hardly speak. And when he was drinking, he wanted to fight.”[7] Whatever personal and emotional problems assuaged by alcohol Pollock may have experienced, they were greatly ameliorated in the fresh air of Springs. The full measure of Pollock’s admission, “I am Nature” formed the cornerstone of a New York Times 2006 article by Randy Kennedy, that introduced Dr. Richard Taylor’s work that measured Pollock’s drip paintings in terms of their natural ‘fractal patterns’ and ‘fractal dimensions,’ that seemed to prove and support Pollock’s love of life and his declared embodiment of the living world. Importantly, Taylor's identification of Pollock's unique fractal markings constituted an artistic signature that could provide proof against a group of forgeries that had entered the marketplace.[8] Indeed, Schreyach’s Apollo article attempts to cover Taylor’s concept of “fractal”: “A fractal, understood in its traditional mathematical sense, is a curve having the specific property that any small part of the curve, when enlarged, will exhibit the same statistical character as does the whole curve. In other words, fractals have a consistent geometric property evident on different scales or magnifications.

The property that is defined on the smallest scale, or the highest magnification, will resemble the property found on larger scales. Fractal patterns, then, may be discerned by taking note of such repetition at various scales. Natural objects such as tree branches, rivers, and coastlines, all exhibit some degree of fractal pattern” (Schreyach, 39). Perhaps a better analogy is broccoli: no matter how small the pieces of the head, even the tiniest floret will resemble the larger plant. Works such as Lavender Mist and Cathedral were pictured in reviews such as Art News Annual Volume XXXVI as early as 1957 alongside enlarged photographs of tree branches that seemed to intimately link Pollock’s work to well known fractal patterns in nature (Art News Annual, 92-93).

Dr. Taylor’s 2006 analysis of Pollack electrified the art community. Indeed, his website states, “After fifty years of debate, the answer to modern art’s greatest question has been delivered form an unexpected source – science.”[9] Yet, Taylor’s seemingly original fractal hypothesis echoed a much earlier exhibition, “Kunst und Naturform,” staged in 1958 at the Kunsthalle in Basel. The show, organized by J.R. Geigy S.A., a microbiology firm, exhibited abstract paintings alongside micronphotographs.[10] In the exhibition, Pollock’s Cathedral was "hung alongside enlarged photographs of glia cells of the human cerebral cortex” that matched the markings of his painting almost exactly. Yet, critics such as Schreyach as late as 2007 have been careful to note that the drive to establish coordinates in nature in relationship to Pollock’s canvases and in interpreting them as enlargements of physical phenomena, is a mistaken approach. Indeed, some critics believe that such a view leads inevitably to a dismissal of Pollock’s unique handling and conception of each canvas, riveting attention too easily on paintings that might become interchangeable. As Schreyach puts the matter, “We begin to speak about ‘Pollocks’ rather than Lavender Mist.”(Schreyach, 42) Carrying the matter further scholars ask, for all the noise about fractals, do mere fractals adequately define Pollock?

To many curators and scholars the explanation of Pollock in terms of fractals is insufficient. The referencing of nature in the view of critics, creates a false sense of comfort for viewers who feel out of water viewing Pollock’s non- objective, non-referential canvases (Schreyach, 43). To certain eyes, creating a program to ‘explain’ Pollock discounts the grandeur of his vision and work. As Schreyach complains, “So why does it seem so imperative to solve the discomforts of Pollock’s completely non-referential work?” As Schreyach argues, “Perhaps we have a deep discomfort with the seemingly endless task some abstract painting demands from us: a continual vigilant investigation of our own culture’s relation to ‘nature’” (Schreyach, 43).

It is precisely Schreyach’s call for a more incisive investigation of our relationship to nature that extends this paper’s discussion over to a more radical approach to Pollock which lies in the work of physicist Dr. William Tiller of Stanford University. As Tiller states on his website, “For the last four hundred years, an unstated assumption of science is that human intention cannot affect what we call 'physical reality.' Our experimental research of the past decade shows that, for today's world and under the right conditions, this assumption is no longer correct. We humans are much more than we think we are and Psychoenergetic Science continues to expand the proof of it.”[11]

In a certain sense, a better understanding of Pollock as an embodiment of nature perhaps comes with a brief review of some of Tiller’s famous experiments that have surprisingly redefined nature. Indeed, a group of eight Stanford quantum physicists were able to physically raise the pH of water by thinking about it.[12] In another of Tiller’s proven observations of quantum physics, rooms or spaces where intensive work was conducted were observed to become altered or conditioned to the point where working spaces or artist’s studios actually assisted the work people performed in them. Results from one conditioned or 'sacred' laboratory or space could not be produced or reproduced in another.[13] In another significant observation of quantum physics, intent and specific thought directed upon an object to raise pH imbued the object with the power to do so in the absence of researchers.[14]

Tiller outlines the quantitative documentation for each of these phenomena in his published case studies corroborated with physics teams, that can be accessed at www.thetillerfoundation.com. In a certain sense, in line with the opening doors of this research, we begin to appreciate the sacrosanct arena of Pollock’s Springs studio, not just outdoors as he is commonly documented, but returning to the significance of the interior of his conditioned working space as an integral part of his creative action and language. As Pollock admitted in the 1947 winter issue of Possibilities, "Painting in the studio has a life of its own."[15]

Indeed, quantum physics offers scholars perhaps a very different emergent description of Pollock's work. In a very certain sense, in light of quantum physics that emerge from Tiller’s White Paper VII, Why We Need to Create a New Reference Frame (RF) for Viewing Nature and How do We do It? (2009), the physicist offers us a working and groundbreaking quantum mathematical paradigm:

Q_M(t) = Q_e+ ∂_eff(t)Q_m(t)

This remarkable equation serves to more completely define Tiller’s observation that “human consciousness in the form of specific intention is capable of altering the properties of materials” (Tiller WP VII, 3). Within the dimensions of quantum reality as expressed in the connections of the above equation, Pollock’s artistic intention directed upon his canvas had the power to alter his materials. Along this energy arc that impacts substance and intent in painted energetic templates such as Cathedral, we find more than a composition built of fractals but rather, a composite embedment of Pollock’s thoughts and actions as he handled his materials in creating the work. In light of physics’ energetic reality, Pollock’s canvas Cathedral functions as a conditioned object that reflects the creatively altered space of the artist’s studio as well as Pollock’s actions and thoughts as a human being.[16] The painting Cathedral in a certain sense is a cathedral; a sacred reliquary space that has become conditioned with the thoughts, cares, concerns, hopes, dreams and the physical activity of the person who has come to pray or interact within the sanctuary of its environs. In such places and around such objects, healing takes place assisted by the quantum status of energy housed within objects and spaces (Tiller, WP VII, 9).

As Tiller himself has expressed it, "In the coupled state, we can measurably influence physical reality via intention."[17] That Pollock powerfully identified himself as the embodiment of “Nature” affirms his central positive energetic core that collected in the liquid lines of his technique. Whatever dark emotions may be ascribed to Pollock’s psyche, these too are in the work and constitute his color choices and handling of paint as linear maps and diaries of his inner state.

In light of these reflections, Pollock’s works are not passive objects that hang on a wall. Pollock's messages are alive in living mediums. They interact and cause us to investigate them and involve us at every turn. If we feel compelled to conduct a dialogue and question these canvases, then we are experiencing the motivation toward deep questioning that was Pollock’s ethos. Indeed, questioning can be filled with disillusion and angst as well as triumph, and Pollock is not alone in his complexity; Tiller stands alongside him at the threshold of the abyss probing for answers. That we question the meaning of these paintings to such a degree is perhaps an indication of the strength of their energetic embedment.

No easy translation is involved for the casual beholder of Pollock’s work. Both liberation and closeted anxiety seem engraved in his canvases as much as the angst of living remains etched on the lines of his brow recorded in his photographic portraits. Deeply complex, troubled, yet rising above doubt through the action and application of his painting, Pollock remains in his art and his art continues to involve us.

---

[1]Richard Taylor in “The Use of Science to Investigate Jackson’s Pollock’s Drip Paintings” Journal of Consciousness Studies vol. VII, no. 8-9, 2000, p. 116, comments on his seminal ideas on natural fractal forms occurring in trees, coastlines and other aspects of landscape that he applied to his analysis of Pollock, carried out by commission of the Pollock-Krasner Foundation.

[2]Lee Krasner’s Interview with Bruce Glaser [1967], in K. Varnedoe and P. Karmel, eds. Jackson Pollock Interviews, Articles and Reviews, New York, 1999, p. 28., tends to imply early confusion about the saleability of Pollock’s paintings as to whether they were actually “artworks” made with an artistic intention.

[3]Claude Cernuschi in Jackson Pollock: Meaning and Significance, Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1992, comments on Pollock’s surreal vacuum, linking him as an inheritor of Duchamp’s Dadaist manifesto through canvases that reaffirm the futility of common objects. He also explains Pollock's contributions to Primitivsm and Abstract Expressionism, with particular emphasis on constructing artist and musician biographies.

[4]Michael Schreyach, (2007) “I am Nature” Apollo, London July/Aug, p. 35 - 43.

[5]Davidson and Lytle in After The Fact, New York: McGraw-Hill, 2004, devote a chapter on oral testimony addressing the problems of self-revelatory statements in conducting empirical research into cultural histories in relationship to constructing artist and musician biographies.

[6]R.P. Taylor et al, “The Visual Complexity of Pollock’s Dripped Fractals”, Perceptual and Physiological Responses to the Visual Complexity of Pollock's Fractal Dripped Patterns', The Journal of Nonlinear Dynamics, Psychology and Life Sciences, vol. IX, no. 115 (2005).

[7]May 1947 “Jackson Pollock joins Betty Parsons Gallery” http://www.warholstars.org/abstractexpressionism/timeline/abstractexpressionism47.html

[8]Randy Kennedy’s “Computer Analysis Suggests Paintings Are Not Pollocks” New York Times, Art, February 9, 2006, introduced the assertion of Dr. Taylor’s work that the exact fractal nature of Pollock’s canvases could prove their dates of conception, thus discrediting a group of unattributed canvases that had come under question.

[9]http:// www.uoregon.edu/~msiuo/taylor.html

[10]G. Schmidt and R. Schenk, eds. Kunst and Naturform/form in Art and Nature, Basel, 1960.

[11]http://www.tillerfoundation.org

[12]Dribble, Walter, Tiller, W. “Electronic Device-Mediated ph Changes in Water”, Journal of Scientific Exploration, Vol. 13, No. 2, pp. 155–176, 1999 Society for Scientific Exploration http://www.scientificexploration.org/journal/jse_13_2_dibble.pdf

[13]William A. Tiller, Walter E. Dibble, C. Norman Shealy, Robert N. Nunley. “Toward General Experimentation and Discovery in Conditioned laboratory Spaces:Part II. pH Change Experience at Four Remote Sites 1 Year Later” The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine. April 2004, 10(2): 301-306. http://liebertonline.com/doi/abs/10/1089/107555304323.

[14]Tiller, William. “How the Power of Intention Alters Matter” http://www.spiritofmaat.com/archive.mar2/tiller.htm.

[15]Possibilities I, Winter 1947-48. http://www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/pollock_jackson.html

[16]“On the Conditioning Process for an ITC Lab and other Sacred Spaces,” William Tiller & Walter Dribble, http://www.worlditc.org/f_08_tiller_conditioning_0_process.htm

[17]“The Tiller Model” http://www.tillerfoundation.com/model.php

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Duchamp’s Fountain Press Release

“A new 'WOW' for Pollock!”
TGIPRESS

“In his newest article, Jack Hagel nails cutting-edge science to the world’s most controversial art. In this not-to-be missed essay, Hagel breaks new ground interpreting two of the most opaque subjects on the planet: finding new appreciation for Jackson Pollock’s ‘drip paintings’ among the formulas and findings of quantum physics. Hagel’s paper is truly eye-opening!”
…Daily Journal


Hagel takes on the art of Jackson Pollock and quantum physics in his new research paper: Mediating Nature Through Paint: the Search for Meaning in the Canvases of Jackson Pollock


Around the mid 1940’s in his Springs New York studio, Jackson Pollock dripped paint onto his canvas and declared, “I am nature!” Reaction to his new work in the art world was volcanic, striking venom in headlines that shouted ‘MANIAC!’ ‘THE DEATH OF ART!’ ‘DRIP DRIVAL!’ and ‘JACK THE DRIPPER!’


Clement Greenberg in a 1947 Times article cited Pollock as “the most important painter in America,” while other critics called his work trash.

Yet for all the furious backlash, scholars, curators and arts commentators have pressed ahead attempting to understand and search for meaning in Pollock’s seminal abstract art. Over the years, he’s been linked to expanding the vocabularies of Surrealism, Dadism, Primitivism and Abstract Expressionism. Recently, mathematics and science have entered the fray, with scientist Richard Taylor offering up the identification of natural fractal forms in Pollock’s drip canvases in an attempt to more closely link his work to nature. In the latest round of dialogue, Dr.Taylor’s 2006 insights have been sharply criticized as too narrow and limiting by University of Southern California’s Michael Schreyach, in his 2007 Apollo article, “I am Nature.”

Now, in 2009, Hagel goes beyond Taylor’s and Schreyach’s arguments, opening up a new approach to Pollock. In Hagel’s latest research paper, “Mediating Nature Through Paint: the Search for Meaning in the Canvases of Jackson Pollock,” Hagel travels back to the roots of Pollock’s Springs studio and reconsiders Pollock’s art in relationship to new expanded definitions of nature and reality and their reciprocal impact. Presenting a compelling and accessible interpretation of complex physics little known outside of the scientific community in relationship to Pollock’s enigmatic canvases, Hagel provides web links to further study the science as well as the art. In this latest essay, Hagel brings the combined world of science and art to a new level of meaning that travels well beyond the scope of the paper, delivering implications that may profoundly touch our lives.♦

Technical Diagnoses of Pigments and Applications in Historic and Contemporary Paintings: A Review of Literature

Over the past two decades, dealers, art historians and conservators in concert with recent developments in optical diagnostics, have sought to more fully understand what makes paintings unique to the artists who created them. Indeed, the press to identify and understand both the pigments as well as the application techniques that distinguish a genuine Rembrandt or an authentic Jackson Pollock, has gained momentum as more works enter the marketplace in the wake of escalating demand. The field of conservation as it relates to diagnosing characteristics of paintings seeks to establish scientifically-based technical analyses to the degree that unsigned, unauthentic, or erroneously cataloged works may be attributed with greater accuracy. Moreover, to many experts, the field of pictorial micro-examination employing various tests has helped to revolutionize conservation approaches and techniques which can then be adequately and judiciously applied to restoration efforts.

A number of advantages relating to technical diagnostics have come to be widely acknowledged. One of the boons of technical testing is the light it can shed on the intimate progression of how a particular painting evolved under a masterful artist’s brush. Indeed, in the instance of a deceased painter who perhaps made two copies of a masterpiece, diagnosing color application and composition in companion works can lend cross-referential insight into antiquated working methods beyond the viewer’s naked eye. In addition to expanding the depth of connoisseurship available to scholars, museums, dealers, and collectors, various types of diagnostics have entered the language of working artists themselves who have an interest in developing and refining their own paintings through a more thorough and scientific understanding of the techniques and materials that promote uniqueness and impact.

Despite apparent benefits and acceptance, the implementation of various kinds of pictorial diagnostics continues to stir levels of controversy. Interpretations of diagnoses and resultant restorations continue to come under scrutiny. Certain traditional authorities question the long term effects of the diagnostic procedures themselves. Yet, for many scholars and connoisseurs, the benefits outweigh the doubts, as diagnostic advances supplement rather than supplant the naked trained eye in interpreting the condition, quality, iconography, rarity, authenticity and subsequent dollar value of a painting. Techniques such as Synchrotron X-ray micro diffraction performed in Grenoble, France have yielded readings of complex elemental pigments that would be impossible to detect under the naked eye (Schreiner, Fruhmann, Jembirh-Simburger, Linke, 2004).

For those working either in front of the science or behind the curve of advances in the technical assessment of painted surfaces, some of the pressing issues that surround the field come in the form of questions:

• How does fluorescence microscopy go about sampling paintings for analysis?
• Can x-ray fluorescence spectroscopy (XRF) or Micro XRD be deleterious to fragile painted objects?
• What can be determined from scientific analysis of two seemingly identical paintings?
• Can other forms of scientific analysis such as mathematical sectioning and fractal optics be utilized in examining paintings?
• Are the discoveries from scientific studies on pigments and color only for the scientific community or can they be useful to working artists?

This review of literature on the diagnostics of determining the physical structure and chemistry of pigment application in contemporary and historic painting explores these five questions through the lens of articles and books by Schreyach, Aleson, de la Croix, and Aristides. Helping to round out the discussion, electronic databases of the Getty Museum Research Center join internet/database sources which also include studies conducted by Schreiner and his team at the Vienna International Centre for Diffraction Data. These resources join abstracts on pigment analysis including those conducted by Robin Clark at the University of London. It is important to note that the range of techniques that are used to assess paintings are also widely applied to the examination of sculpture, coins and other artifacts (Schreiner et al, 2004). Cited sources that accompany the annotated bibliography on Pageflakes provide documentation on various dimensional works in marble, bronze and terracotta.

• How Does Fluorescence Microscopy Go About Sampling Paintings For Analysis?

Conservation diagnostics minutely plumb not only the materials and chemicals layering the working ground and supporting structure of paintings, but analyze as well, any changes to works that may include painted additions, restorations as well as environmental impacts including age-related deterioration through layers of paint. Studies of paint layering are typically conducted through scraping off or excising a small physical paint specimen that houses a cross-section of strata. Embedding the sample in epoxy resin and subjecting it to fluorescence microscopy is generally productive in defining the structure of the layers (Schreiner et al, 2004).

• Can X-Ray Fluorescence Spectroscopy (XRF) or Micro XRD Be Deleterious to Fragile Painted Surfaces?

It has been argued that sample taking is deleterious to surfaces no matter how minute the particulate (Barabe, 2003). The Vienna Centre Diffraction paper acknowledges that since “chemical and many instrumental analytical techniques are destructive and require small samples to be taken from an object, the application of these methods upon objects of art and archaeology are severely limited nowadays." Interest in both X-ray fluorescence (XRF) as well as X-ray diffraction analysis (XRD) has increased in the last decades as both methods have proven to be sufficiently non-destructive if used with "care and respect to possible damage due to extensive radiation doses” (Schreiner et al, 2004). However, to many scientists, the primary advantage of present day methods of analyzing materials and methods of manufacture is that diagnostic techniques tend to avoid significantly touching artifacts. The non-invasive nature of the latest radiological technology is extensively discussed in the Getty article X-ray Fluorescence Spectroscopy (XRF) (Scott, 2003). Indeed, high energy beams have been determined to not immediately alter substrates of the canvas or pigments (Scott, 2002). However, century milestone effects of radiographic techniques have yet to be evaluated.

• What Can Be Determined From Scientific Analysis of Two Seemingly Identical Paintings?

Inconclusive evidence to the contrary, the significant advantages of technical diagnoses become immediately apparent upon examination of case studies. Certainly Aleson’s review of the Getty’s examination of dual portraits of the 18th century actress, Sarah Siddons, both painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds, reveals significant differences between canvases that were previously thought to be identical. Through a number of diagnostic techniques including x-ray fluorescence spectroscopy (XRF) it was determined that Reynolds expended much less detail on the portrait that hangs at Dulwich Picture Gallery in London as opposed to the one at the Huntington Art Collections in San Marino (Aleson, 1999). Advanced diagnostics revealed Reynolds changed his mind about color application in Siddon’s blue dress and thickly over-painted the garment to its present shade of golden brown. More importantly, microscopic examination revealed the binding medium of each of the canvases to be significantly different. “The Huntington version was painted in oil and oil-resin mixtures, in many layers of paint (sometimes as many as 20). The Dulwich version used a meglip-concoction - chosen to enable the later version to imitate the thick texture of the earlier picture” (Aleson, 1999). Thus, through advanced diagnostics, the artist’s evolution of his picture as well as his unique choices of color and paint chemistry, both of which had previously been hidden to the naked eye, became apparent. Indeed, through contacting databases of institutions such as the Getty, much useful information for working artists can be gleaned from careful study of the records from laser diagnostics.

• Can Other Forms of Scientific Analysis Such as Mathematical Sectioning and Fractal Optics Be Utilized in Examining Paintings?

Getting closer to the unique working methods of deceased artists has been the quest of experts as well as certain interested artists working today who continue to probe masterworks. Michael Cunningham, the Curator of Japanese and Korean art at the Cleveland Museum of Art, offers his viewpoint on assessing the creation of antique Japanese folding screens, and joins Juliet Aristides’ analytical discussion of how great painters of the past have orchestrated the picture plane (Cunningham, 2001). Artistides, who is an artist, joins other analysts who are keen to understand why some two-dimensional works are more optically pleasing than others. In an attempt to diagnose how color application is patterned on a picture plane, a full chapter in the author’s book, Classical Drawing Atelier, discloses the mathematical sectioning of a traditional canvas into what is known as the “Golden Mean” (Aristides, 2006). An artist’s unique propensity to create hidden “golden mean” abstract patterns in paintings that mirror natural organic ‘mathematical logarithmic fractal patterns’ found in nature, such as interrelated sea-shells, rose petals, and thumb prints, can help reveal the authenticity of an artist’s painting (Schreyach, 2007). Indeed, the presence of unique patterns in an artist’s technique constitutes an alternative form of signature (Aristides, 2006).

Varying methods of analyses can yield interesting results in the quest to establish specialized measures for authenticating canvases. Typically, as pointed out in both Schreyach (2007) and de la Croix (1970), authenticity rests with three factors: provenance, a list of a painting’s previous owners; connoisseurship, typically defined by the superior knowledge an expert possesses of an artist’s style that enables him to spot a fake; and material analysis which employs scientific methods that we have briefly discussed (de la Croix, 1970). Without subjecting paintings to radiological testing procedures, Schreyach leads a different approach to authenticity based on material analysis that references organic, biological science. Indeed, Schreyach’s approach attempts to find coordinates for the color lines Jackson Pollock uniquely applied to his canvases (Schreyach, 2007). It seems Schreyach is anxious to get hold of a new idea for material analysis since the introduction of twenty-four previously unknown paintings “putatively by Pollock,” puts pressure on seeking a radical new rubric that can verify Pollock through identically comparing his drip lines to photographic ‘fractal logarithmic patterns’ in nature. Schreyach outlines the idea that Pollock’s unique wrist and hand movements resulted in drip lines that are impossible for others to accurately replicate. In a sense, Pollock’s paintings are equal to his thumb print.

• Are the Discoveries From Scientific Studies on Pigmented Color Only For the Scientific Community or Can They Be Useful to Working Artists?

Not only does the unique application of paint internally “sign” a painting, but certain artists in the past utilized pigments that were composed of unique components. Contemporary analysis sheds light on these materials that can be of use to artists today. Indeed, chemical analyses that were predominant up until WWI have given way to techniques based on physics that have been developed to more deeply probe the identification of pigments (Clark, 2005). Raman microscopy, first used in 1928, has given rise to a technology that provides key “vibrational information on molecules in all states of matter including pigments, ions and lattice structures” (Raman and Krishnan, 1928). The advance of technology has greatly sped up and overhauled the original technique that utilized a “mercury arc as a radiation source and photographic plates as a detector,” upgrading to the use of “lasers as monochromatic polarized light beams of high irradiance that detect Raman signals from every kind of material” (Clark, 2005). Where colorants can occur in inorganic crystalline structures, XRD has proven the most effective method with which to clearly identify pigments (Schreiner et al, 2004). As a diagnostic technology, XRF joins XRD in proving effective in determining strong peaks for certain chemicals and elements such as arsenic, lead, and cobalt; witnessed in such projects as the restoration of an 18th century Koran, conducted by the Conservation Department of the State College of Buffalo. Indeed, testing revealed the crystalline structure for smalt, an ultramarine blue pigment made from ground glass (Beaty, 8). Indeed, such studies are important to present day artists who may wish to compound their own paints. In view of Raman microscopy, artists who work with color may be influenced to rethink their present ideas about pigments, coming to view them as almost living vibrational materials.

With new and sophisticated technological assessments, art experts and artists now have the advantage of scientific diagnostics to assist their inquiries into the chemical structure and application of pigments, broadening the scope of knowledge for the art of painting. Despite evidence from the Getty and other respected authorities, a problem perhaps still remains in the field of radiological diagnostics that awaits conclusive and incontrovertible evidence that proves such techniques will not play a part in the accelerated aging and degradation of the canvases that have come under testing; only time will tell. In the last decade, the advantages of employing scientific diagnostics to the application of pigments has outweighed the dangers, as more artifacts suffering from the ravages of time have increasingly required expert restoration. To date, technical diagnostics have significantly aided the effort to salvage our global cultural heritage and continue to enrich the knowledge of those involved in the creation of new work.


References

Aristides, Juliet, (2006). Classical Drawing Atelier. New York: Watson-Guptill.

Asleson, Robyn, (1999). A Passion for Performance: Sarah Siddons and Her Portraitists. Getty Museum Publications Newsletter 14.1. Retrieved June 17, 2009, from http://www.getty.edu/conservation/publications/newsletters/14_1/gcinews01.html.

Barabe, Joe, (2003). The Microscope in Art Conservation and Authentication Studies. True Colors. Retrieved July 3, 2009, from http://www.modernmicroscopy.com/main.asp?article=27.

Beaty, Katherine, (2005). 21st C. Remedies to 19th c. Repairs of an 18th c. Koran: Materials Analysis, Treatment and Housing. Retrieved July 3, 2009, from http://www.ischool.utexas.edu/~anagpic/pdfs/Beaty.pdf.

Clark, Robin, J.H., (2005). Raman Microscopy in the Identification of Pigments on Manuscripts and Other Artwork. (Sackler NAS Colloquium) Scientific Examination of Art: Modern Techniques in Conservation and Analysis. Retrieved July 4, 2009, from http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=11413&page=162.

Croix, de la, Horst, ed. (1970). Gardner’s Art Through the Ages, Fifth Edition. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World.

Cunningham, Michael, (2001). “Reverie on a Pair of Japanese Screens.” The Magazine Antiques, 108-113.

Raman, C.V., & Krishnan, K.V. (1979). History of the Discovery of the Phenomenon of Raman Light. Journal of Applied Spectroscopy Vol. 30, 510-515.

Schreyach, Michael, (2007). I am Nature: Science and Jackson Pollock, Apollo 35.

Scott, David, (2002). The Application of Scanning X-Ray Flourescence Microanalysis in the Examination of Cultural Materials, Archaeometry 44.

Scott, David, (2002) X-Ray Flourescence Spectroscopy (XRF). Retrieved July 3, 2009, from http://www.getty.edu/conservation/science/about/xrf.html.

Schreiner, M., Fhrümann, B., Jembrih-Simbürger, D., Linke, R. (2004). X-Rays in Art and Archaeology - An Overview. Institute of Humanities, Sciences and Technologies in Art/Advances in X-Ray Analysis, Vol. 47. Retrieved July 3, 2009, from http://www.icdd.com/resources/axa/vol47/v47_01.pdf.♦