Let’s talk asphaltum!
Art — if you care to approach it that way — is a subject rich in many robust varieties of geekery. History, chemistry, exotic materials. I really am going to start an art blog some day, but in the meantime I’ll just bore you guys.
Take asphaltum. AKA bitumen or pitch. I was thinking about it today (as you do). In intaglio, it’s used to protect metal plates from acid — the design is scraped away with a needle before etching.
Mixed with linseed oil, asphaltum makes a beautiful velvety brown paint. Like dark caramel. It neatly mimics the appearance of Old Master paintings that have mellowed with age.
Joshua Reynolds experimented with it. That’s his painting of Margaret Morris at left (please not to be making eye contact; Margaret obviously has the crazy eye).
The highlighted area shows the reason asphaltum is naughty. It’s not really a pigment at all (technically, a pigment is tiny solid particles of a colored substance), it’s just a sort of hydrocarbon goo. It never dries. It doesn’t even try. So paint laid on top of it becomes more brittle with age than the asphaltum underneath and inevitably cracks. Oil paintings often crack, of course, but asphaltum cracks have a dramatic, distinctive appearance called alligatoring.
Asphaltum is so lovely to look at and the effect usually takes so long to develop, some painters wouldn’t give it up even so. Long about the 18th Century, some bright colorist wondered if asphaltum that had aged for a very long time until it was apparently dry and brittle might not be safe to use. Paint made from very old asphaltum was sold as mummy or caput mortuum.
They stopped selling mummy in the 19th Century because a) it didn’t work — it alligatored just as badly as fresh asphaltum. And b) word got around it was actually made out of ground up Egyptian mummies embalmed in asphaltum! And it was, too.
Posted: April 16th, 2009 under art, history, personal.
Comments: 24
Comments
Comment from S. Weasel
Time: April 16, 2009, 6:49 pm
The painting is from the Dulwich Art Gallery, which was one of our favorite day trips when Uncle B had a place in London. It’s a lovely little gallery.
In the lobby, there’s a large portrait with a MUCH more distinctive case of alligatoring. I pointed it out to Uncle B many’s the time. I even found National Gallery bulletin that discusses the alligatoring in this Reynolds painting.
Turns out, though, the Dulwich one is a copy (I didn’t realize). Both the original and the copy are badly alligatored. The cracks don’t show in the online reproductions.
Comment from Pavel
Time: April 16, 2009, 7:37 pm
Did you ever stop to consider what might happen if someone painted a portrait of an alligator using asphaltum?
Me neither.
Comment from dfbaskwill
Time: April 16, 2009, 7:49 pm
I got nothing! Art is what I call a man with no arms or legs nailed to a wall.
Oh wait… Egypt. I just read a book where an architect, never having been to Egypt, figured out how they were built using an internal ramp! Great read.
http://www.amazon.com/Secret-Great-Pyramid-Obsession-Solution/dp/006165552X
Comment from S. Weasel
Time: April 16, 2009, 8:12 pm
Yeah, but what do you call a native american man with no arms and no legs who still can’t sit up straight?
Asphaltum!
Comment from S. Weasel
Time: April 16, 2009, 8:25 pm
It’s possible I’ve been drinking.
Comment from dfbaskwill
Time: April 16, 2009, 8:56 pm
Some have recommended I start! (Meant to say Pyramids in the first post.)
Comment from Phineas
Time: April 16, 2009, 9:39 pm
Not a copy anymore…
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/arts/2249001.stm
Whcih reminds me of an Emo Philips joke…
” I was at the museum the other day.. I saw a painting from Van Gogh, and next to it a little card that read “Loan anonymously”.. So I go up to the desk and say “That’s mine and I would like it back now” but it didn’t work”
Man with no arms or legs in the letterbox? Bill
Man with no arms or legs under a car? Jack
Man with no arms or legs on the door step? Matt
Girl with no arms or legs at the beach? Sandy
and if she goes into the water Sandy Ducan
Comment from Phineas
Time: April 16, 2009, 9:44 pm
s/b Sandy Duncan
Comment from Jill
Time: April 16, 2009, 10:16 pm
Man with no arms or legs under a pile of leaves?
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Russell.
Comment from wendyworn
Time: April 16, 2009, 10:19 pm
man with no arms or legs in the water? Bob
woman with one leg? Ilene.
oriental woman with one leg? Irene.
Comment from iamfelix
Time: April 16, 2009, 10:23 pm
Didn’t the Pre-Raphaelites have some sort of mad on at Sir Josh? Or am I mixing him up with someone else?
Art! Another thing, like music, that I love but cannot do.
And LOL @Wendy.
Comment from Bob
Time: April 17, 2009, 1:28 am
After spending four college summers standing on 400-degree asphalt as the rear flagger, I’m really pleased to know the stuff has a higher purpose.
Comment from Peter Falk
Time: April 17, 2009, 6:13 am
Look at that bitch’s eyes!
Comment from Jack Elam
Time: April 17, 2009, 6:13 am
I know!
Comment from Marty Feldman
Time: April 17, 2009, 6:14 am
Creepy.
Comment from dfbaskwill
Time: April 17, 2009, 6:59 am
Great stuff. Beats the news any day. The Irene joke was new to me. I learn things everyday at Weasel Land, (not to be confused with that Mouse one).
Comment from Nicholas the Slide
Time: April 17, 2009, 3:41 pm
SHE WON’T STOP STARING AT ME
She’s reading my soul… 😯
Comment from Cranch
Time: April 17, 2009, 5:49 pm
Interesting post. Looking at the image, I like the serendipity of a similar light-colored shape at the center of both circles…I need to get out more maybe.
Comment from See-Dubya
Time: April 18, 2009, 8:44 am
Okay, smarty pants–is asphaltum/mummy the same thing as pissasphalt?
Comment from Sammy Davis Jr.
Time: April 18, 2009, 4:13 pm
What? I don’t see anything wrong with her eyes.
Comment from MCPO Airdale
Time: April 18, 2009, 6:29 pm
HAHAHAHA!
This is the funniest thread, EVAH!!!!
Comment from sillyblindharper
Time: April 29, 2009, 3:17 pm
man with no arms or legs in the water? Chum.
[glass]
SMASH
[glass]
I hope you do start that art blog sometime, Weasel. I would personally read it every day! You have an eye for the weird and wonderful, Ma’am.
Comment from Steamboat McGoo
Time: April 29, 2009, 4:52 pm
I can’t help it. I have to add my two bits:
Man with no arms or legs in a pot of boiling water? Stu.
2nd man with no arms or legs in a pot of boiling water? Herb.
3rd man with no arms or legs in the above pot? Basil.
Man with no arms or legs in a butter dish? Pat.
Man with no arms or legs hanging on a wall? Art.
Man with no arms or legs and no tongue hanging on a wall? Tasteless art.
Man with no arms or legs who’s cut in half? Les.
Man with no arms and only half-legs? Neal.
Man with no arms or legs who has diarrhea? Mark.
Man with no arms or legs who’s left out on the lawn overnight? Dewey.
Man with no arms or legs laying in a coffee cup? Joe.
Man with no arms or legs who is used as a sex object? Dick.
Man with no arms or legs who is shoved into a hole? Phil.
Man with no arms or legs who also has no head? Chester.
Man with no arms or legs laying under a bed? Dusty.
Comment from Steamboat McGoo
Time: April 29, 2009, 5:04 pm
Man with no arms or legs who is water skiing? Skip.
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