| AVS 61st International Symposium & Exhibition | |
| Conservation Studies of Heritage Materials Focus Topic | Thursday Sessions |
| Session CS-ThA |
| Session: | Conservation Studies of Heritage Materials 2 |
| Presenter: | Naoko Sano, NEXUS, Newcastle University, UK |
| Authors: | N. Sano, NEXUS, Newcastle University, UK P.J. Cumpson, NEXUS, Newcastle University, UK E. Cwiertnia, Northumbria University, UK B.W. Singer, Northumbria University, UK |
| Correspondent: | Click to Email |
To conserve old masterpieces is, of course, critical but modern fine/contemporary arts also need preservation as future cultural heritage. Therefore, nowadays many modern artistic works have been studied using scientific techniques to preserve their condition. As with easel oil paintings, modern watercolour paintings represent some of our great cultural heritage from artists such as J.M.W. Turner, Paul Klee or Georgia O’Keeffe. For conservation scientists, the characterization of the binder and pigments in modern paintings is especially important yet problematic in terms of conservation treatments and environmental conditions for display or storage.
In investigation of modern paintings it is often critical to identify the origin of organic molecules in the paintings, since modern paintings have commonly used artists’ paints containing synthetic organic pigments due to their greater selection of colours. In addition, in terms of watercolour paints, commonly used binders such as gum arabic, gum tragacanth or honey are not straight forward to identify due to their organic content.
To contribute to a better understanding of modern artists’ paints for conservation, this study presents a scientific investigation into commercially prepared watercolour cakes and binders from the 20th century. Analysis focuses on the characterisation of commercial watercolour paints (red colour) that may contain quinacridone and/or saccharide materials, and shows different surface chemistries of the paint between powder and cake types. Moreover, we attempt the identification of the synthetic organic pigments and the plant gum binder from the watercolour paint using surface analysis techniques and principal component analysis (PCA). Especially, we feel surface analysis techniques such as x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), helium ion microscopy (HIM) and time of flight secondary ion mass spectrometer (ToF-SIMS) are powerful techniques for cultural heritage preservation.