Sérusier's Boys on a river bank: a technical examination
Notes

[1] The deformation is not a consequence of the weave of the canvas, which is even in both directions.

[2] This removal of the canvas from its stretcher was independent of a later removal for restretching.

[3] Although the upper paint layer covers the entire canvas, the paint has been applied in such a way that tiny areas of the underlayer remain visible. It is these areas that were examined with the aid of the stereo-microscope.

[4] Drip marks that run towards the right side of the painting, as if it has leant on that edge while some application of paint or ground was wet, are also revealed in the X-radiograph. It is also possible that these drip marks occur on the back of the canvas. In some areas, the cracking and tenting of the paint appears to follow the line of the drips.

[5] Samples of paint taken for analysis by cross-section are typi-cally almost too small to be seen by the naked eye. Under the stereo-microscope, a section of paint is removed from the edge of a loss or crack, with the aid of a small, fine blade; the sample is set in a resin block, which is then slowly sanded back to the point where the strata of the paint are revealed. This procedure is undertaken using the more high-powered compound microscope to check the surface of the paint as sanding progresses.

[6] SEM uses a beam of electrons, rather than light as in a con-ventional microscope, to produce an image of the sample. Magnification of between 20 000 and 30 000 times can be achieved on some instruments, but for the purposes of the present analysis magnification was in the order of 1000 to 10 000 times. In addition to the visual images produced by the beam of electrons, the X-rays generated during the bom-barding of the sample allow elemental analysis to be undertaken. SEM and analysis of samples from Boys on a river bank was generously undertaken by Ian Harrowfield at the CSIRO Minerals Division, Melbourne, and by Deborah Lau-Greig using facilities at the University of Melbourne.

[7] SEM [in this instance] could not detect carbon, but its pres-ence in the black, suggested by the morphology of the pigment particles under optical microscopy, could be deduced from the absence of other elemental data.

[8] The blue was found to contain both cobalt and aluminium, both of which normally occur in cobalt blue, though the cobalt count was very low, and the size and shape of the particles was not characteristic of cobalt blue [this was confirmed by Raman laser spectroscopy undertaken by Dr Kerry Nugent in the Physics Department at the University of Melbourne] . The blue material appears to have the same gross characteristics as the glass-based pigment smalt, although silicon, which is a major component of glass, was not located at part-icle sites in the course of two different analyses. Additionally, a single grain of pigment was tested by Dr Ian Madsen, CSIRO Minerals Division, Melbourne, using X-ray diffraction, to determine whether it was indeed an amorphous glass-based material such as smalt, or a crystalline mineral; however, the tests were inconclusive due to the very small size of the particle. Smalt is usually associated with much earlier use, but it was available in the nineteenth century [see R. Harley, Artists' Pigments, c.1600-1835, 2nd edn, Butterworth, London, 1982, p. 56].

[9] See note 3 above.

[10] SEM of the lower paint layer found chromium both in isolation, indicating chromic oxide [green] , and in association with lead, indicating lead chromate [yellow].

[11] P. Sérusier, ABC de la peinture [1921] , rev. edn, Paris, 1942, pp. 76-9.

[12] Tuulikki Kilpinen, head of conservation at the Ateneum in Helsinki, where the painting is held, very kindly examined the work in detail and arranged for analysis by Pixe/Pigme at the University of Helsinki. In this method, the paint on the surface of a work is analysed without the need for taking a sample, though the painting has to be transported to the laboratory for the analysis to be carried out. The technique is similar to SEM, but uses a beam of protons, rather than electrons, to generate X-rays and gamma rays in the paint at the selected site. This process enables the elements - and thus the pigments - in the paint layer to be identified.

[13] A lesson Sérusier had with Gauguin in October 1888 is doc-umented in chronologies of his life [see J. Warnod & M. A. Anquetil, L'Eclatement de l'impressionisme [exh. cat.] , Musée Départemental du Prieuré, Saint-Germain-en-Laye, 1982, p. 135. According to Boyle-Turner, there is some evidence that Sérusier also had contact with Gauguin in 1893 [C. Boyle-Turner, Paul Sérusier, Ann Arbor, Michigan, c.1983, p. 92] .

[14] See R. Pickvance, Gauguin and the Pont-Aven School [exh. cat.] , Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 1994, cat. no. 5, repr. p. 33.

[15] It was Children Wrestling, viewed by the author in the exhib-ition Gauguin and the Pont-Aven School at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, in 1994 [see note 14 above], that initiated further analysis of Boys on a river bank.

[16] Paul Gauguin, letter to Vincent van Gogh, July 1888, cited in Pickvance, cat. no. 5.

[17] For further discussion of Boys on a river bank, see S. Dean, European Paintings of the 19th and Early 20th Centuries in the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 1995, p. 109.

 

Paul SÉRUSIER
French 1864–1927
Boys on a river bank 1906
oil on canvas
61.0 x 73.2 cm
Felton Bequest 1948
1899-4