CALIFORNIA ARTIST RECREATES the LOST PAINTING MEDIUM of the OLD MASTERS

Model Dressed as Rembrandt.                      Masha with Rose. 

Oil painting. J Corsaut.                                 Oil Painting. J. Corsaut

2010                                                                   2010

New York and California portrait painter Jesse Corsaut claims the secret of the long lasting, translucent painting medium of the Old Masters has been hiding in plain sight printed in old manuscripts for three hundred years.  Artists and experts from Sir Joshua Reynolds, Charles Eastlake, Max Doerner to Jacques Maroger all sought this lost formula to no avail.  The answer was so simple that none of them could see it.

Charles Eastlake, in his 1860 book, Methods and Materials of Painting of the Great Schools and Masters, printed recipes for various oils, but was under the misconception that the amber color noted in the old texts meant actual amber was used.  He also believed that the Old Masters painted with a resin oil varnish.  He was so set on this idea that he overlooked the obvious answer in his own book, which includes recipes from old sources describing how linseed or walnut oils were heated with either powdered lamb bone or warm oak wood ashes.

Because of Eastlake’s misunderstanding and his high regard in the art world, later artists and art experts attempted to produce his resin oil varnish for over one hundred and fifty years.  Recent advanced scientific testing of paint samples at the National Gallery of London have proven that there is little or no resin varnish or wax in the 17ty century Dutch or Flemish master’s works.  The artists Peter Paul Rubens and Rembrandt painted simply with linseed or walnut oil often heat treated in some way.

Corsaut’s experiences as a young artist at the Art Students’ League in the early 1950s, copying Old Masters at the Metropolitan Museum of Art proved frustrating.  Modern oil, paints just didn’t produce the nearly translucent quality of the originals.  Like many other artists of his generation, Corsaut was influenced by Jacques Maroger in his 1948 book, Formulas and Techniques of the Masters, describing a process of heating linseed oil with lead oxide and mastic varnish to form a gel paint.  Maroger claimed to have rediscovered Rubens’ lost painting medium.  It turned out that Maroger had simply resurrected a discredited 19^th century medium called Megilop.  Over time,  this medium cracked and crazed, ruining untold numbers of paintings.  One art restorer has said that his major business comes from efforts to restore such paintings.

Corsaut cites two sources for his rediscovery of the “lost” medium.  First of all, he read the Ernst Van de Wetering biography, Rembrandt: the Painter and his Work  which discussed the results of the tests by the National  Gallery of London chemists that proved there was no resin varnish or wax in the paint.  It was just linseed oil, possibly heated to Stand oil.  This left the question of what could cause the linseed oil to form a gel.

It was while watching a WW II TV documentary mentioning how Napalm was made that Corsaut had his “Aha” moment.  He found out that to gel gasoline, a small percentage of palm or other vegetable oil soap was added.  With that insight, Corsaut remembered some old chemistry books that had various soap recipes and found one that used linseed oil and wood ash.  Calcined bone works as well.

In 2010, it all came together and Corsaut formulated the oil and has painted numerous portraits and still lifes using it with highly successful results.  It seems to fit perfectly all the expected criteria for an Old Masters painting medium.  The oil gives the paint a fluid, thixotropic quality so there is no running.  It makes blending the colors easy without smearing or muddying.  It dries in two days with a soft gloss.  A painting can be completed in half the time as with modern oils.

In dozens of accelerated aging tests of  the rediscovered medium in comparison with other commonly used oil paints, Corsaut has found no downside.  It holds up as well as the best with no cracking or darkening.

Perhaps the real secret of the Masters was the time and place in which they lived.  A demand for large, detailed paintings led the Masters to develop a technology to meet it.  The painting medium was part of a highly developed system that evolved during the three hundred years of the Renaissance.  At the end of this era, the system was lost and so was the medium.  Yet it seems that the secret was as simple as the Rembrandt’s leg of lamb, or his wood ashes from roasting it.

Mr. Corsaut would like to acknowledge the assistance of Olga Perry both in locating the Wetering book and in participating in painting trials.

Mr. Corsaut doesn’t do email, but you may contact him at 986 Benito Court, Pacific Grove  CA 93950 or at 831-375-4940.

The Jell Medium

J.Corsaut studying 1 of 100 of Painting medium tests from 1952-2013

FORMULATING THE PAINTING MEDIUM

1.  Calcined lamb bone consists of a a form of lime: Ca(OH)2.

2.  Wood ash contains the alkali KOH.

3.  Heating linseed or walnut oil with 3% of either Ca(OH)2 or KOH for ten or fifteen minutes at 450 degrees F. causes the fatty acid of the oil to react and dissolve the alkali.  On cooling, the oil becomes a clear, varnish like, amber colored gel.

4.  Mixing a bit of this gel in each lump of paint on the artist’s palette worked to  give the paint the alla Prima handling seen in Dutch and Flemish masters.