Artist Renee Lammers

     "Copper As Canvas" by the Phoenix Art Museum can be purchased at the www.alibris.com  used book website for 91.00$ and up!  It is an important book for painters who paint on copper panels.  I thought I would write some passages from "Copper as Canvas" for you to read.  This is from chapter for by Isabel Horovitz.

     "When Malvasia wrote in his life of Guido Reni that paintings on copper were "easily recognizable," he implied that there were physical characteristics that give paintings on copper a distinctive appearance.  Even though many artists of different periods painted on copper, in a wide variety of styles and using diverse techniques, Malvasia's observation holds true, and it is in this technical context that we may search for some of the reasons why artists painted on copper and how they exploited its effects.

     The application of paint to metals was well established in technical tradition and was allied to a number of other artistic activities.  The painting of transparent glazes on metal leaf was first mentioned in an eighth-century collection of recipes known as the "Lucca Manuscript" and widely practiced in the Middle Ages. 

      The development of the use of copper is associated with the history of other unusual supports in Italy in the early sixteenth century.  In a technical contest, artists were experimenting with materials such as slate and marble to produce durable paintings showing a range of effects that could not be achieved with the more conventional supports, such as wood or canvas.  The availablity and accessibility of copper plates must have been related to their widespread use for etching and engraving.

    The use of copper as a support is generally associated with small-format paintings, where copper can provide a highly rigid, nonabsorbent, and smooth surface.  This helps to create a distinctively luxurious finish and richness of dark tones, and it facilitates the painting of minutely fine detail.  Perhaps artists were consciously experimenting to find ways of interpreting images more intensely, and in particluar to create extraordinary masterpieces on a small scale.

     Some paintings on copper are in pristine condition and thus are exceptionally close to their original appearance, especially when compared to paintings on wooden panel or canvas, where deterioration of the support and interventions to the structure by restoration, such as lining, distort the image.  Many of the most exquisitely executed works on copper by artists such as Guido Reni, Jan Brueghel I, or Joachim Wtewael, for example are still in such fine condition that their mastery can be appreciated to the full.

     This chapter will examine the production of the copper support and will highlight some of the documentary sources relating to its preparation for painting.  By looking more closely as its influence on the handling, appearance, and durability of the painting, and its use by cetain artists to particular effect, it is hoped to give some insight as to why the support was chosen.

                                       COPPER PLATES AS A SUPPORT FOR PAINTINGS

     Copper plates were available during the sixteenth century for other artistic activities, such as enameling, etching, and engraving.  Many painters also produced etchings and engravings and were therefore familiar with the materials and techniques of these arts.  Some artists may themselves have carried out final finishings of the plates, following instructions with which many of them would have been familiar for etching.  "At first you buy the copper rough, then you have it planished, if you cannot do it yourself."

     A plate's level of finish can provide an indication of its original purpose of production.  Some plates are completely frat, free of any clues as to manufacture such as hammer marks or rolls, and have very regular parallel sides with well rounded edges and corners.  Such plates which typically measure a mean thickness of 2/32 inch (1 mm.), could have been produced for use as printing plates.  But there appears to be only occasional reuse of a printing plate, where an engraving or etching can be found on the reverse of the painting.  An artist in the circle of Pieter Gysels' reusing a Rembrandt etching plate to paint a landscape is one such example.  It is even rarer to find a print underneath a painting, as in "Tobias and the Archangel Raphael" attributed to Elsheimer where an engraved image can be seen through the paint film when lit from the side.  The state of the plate would have been obvious to the artist as he obtained it, and it is puzzling why some artist used plates that have a very high level of finish, almost like printing plates, whereas others seemed satisfied with quite roughtly produced sheets, with jagged edges.

     The method of manufacture of the plate has an effect on the visual appearance of the painting and its behavior mechanically.  Whether the metal have been heavily worked, as well as size and thickness, are relevant.  A highly worked sheet of copper will be less flexible than one that is not highly worked, and this is why quite thin (0.5mm) sheets of copper can provide such excellent rigid supports for paint films. 

     In the battery (or beating) process, hammers weighing up to 500 pounds, usually powered by water, pounded sheets of copper from cakes or ingots.  The sheets were cut with water-powered shears, and often then subjected to repeated battering in stacks.  A very high level of refinement was possible with hammers.  After a sheet was formed, it could then be smoothed by hand with a planishing hammer, which had a wide, circular, flat head, and if not too heavy would easily flatten only the surface of the copper.

    The majority of paintings on copper are small in format compared to dimensions that were possible for wooden panels or canvas, the latter being particularly suitable for large-scale work.  The size, combined with ease of preparation, may account for the popularity of painting on copper during the period not just for fine painting, but also for the large numbers of more modest portraits, devotional works for newly married couples, novice nuns, and papal gifts.  The fact that the support was also durable made there paintings expecially portable.  Some paintings had its own elaborately painted traveling case.

     Occasionally large single sheets of copper were  used-for example, by David Teniers II, who often used rolled sheets.  His painting, "The Archduke Leopold willem in His Painting Gallery in Brussels measures 41-3/4 X50-34 (106x129).  In rare instances, large scale altarpieces were executed on copper consisting of several plates that were joined by riveting and soldering.  Domenichino's altarpieces for the Capella Del Tesoro in San Gennaro,  Naples, measure 110-1/4 x 59 (280 x 150) and one is more than 11 ft x 8 ft.  The difficulties of making and handling this size and weight of nearly 882 pounds are well recorded.

     Sometimes copper plates were coated with silver-colored alloys.  Despite references in catalogs to "Silvered" copper, when annalyzed, these coatings have been found to consist of tin or lead-tin alloys, not silver.  Such tinning provides resistance to corrosion with minimal increase in thickness or weight.  Thee are many medieval recipes for coating copper for decorative purposes. 

     The reasons why artists used tinned plates are difficult to establish.  Relatively few paintings on copper appear to have been executed on coated sheets, though certain artists favored them.  In some paintings the effects may not be obvious.  A tin coating would have offered resistance to corrosion;  however, under indoor conditions, copper does not readily corrode.  Artists may have thought that an interlayer would prevent reactions occurring between the copper and the oil paint, or ensure good adhesion.  In paintings examined, however, there is nothing to suggest that adhesion is influenced by the presence of coatings.

     Certain paintings, such as Reni's "The Coronation of the Virgin" and Elsheimer's "The Stoning of St. Stephen" achieved an incredible luminosity through the use of a silver-colored metallic coating.  An unusual tonal quality is created by the metallic brightness beneath the ground and paint, which intensifies the clarity and brilliance of these masterpieces.  Paradoxically, however, the presence of a coating usually is not known unless a detailed examination is carried out.  Indeed, some works provide no hint of being painted on coated copper.  



"Monhegan Island's Swim Beach" 8x10 oil on copper panel.  sold.

     Tomorrow I will write more about the preparation of the support prior to painting.  I hope you find this interesting. 

     I am taking Duke and Daisy to the beach now.  They love to hunt for minnows in shallow waters.  Have a great night.  Get out and paint!