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The Annunciation ca.1576
The Annunciation ca.1576
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The Annunciation ca.1596-1600
The Annunciation ca.1596-1600
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Christ with the Cross ca.1587-1596
Christ with the Cross ca.1587-1596
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The Immaculate Conception ca.1608-1614
The Immaculate Conception ca.1608-1614
The analysis of the materials and the sequence of layers found in the works by El Greco reveal certain elements that are repeated in all four and others that appear to have changed over time. Three factors seem to have been largely responsible for these changes: the influence of the painting method used in the places where the works were made, the use of local materials, and modifications in pictorial technique as a result of the artist's natural evolution.
Examples of these observations are found in the materials used on the innermost paint layers and in the composition of certain pigments. In all of the works we analysed, the artist covered the panel with a ground layer of gesso mixed with animal glue, thereby achieving a flat, uniform surface on which to paint. Next, the painter applied a coat of primer, whose colour is different in each of the four paintings.
The general tone of the primer used in the first work, The Annunciation (ca. 1576), painted in Italy, is a very light grey. It is made of white lead mixed with granules of charcoal to give it a subtle greyish tinge and a very small amount of calcium carbonate, probably to make the primer slightly transparent. El Greco borrowed this method of preparing the canvas from Italian artists. When painters in Italy began to use oils, many preferred to apply light layers of oil under the paint, mixed with drying pigments like white lead, in order to seal the absorbent ground layer of gesso and animal glue. White primers were often attenuated with small amounts of coloured pigments like carbon black or ochre granules. Italian artists adapted this practice to the medium of oil on canvas, borrowed from the 15th-century masters of northern Europe, with the supports and materials used in this region at the time.
In the next three paintings analysed —The Annunciation (ca. 1596-1600), Christ with the Cross and The Immaculate Conception— the primers have a brown tone that becomes increasingly reddish, culminating in the deep red found in The Immaculate Conception.
Examples of these observations are found in the materials used on the innermost paint layers and in the composition of certain pigments. In all of the works we analysed, the artist covered the panel with a ground layer of gesso mixed with animal glue, thereby achieving a flat, uniform surface on which to paint. Next, the painter applied a coat of primer, whose colour is different in each of the four paintings.
The general tone of the primer used in the first work, The Annunciation (ca. 1576), painted in Italy, is a very light grey. It is made of white lead mixed with granules of charcoal to give it a subtle greyish tinge and a very small amount of calcium carbonate, probably to make the primer slightly transparent. El Greco borrowed this method of preparing the canvas from Italian artists. When painters in Italy began to use oils, many preferred to apply light layers of oil under the paint, mixed with drying pigments like white lead, in order to seal the absorbent ground layer of gesso and animal glue. White primers were often attenuated with small amounts of coloured pigments like carbon black or ochre granules. Italian artists adapted this practice to the medium of oil on canvas, borrowed from the 15th-century masters of northern Europe, with the supports and materials used in this region at the time.
In the next three paintings analysed —The Annunciation (ca. 1596-1600), Christ with the Cross and The Immaculate Conception— the primers have a brown tone that becomes increasingly reddish, culminating in the deep red found in The Immaculate Conception.
Curiously, this undercoat contains traces of high-quality pigments such as smalt, lapis lazuli, azurite, lead-tin yellow and rose madder lake, whose presence in this layer can only be explained in the manner described above. Nevertheless, it is important to bear in mind that the heterogeneous origins of palette residue meant that the blend of pigments scraped off and used would not always have a uniform tone, which may explain why different areas of the primer coat present slightly different hues in the same painting. In all likelihood, incorporating these palette scrapings was a deliberate decision made to subtly enhance the nuances in this layer, so critical for achieving the desired end result, rather than a rational determination not to waste painting materials.