The artists¡¯ materials of Fernando Melani: A precursor of the Poor Art artistic movement in Italy

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• 作者：Serena Carlesi ; Giovanni Bartolozzi ; Costanza Cucci ; Veronica Marchiafava ; Marcello Picollo ; ^{m.picollo@ifac.cnr.it}
• 关键词：Non-invasive analysis ; Fernando Melani ; Contemporary Art ; UV&ndash ; Vis&ndash ; NIR FORS ; FT-IR
• 刊名：Spectrochimica Acta Part A: Molecular and Biomolecular Spectroscopy
• 出版年：2013
• 出版时间：March, 2013
• 年：2013
• 卷：104
• 期：Complete
• 页码：527-537
• 全文大小：1136 K

文摘

A comprehensive understanding of both the chemical composition and physical behaviour of modern materials is an important consideration in devising correct conservation treatments for contemporary artworks. To this end, national and international research projects and networks have been established that deal mainly with the preservation, conservation, and understanding of materials used by contemporary artists.

This paper focuses on the self-taught artist Fernando Melani (1907-1985), one of the precursors of the Poor Art artistic movement in Italy, and for the first time provides a scientific viewpoint on the artist¡¯s materials and works. The analyses, which mainly focus on the pigments/dyes found in his home-studio, were carried out primarily by using Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FT-IR) and ultraviolet, visible, and near-infrared Fibre Optic Reflectance Spectroscopy (UV-Vis-NIR FORS). This paper emphasises the performance of FT-IR and FORS in the identification of contemporary artistic materials, since these two techniques have been found to produce highly complementary data. The use of both of these was required in order to obtain a comprehensive understanding of the composition of Melani¡¯s materials. Furthermore, one of his artworks, named by Melani himself with its inventory number N. Inv. 2625 (1981), was investigated in situ with the sole use of the FORS technique.

The results showed that Melani used traditional inorganic pigments as well as modern organic dyes. Calcite and barite were used as fillers and extenders. Sulphur and abrasive powder were also found, thus confirming his use of a large variety of non-conventional artists¡¯ materials.