Face to Face
A technical study of the representation of faces in European painting from the 15th to the 20th century. Project funded by the Federal Science Policy (Belspo) as part of the Fed-tWin call for proposals in partnership with the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium (RMFAB).
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he Face To Face project aims to take a fresh look at the representation of faces in Western painting through the lens of technical art history. The plastic means employed and the materials used to paint a face reflect the influence of a place, a period, a school, a style, and the author's arbitrary and personal choices. This is why, beyond its major interest for conservation-restoration, the technical and material study of works of art offers the possibility of understanding artists in a different way.
Face To Face is a scientific research project focusing on studying the materials and techniques used in the execution of several hundred faces by more than 75 major painters, mainly from the collection of Belgium's Royal Museums of Fine Arts. This research aims to gather sufficiently abundant and relevant technical and material information to distinguish between pragmatism, tradition, innovation and idiosyncrasy. To this end, European and Belgian masterpieces executed between the 15th and 20th centuries, representative and/or emblematic of the collection of the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, are being investigated, in situ, using non-invasive and complementary scientific methods. The range of imaging and analysis techniques applied includes hyperspectral imaging (HSI), X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy (XRF), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), Raman spectroscopy (RS), high-resolution photography, digital microscopy, infrared reflectography (IRR) and X-ray radiography (XRR).
The comparative study of a large corpus of works from various periods and countries, using a wide range of scientific methods, aims to accumulate material clues revealing the influence of the painters' environment on how they depicted faces. The systematic study, under the same experimental conditions, of a set of faces painted by the same artist will also reveal the artist's habits and preferences from a technical and material point of view.
In the first 3 years, over 75 paintings have already been analyzed and documented. This research has led to several significant discoveries concerning major artists, including J.-L. David, J.-A.-D. Ingres, G. Courbet, T. Géricault, H. Matisse, V. Van Gogh, F. Khnopff, F.-J. Navez and P. Delvaux. The importance and relevance of the scientific and historical documentation generated by this project were recently highlighted at , the exhibition dedicated to Marat assassiné, the emblematic work by J.-L. David, held from April to August 2023 at the MRBAB.
Scientific collaborations have also been initiated with leading partners, such as the Château de Versailles and the Musée Ingres Bourdelle in Montauban.
Contact
Partners
Université de Liége, Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique
Project funded by the Federal Science Policy (Belspo) as part of the Fed-tWin call for projects
