Painting 'tricks' of the masters

Artists have been using 'tricks' to aid painting for hundreds of years, but as art styles change and technology improves, these so called cheats are getting more varied and advanced.

But if we look back at the old masters' works, they were much more simplified. Advanced technology such as X-ray and infrared allows us to look behind the layers of paint to see different aspects of a painting. Some materials such as chalk, ochre and organic materials cannot be detected using these methods, so there is always an element of guess work when it comes to unearthing the artist's secrets.

A recent book by artist Jane Jelly investigates the 'cheating' techniques of Vermeer (perhaps most famous for his painting The Girl with the Pearl Earring) by experimenting with her own work. By creating her own camera obscura, she was able to project her image up and use a dark paint to trace the outlines. This is a method that many experts believe Vermeer adopted in creating some of his work, as the lines and perspectives have been described as impossible for the naked eye to see and portray. You can read more about her findings in this Guardian article.

A recent study of his paintings found that 14 of them had small pin holes at the vanishing point. By tying string to the pin, he would have been able to mark out the perspective lines, probably chalking the line or drawing alongside it. Some experts consider this as another cheating technique, but we are now teaching this to art students across the world as way to become more accurate. This further proves the ever changing world of art, and how we are adapting it into industries across the board.