The Changes of Transparent Colours in Being Laid upon Others': Considerations for a New Perception of Glazes with Historical Pigments and Dyes

This article describes a reconstruction of 40 sequences of historical glazes used by most European schools of painters from the 15th to the 18th century. Its main objective is to visually document the appearance of colours overlaid with historical pigments and dyes, which have often suffered from a degree of deterioration that renders it difficult to determine their original appearance. We also seek to show the extent to which the historical glazes and overlays can alter our perception of the underlying colour. To this end, lab tests and sources have been used with the aim of suggesting a series of sequences of colour overlays that were widely used in the aforementioned period, so as to reproduce them on a canvas using historical pigments and colours agglutinated in oil, in accordance with the main painting techniques of the era studied.