Kandinsky & Mondrian – analyzed!

What is concealed beneath the paint layers, beneath the surface of the work of art? How are works investigated for their authenticity without endangering them by removing testing materials? Jessica Lunk, Nina Quabeck, and Anne Skaliks, all conservators at the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, have joined forces with specialists from the Cologne Institute of Conservation Sciences (CICS) to quite literally “shed light” on works by Kandinsky and Mondrian.

The investigation and preservation of works of art are among the fundamental tasks of conservators in art museums. Each work in a collection is examined and analyzed in great detail. Front and back are painstakingly probed – with the naked eye, of course, but also with various technical auxiliaries, including grazing light, incident light, transmitted light, and ultraviolet, as well as the microscope. In recent decades, these views “into the depths” of works of art have become progressively more important – but not solely due to the prevalence of art forgeries, or propelled by the increasingly sophisticated techniques used to copy artworks. In order to avoid endangering the materiality of the work of art, the analysis of its pigments and paint layers has been supplemented by more contemporary radiodiagnostic techniques of investigation. These provide insights that may be unavailable to the naked eye: an artist’s delicate preliminary drawing may be concealed beneath opaque paint layers, or the identification of certain pigments may lead to conclusions about a specific epoch.

For conservators and art historians, new knowledge about the techniques and methods used in producing works of art that are acquired in this way is not only of interest, but even indispensable. The technological investigation and analysis of works of art make deeper understanding possible. It is also useful in resolving questions pertaining to dating, attribution, and historical contexts, and for identifying physical changes the work may have experienced over time.

For the exhibition Kandinsky, Malevich, Mondrian: The Infinite White Abyss, the works of Wassily Kandinsky and Piet Mondrian owned by the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen were subjected to a searching technical investigation. In carrying it out, the team of conservators at the Kunstsammlung received energetic support: specialists from the Cologne Institute of Conservation Sciences (CICS) at the Cologne University of Applied Sciences stood at their sides, technically equipped to perfection. Diana Blumenroth, Luigi di Stefano, and Professor Hans Portsteffen brought along their infrared camera, their x-ray fluorescence analysis device, and their digital x-ray scanner.

This made it possible to investigate Kandinsky’s “Continuous Line” (1923) and “Composition IV” (1911) and Mondrian’s “Composition with Blue and White” (1936), “Composition with Yellow” (1930), and “Rhythm of Straight Lines” (1937/1942) without damaging their surfaces, that is to say, without taking samples. We have learned that these artists used lead and zinc white pigments in their painting, both alongside one another and to some extent in superimposition. Were they striving deliberately for contrasting effects of white in their compositions? We can only speculate – but for our topic of the “white surface” in the works of Kandinsky, Malevich, and Mondrian, this finding is extremely illuminating regardless!

Jessica Lunk, Nina Quabeck, and Anne Skaliks are conservators at the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen: they are interested not just in the first impression made by a work of art, but in that which lies concealed beneath its surface.