The Master Keys
A Painter’s Treatise on the Pictorial Technique of Oil Painting
by
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Although in agreement with the late conservator David Rosen on many issues concerning the restoration of paintings broached in his article “Preservation Versus Restoration,” I vehemently disagree with his observation, “We have come to realize that no living person can duplicate the painted surface of the masters.” The painted surfaces of the masters’ works were dependent upon technical innovations that could only be arrived at through a process of reasoning. Such reasoning is in the province of nature’s teaching, and as we know, what nature will teach to one, she will also teach to another. Unlike the majority of art historians, picture cleaners, and paint chemists, artists are craftsmen. Their craft is their means of self-expression and livelihood. Thus the artist approaches painting realistically knowing that the make-up of a paint structure is revealed for the most part by the manner in which that structure performs. Therefore, paintings that have retained their freshness over hundreds of years must owe their quality to other than the “oil-simple” pictorial vehicles and practices generally employed in our time. Never could a thoughtful painter believe that the precious transparent qualities and brilliant colours we enjoy in 15th Century oil painting were merely the result of time or, as naively suggested by Emile Renders, by polishing the painted surface with an agate. Painters also know that desire alone cannot enforce style. They would be the first to agree that the technical methods employed by Rubens and Rembrandt could not have been identical with those employed by van Eyck. Nor could the technical methods of Titian and Tintoretto be identical with those employed by Antonello da Messina. Painterly response, an element which none but the painter can identify, determines style. Through awareness of that intangible element, the painter equates brilliance and embodied transparency with varnishes and unctuous compounds. Just as the need for a prearranged underdrawing, coupled with a laminated style, would be equated with a limited pictorial vehicle, so playful invention would be associated with a more immediately responsive and tractable pictorial vehicle. And immediacy, coupled with tractability, bring to mind siccative grasp which would logically be equated with accelerated drying and drying agents. This considered, it may be said that most painters speak a common language even though they may not agree on its interpretation. They would all agree, however, that things that are painterly are in the domain of the painter’s science. A science based not merely on theory, but one that demands tactile and visual response. Thus, the material and technical problems faced by the masters of the past also face the painters of today who would emulate their style.
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About the Book
Painting is not a vagabond’s craft. From the 15th through the 17th Centuries, painters studied past techniques in order to evaluate the possibility of improvement through a process of logical progression. This book is divided into chapters (Keys) that explain each a major step forward in technique and propose the master to whom credit should be given.
About the Author
After Frank Redelius was discharged from the United States Marine Corps, during which he experienced 34 days of combat during the invasion of Iwo Jima, he began his artistic career. He enrolled in the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore, Maryland. There he came under the tutelege and influence of Jacques Maroger, author of The Secret Formulas and Techniques of the Old Masters. When he finished his postgraduate studies, he graduated with honors in 1950-51 and became Maroger’s principal technical assistant. Redelius continued to work with Maroger until the evening of Maroger’s death in 1962 when he and Madame Maroger heard him draw his last breath. It was then that Redelius—at Maroger’s request—continued the research, primarily involving the Maroger Medium. On his deathbed Maroger had been dictating to Redelius a revision of his book. As Redelius researched and experimented he began to question and reevaluate some of the theories, principles, and practices in The Secret Formulas. This book, The Master Keys, uses resources unavailable to Maroger and is a result of thirty-five years work to make their dream come true.