Scientific Investigation Methods of Oil Paintings Based on Photographic and Spectrometric Techniques

Abstract

A scientific investigation on oil paintings is carried out nondestructively and noncontactly for conservation, elucidation of painting techniques and restoration of oil paintings. Photographic techniques such as infrared photograph, fluorograph, X-ray photograph, oblique lighting photograph and microphotograph, and also spectrometric techniques such as X-ray and reflection spectrum, are applied to the scientific investigation on oil paintings. Photograph techniques are done to observe the conditions and internal structures of oil paintings, also spectrometric techniques are performed to analyze the compositions and distributions of oil paints. These techniques of the scientific investigation have been established relatively early and are in practical use. Recently, novel scientific analysis methods and data analysis methods have been studied and developed. This paper describes the conventional and novel techniques reported for the scientific investigation.