Tate Gallery paintings conservators have produced two splendid volumes of conservation-based information in the past year. Like the National Gallery’s “making and meaning” series, the Tate volumes bring the sometimes intimidating lingo of conservation out of the conservator’s chemistry laboratory and onto the coffee table of the art lover. A parade of traditional artists from the 16th century (Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger), through the pre-Raphaelites (John Everett Millais, William Holman Hunt) pass before the eyes of the paintings conservators and are held up for scrutiny in 30 separate chapters, each of them focusing on one painting. The research includes analyses of the works of several modern, but more tradition-bound, artists, such as Stanley Spencer and Francis Bacon, both of whom worked principally in oils. Virtually the entire staff of the Tate paintings conservation department has contributed the fruits of years of research, and the result is an interesting amalgam of styles. The chapters are arranged according to the nature of the painting support; that is, the first and largest group of paintings analysed is works on canvas, and later chapters are devoted to paintings on panels, and finally paintings on paper. Rich material comes from the analysis of the more complex painters such as Sir Joshua Reynolds, whose experimental techniques spawned a whole school of dubiously constructed paintings in the 18th century. Of the many aspects of superb production of Paint and purpose, only the cover is a disappointment: it is a “greatest-hits” picture postcard.
Originally appeared in The Art Newspaper as 'Stephen Hackney, Rica Jones and Joyce Townsend (eds), Paint and purpose: a study of technique in British art (Tate Publications, London, 2000), 216 pp, 74 b/w ills, 116 col. ills, £19.99 (pb) ISBN 1854372483'