The Art Beneath - Spike Bucklow

Through these microscopic cross-sections of thirteenth-to twentieth-century paintings, Spike Bucklow unearths the hidden processes, materials and techniques of Rembrandt, Carravaggio, Artemisia Gentileschi, Walter Sickert, Claude Monet, Marianne North and more.

Within one sample of paint, the size of a pin prick or full stop, lies a vast and complex geological strata; a masterpiece by Titian becomes an abstract landscape of yellowing varnish, crunchy blue lapis, a silken slab of lead white, sea shells floating in chalk, egg mingling with oil atop of taut canvas.

The Art Beneath reorients painting as three-dimensional and durational, revealing the painter’s patient assembling (and conservators’ quiet retracing) of an artwork from ground up.

Centre Centre, 2024
Hardcover, 160pp 
200 x 150mm