20th century artists’ oil paints: The case of the Olii by Lucio Fontana

Abstract During the 20th century, many innovative binders have been rapidly introduced to the art world and soon became popular as artists’ paints and pictorial media. However, despite the advantages that new synthetic materials presented, oil paints have never been entirely substituted. Indeed, this paper focuses on the results provided by the scientific analysis of a group works from the oeuvre of Lucio Fontana (1899–1968), all of which created between 1960 and 1964 using oil-based media, and aims to illustrate how oils contained in the pictorial media have influenced these works’ respective ageing and degradation processes. Despite the apparent coherence in the behaviour of many of Fontana's creations, some artworks revealed discrepancies in terms of the physical and mechanical behaviour of the pictorial films and in alterations resulting from degradation processes. Samples taken from case studies belonging to the Olii and Fine di Dio series were analysed using optical microscopy, X-Ray Fluorescence (XRF), Fourier-Transform Infrared Spectroscopy in attenuated total reflectance (FTIR-ATR) and Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry (GC-MS) in order to study and identify the materials employed by the artist and the products of their degradation processes. These analyses gave unexpected but useful results (such as the presence of non-drying or slow-drying oils in the paint formulations) which not only provided us with new insight into the nature of the constituent materials, but also facilitated the elaboration of correct conservation measures and suitable restoration interventions.