(Press-News.org) The chrome yellow pigment that renowned post-Impressionist artist Vincent van Gogh favored in priceless masterpieces like Sunflowers, the Yellow House and Wheatfield with Crows is especially sensitive to certain types of light and should be protected to prevent darkening. That's the conclusion of a series of studies in ACS' journal Analytical Chemistry, which could help preserve masterpieces by van Gogh and contemporaries like Gauguin, Cézanne and others.
Koen Janssens and colleagues explain that the chrome yellow pigment used by van Gogh and others in the 19th and 20th centuries is especially susceptible to darkening. For example, what was once a vibrant yellow sunflower might appear brown and muddied a century later. In previous research in Analytical Chemistry, the scientists found that this alteration is at least partially due to a change in the oxidation state of the chromium in this type of pigment over time. In the current work, they wanted to determine the color change effects of shining different types of light on the yellow pigment.
They conducted laboratory tests with lab-made pigments that were similar in composition to pigments that van Gogh used, as well as a historical paint sample from Rik Wouters, a Belgian artist active in the late 1800s/early 1900s. Those chrome yellow paint samples that also are rich in sulfates were highly susceptible to browning, especially in regular, UV and blue light. The researchers suggest that to prevent darkening, art collectors and gallery owners should minimize their paintings' exposure to light in the blue/violet/ultra-violet range.
###
The authors acknowledge funding from ESRF; the Interuniversity Attraction Poles Programme – Belgian Science Policy; the Research Fund of the University of Antwerp, Belgium; FWO; the European Union FP7 program CHARISMA and MIUR.
The American Chemical Society is a nonprofit organization chartered by the U.S. Congress. With more than 164,000 members, ACS is the world's largest scientific society and a global leader in providing access to chemistry-related research through its multiple databases, peer-reviewed journals and scientific conferences. Its main offices are in Washington, D.C., and Columbus, Ohio.
To automatically receive news releases from the American Chemical Society, contact newsroom@acs.org.
Preserving van Gogh's priceless masterpieces
2012-11-14
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
Boosting the sensitivity of airport security screening
2012-11-14
Scientists are reporting a simple way to improve the sensitivity of the test often used to detect traces of explosives on the hands, carry-ons and other possessions of passengers at airport security screening stations. Their report appears in ACS' The Journal of Physical Chemistry C.
Yehuda Zeiri and colleagues explain that most tests for traces of explosives begin by rubbing a swab made from glass fiber, Teflon or cotton over the suspect material. Analysis of the swab in a detector — usually a device called an ion mobility spectrometer — alerts agents to any explosive ...
Ingredient in diarrhea medicine leads to sustainable new farm fertilizer
2012-11-14
The search for a sustainable slow-release fertilizer — a key to sustaining global food production at a time of burgeoning population growth — has led scientists to an ingredient used in some diarrhea medicines. They describe use of the substance, attapulgite, as a "carrier" for plant nutrients in a report in ACS' journal Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research.
Boli Ni and colleagues explain that about half of the 150 million tons of fertilizer used worldwide every year goes to waste. That's because most fertilizers release nutrients too fast for the crops to use. ...
Nanometer-scale diamond tips improve nano-manufacturing
2012-11-14
One of the most promising innovations of nanotechnology has been the ability to perform rapid nanofabrication using nanometer-scale tips. The fabrication speed can be dramatically increased by using heat. High speed and high temperature have been known to degrade the tip… until now.
"Thermal processing is widely used in manufacturing," according to William King, the College of Engineering Bliss Professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. "We have been working to shrink thermal processing to the nanometer scale, where we can use a nanometer-scale heat ...
Life and death in a star-forming cloud
2012-11-14
The aftershock of a stellar explosion rippling through space is captured in this new view of supernova remnant W44, which combines far-infrared and X-ray data from ESA's Herschel and XMM-Newton space observatories.
W44, located around 10 000 light-years away within a forest of dense star-forming clouds in the constellation of Aquila, the Eagle, is one of the best examples of a supernova remnant interacting with its parent molecular cloud.
The product of a massive star that has already reached the end of its life and expelled its outer layers in a dramatic explosion, ...
You can be a star -- on science's stage
2012-11-14
The rapid growth in "citizen science" projects during the past decade is enabling more and more science enthusiasts, hobbyists, students and other ordinary people to participate in the excitement of real-world scientific research and help solve serious scientific mysteries. That's the topic of the cover story in Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN), the weekly newsmagazine of the American Chemical Society, the world's largest scientific society.
Deirdre Lockwood, C&EN contributing editor, traces the growth of citizen science from the Audubon Christmas Bird Count of 1900 ...
Television: Chronicle of a death foretold?
2012-11-14
Not only is TV not endangered, but it also has a unifying social impact on the nuclear family across the country. This is the main conclusion of a cross-Canada study—Are the Kids All Right?—on the television viewing habits of families with at least one child aged between 9 and 12 years. The study was conducted by a team of researchers led by André H. Caron, professor of communications at Université de Montréal and Director of the Centre for Youth and Media Studies (CYMS).
"Young Canadians today live in a different world than that experienced by previous generations. In ...
Could poor sleep contribute to symptoms of schizophrenia?
2012-11-14
Neuroscientists studying the link between poor sleep and schizophrenia have found that irregular sleep patterns and desynchronised brain activity during sleep could trigger some of the disease's symptoms. The findings, published in the journal Neuron, suggest that these prolonged disturbances might be a cause and not just a consequence of the disorder's debilitating effects.
The possible link between poor sleep and schizophrenia prompted the research team, led by scientists from the University of Bristol, the Lilly Centre for Cognitive Neuroscience and funded by the ...
World's largest respiratory genetics study launches on World COPD Day
2012-11-14
Researchers from the Universities of Nottingham and Leicester are leading the largest ever study of the genetics relating to lung disease.
The project will investigate what determines an individual's lung health and why smoking harms the lungs of some people more than others and will use health information held by UK Biobank, a major national resource holding health information from half a million volunteers.
The study, funded by the Medical Research Council (MRC) and also involving scientists at St George's, University of London, is aiming to shed light on why some ...
How safe are our roads for Bradley and the nation's cyclists?
2012-11-14
A new government-funded study is to be carried out into how Britain's roads could be made safer for cyclists to reduce the risk of cycling injuries, encourage more people to use bikes and improve public health.
Amid fresh calls for action on road safety after the recent separate accidents involving world-famous cyclist Bradley Wiggins and the top cycling mentor Shane Sutton, researchers at The University of Nottingham are leading a study which will assess the effectiveness of the current cycling infrastructure and ask 'which features installed for cyclists are most effective ...
What lies beneath? New survey technique offers detailed picture of our changing landscape
2012-11-14
A new surveying technique developed at The University of Nottingham is giving geologists their first detailed picture of how ground movement associated with historical mining is changing the face of our landscape.
The new development by engineers at the University has revealed a more complete map of subsidence and uplift caused by the settlement of old mines in the East Midlands and other areas of the country and has shown that small movements in the landscape are bound by natural fault lines and mining blocks.
It appears to support concerns that movement associated ...