The Artist, Michael Price

From Poussin, Dance to the Music of Time

Archetypal images carried within ourselves are just as real – or imaginary – as the physical world we inhabit.

Narrative as a Mirror of Social Concern and Engagement

I would like to comment on my position regarding narrative. The evolution of my painting over the past four decades has focused increasingly on mythological and psychological archetypes which expose and encompass the innumerable facets of the human condition. This developed slowly at first during my thirties and forties as I delved more deeply into the fascinating writings of C. G. Jung and Paul Tillich. Jung’s works, especially “The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche”, “Civilization in Transition”, or “Psychology and Alchemy” helped me grasp the magnitude of our inherited psyche and the limitlessness of our imagination. To summarize, the English sixteenth century poet and writer John Donne perfectly expresses my world view: “We humans are both miracles and catastrophes”.

Alchemical Metamorphosis No. 5, Saint Ines Battles the Dragon of Climate Change, gold leaf, mineral pigments, linen, lapis lazuli, azurite, cinnabar, resin oil paint. — Alchemical Metamorphosis No. 5, Saint Ines Battles the Dragon of Climate Change. 100 x 223 cm - 39.4 x 87.8 ins.

A selection from exhibitions

“Clothing the Contemporary Nude in Renaissance Color”

Jonathan Goodman (who has written for Art in America, Sculpture and Art Critical) wrote in 2009, “The proper adjective for Price’s synthesis of opposing colors and forms might well be ‘Dantean,’ so intense are the colors that communicate the composition’s strong feeling. Price returns to the figure on a regular basis, using the nude not only for his historical studies, but as a way of bringing forward representational form in a timeless fashion.”

Homage to Dürer, Michael Price, figurative artist, New York artist, natural mineral pigments, natural color, colour, lapis lazuli, azurite, malachite, cinnabar, realgar, natural dyes, archetypal nude, archetype, Renaissance, palette — The deep blue of large particle azurite

The late James Beck, professor of art history at Columbia University in New York wrote that Michael Price has restored and preserved for Western culture our Renaissance tradition, that depended on artists and their assistants grinding the semiprecious stones and mixing them with a variety of binding mediums according to propriety recipes. Time – and, from my vantage point as an art historian, industrialization – caused the Western culture to irretrievably lose the methods of making natural pigments.

Michael Price has single-handedly mitigated that historic loss.

A Selection of Exhibition Catalogues and Published Papers

Biography

New York artist Michael Price was born in Stoke-on-Trent, England. After school matriculation he studied on a two year foundation course at the local art school and was accepted to the Central School of Art in London (now Central St. Martins). After graduation in 1974, he abandoned the in vogue abstraction of that time based on the conceptualization of the painting process. He received permission to make drawings from the paintings of Nicolas Poussin in the London National Gallery. As one sketch book after another was filled, suddenly art history had become relevant. His focus turned towards Europe. In 1977, he moved to Holland and became fascinated by the paintings of Rogier van der Weyden, Rembrandt and Vermeer. He started to transcribe some of these works into the beginnings of his own language. Then in 1977 he moved to Munich in southern Germany which became his home for the next twenty-two years.

Munich at this time had a lively gallery scene as well as allowing the young artist easy travel by train to museums in Vienna, Florence, Rome and Paris. His first works were accepted into group shows including the famous Munich ‘Haus der Kunst’. This led to his first one-person show in Munich followed by shows in Cologne and Frankfurt. By his early thirties his figurative painting language centred on expressive nudes using Chinese ink and oil paint on canvas. As usual in life, just when everything seems to indicate success, something as simple as a delivery of acrylic gesso, the ground for Chinese ink, no longer functioned leaving brown stains! Fortunately, Munich was home to the Doerner-Institute, a world famous restoration institute which was able to test the ‘gesso’. Through this contact the artist was able to see the restoration of a Tintoretto painting and a paint layer analysis of a Renaissance work under the microscope.

This was the artist’s epiphany with colour. The pigments of the Renaissance were totally different to modern tube paint. At first, the artist thought the change from tube paint to natural mineral pigments from rocks and crystals and natural earths would be simple. He bought four pigments from a shop opposite the museum, ‘Kremer Pigmente’. Azurite, malachite, cinnabar and a lapis lazuli medium quality and he mixed them with either walnut oil for blues and green, and linseed oil for cinnabar red. So voila – following the steps of the Renaissance artists at long last! Unfortunately, the azurite turned grey within two months, the malachite became brownish, the lapis lazuli to grey-black. Only the cinnabar retained its colour. Determined not to give up, the artist started to research conservation literature and after seven years had the first breakthrough with the preparation of azurite and after another three years understood which binding medium could be used with each pigment due to the chemistry of both pigment and binding medium. In 2017, his two volume book “Renaissance Mysteries” was published.

Highlighting both male and female nudes, the artist’s figurative work has focused on the human condition. The main themes explore the mythological and psychological archetypes which expose and encompass the innumerable facets of the human psyche. What does this mean in terms of subject matter? The artist usually works with a series of paintings (usually about ten paintings) to explore a particular narrative. This has included “Evolution of a Myth” (ten paintings). Themes range from “The Birth of Adam” to the surreal world of “Apocalypse, God on Her Bicycle”. “Resurrection Adventures” comprises ten paintings and the most recent series (2024) is “Alchemical Metamorphoses” which explores late medieval European iconography and its evident relationship to the contemporary world’s psychological imbalance (or insanity)! Since 1999, the artist has lived in New York. He has shown regularly in one person and group shows both in New York, New Jersey and Texas. He continues to give lectures on the preparation and application of mineral pigments from rocks and crystals both in the U.S. Germany, China and more recently at the National Museum of Korea in Seoul.

CV

https://michaelprice.info/biography/

Interview published from the Blog “Artistcloseup.com, October 2021

https://www.artistcloseup.com/blog/full-interview-michael-price

Exhibition

‘The Chromatic Nude’ Artist Michael Price uses natural pigments to paint the human form by Mallory Diefenbach

Link to artsy

through Opulent Art Gallery, London:

https://www.artsy.net/artist/michael-price

Korean Interview

Interview 2024 with the Korean Magazine www.artminhwa.com

Translation:

I would like to share your work in the following order: base material, color transfer agent, and coloring material. First of all, how do you prepare the base material, linen cloth for painting, or paper for drawing or painting? Do you do the work yourself?

I prepare everything in my studio with help from my assistant. I use a high quality Belgian linen which is usually stretched and glued to a wooden panel and sometimes a light weight modern panel for works over two meters. Also for large works, I stretch the linen on a wooden stretcher frame. In order to glue the linen to a panel I usually use hide glue (100 grams to 1 liter of water). With stretched linen, the linen needs a first preparation of dilute rabbit-skin glue which also tightens the linen. I usually do not need to prepare paper since I use either arches or Fabriano papers (300 gram) for drawing or rag paper for small studies with natural mineral pigments in rabbit skin glue, or casein. If I use silver point for drawing (this was common before the invention of the graphite pencil) then I apply a thin layer of gesso (see next question). What is the difference between your painting ground and that of Renaissance painters? There is little difference. The most common gessoes were with natural whites such as gypsum or chalk and marble dust mixed with a hide glue. My personal choice is with an extra white marble dust mixed with a rabbit-skin glue. The glue is prepared by soaking pieces of glue in water overnight and then warming the swollen glue pieces in a double boiler until it is all dissolved (40 grams glue to 1 liter of water). Once the linen has received the first coat of hide glue, the warm gesso mixture is applied and brushed onto the linen. With linen that is glued to a panel, a roller can be used. On stretched linen, I usually have two to three thin layers and when each layer dries, it is sanded to make it smoother. With linen glued to a panel, I may have more layers due to the weave of the linen especially if I am going to apply gold leaf. Once the preparation is complete, I let the canvas stand for a week. There seem to be several ways to paint by mixing oil and resin as a vehicle.

Please tell us the reason for mixing these and the color additives you currently use the most and their recipes. Not only will it be necessary advice for oil painting students, but it will also contribute to broadening the concept of colorants for painting students.

The European tradition developed quite differently from the Asian and Persian traditions. Instead of just hide glues or gum Arabic and tragacanth, other binders offered interesting alternatives such as diluted egg yolk and egg white, casein from the curds of milk and a variety of oils such as walnut, linseed and poppy seed as well as the fir-balsam resins such as Strasbourg and larch which were also used for the distillation of the diluent turpentine. Due to the refractive index of the pigment some colours appeared quite different in different binding mediums. For instance, with lazurite from lapis lazuli in a fir-balsam resin and drops of walnut oil, I usually build 5 to 6 layers from small to large particle to produce an amazing deep blue. With this greater range of binding mediums with the natural mineral pigments there were many more problems such as the discoloration of some colors in oil. This became one of the main issues of my research and took three years to solve.

I realized for the first time how different the pigments used in Renaissance European paintings were from tubes of modern oil paints, which use synthetic mineral pigments, which are dry pigments bound in oil or acrylic.

When one goes to a museum either in the U.S. or Europe, the works of Renaissance artists are often separate from the Impressionists and twentieth century and modern works. With the industrial revolution in the 19th century artists’ colors changed dramatically from natural minerals pigments from rocks and crystals to chemically produced pigments stored in tubes. What is the difference? The answer is pigment particle size which produces a different chroma. For instance, lazurite from lapis lazuli may have a workable particle size from 10 to 80 microns where as French ultramarine will only have one particle size between 1 to 2 microns (1 micron is a thousandth of a millimeter). At present, the Metropolitan Museum in New York has recently rearranged it European galleries after restoration of the skylights. In one room an El Greco painting is shown next to a Picasso. Unfortunately, the red of the Picasso is rather dead where as the colors of the El Greco seem to glow with light. Analysis of binding media, often in many publications, shows that the binder was linseed oil containing traces of fir-balsam resin or pine resin. Indeed, this question of binding medium analysis from the conservation literature was difficult to resolve because pigments such as azurite (blue), malachite (green) and even lazurite (blue) usually discolored quite badly in oil alone. The clue was “traces” of pine resin. After 500 years, the volatile elements of a binder would read quite differently compared to fresh paint. The Vienna University of Technology in Austria carried out seven year aging tests of azurite in many different binding mediums for me and the results showed quite clearly that the pigments of low refractive index remained stable in a diluted fir-balsam resin with drops of walnut oil. I have now documented which binders can be used with each pigment.

Could you please tell me more about where you purchase the ore and the current process of your assistant’s work? Readers may be curious about this part. To be more specific, please explain in detail the process of turning the three mineral pigments: stone sulfur (yellow), stone (red), stone blue (blue), and stone (green) into pigments.

The Renaissance artist was more limited in the purchase of minerals and pigments. Today we have the Internet and many mineral dealers generally sell to collectors of crystals. Some rocks I find on eBay and some of the natural ochres I have collected myself in the field. The argument about the limited range of natural colors is for me irrelevant. Of course, if you only buy your ready-made natural minerals from the few producers and art shops, there is a limited range, but if you crush and prepare your own colors, the range of rocks and crystals on this planet is unlimited. One does need to understand the basic chemistry and refractive index of the pigment. Then there is the scale of hardness (the mohs scale 1 (soft) to 10 (hard). For instance, the golden yellow of orpiment and the orange of realgar are relatively soft. The reds of cinnabar from orange red (small particle) to deep red (large particle) is also quite soft. Azurite on the Mohs scale 3.5 to 4 is fairly hard with small particle pale blue to large particle a beautiful deep blue. Lapis lazuli is quite hard, on the Mohs scale between 5 to 6). With each color you need to have a variety of pigment particle sizes. After the initial crushing with a pestle and mortar, the sieved powder is levigated with a weak solution of casein. This separates the large and smaller particles and removes impurities. The water is poured off and the pigment dried. If the particles are still too large they are ground down further and levigated again. One needs patience!

I heard that there is a difference in the processing method of Azurite and Lapis Lazuli. Please briefly mention this. As mentioned, azurite like most other pigments is levigated with a weak casein solution. The rocks of lapis lazuli are chemically quite complex. The most well-known method of extracting pure lazurite from the crushed rock is in Cennino Cennini’s “The Painter’s Handbook” of 1395. It is a complex method using resin, wax and oil. In 2017, I published my protocol in “Renaissance Mysteries” using a warm lye solution and magnet to remove pyrites followed by further casein levigations.

In the East, Azurite was mainly used, but this seemed to be because Azurite did not go well with oil and did well with glue. What do you think of this view?

In both Asia and Europe hide glues were used for works on paper. In Asia silk required a water based binder where as the development of the use of wooden panels and linen prepared with gesso allowed the use of oils and resin which are unsuitable for paper and silk. The use of resin and oil with azurite in Europe was not consistent. There were differences between the Flemish and Italian artists with some works with azurite in oil alone discoloring. It was common knowledge that adding a little lead white to azurite generally stopped the discoloration.

This is a part about the techniques you use when painting with mineral pigments. Please tell us about the method of painting by stacking/layering primary colors (intermediate color technique) and the method of drawing by mixing other colors in advance on a palette (color mixing technique).

Generally, the layering of colors is preferable to mixing. The main reason is to do with pigment particle size. First of all, in order to obtain chromatic depth (that is the effect of light passing through semi-transparent layers of paint and being refracted and reflected back from the white gesso ground), the first layer should contain the smallest particle size. This first layer is often with a water based binder. This layer is sealed with a dilute resin-oil. The particle size of each subsequent layer is then increased slightly. For instance the blues of azurite and lazurite often require five to six layers to achieve a full chromatic intensity. Likewise with malachite, chrysocola and green jasper. Pigments of higher refractive index such as orpiment, realgar and cinnabar require fewer layers. With resin-oil binders usually one needs one to two days to let each layer dry. In order to mix pigments one has to have the same particle size. I rarely mix pigments. One exception is with purples which are generally limited to gem stones. Purpurite varies between purple-brown to dark brown. Therefore, a medium size particle of lazurite from Lapis lazuli mixed with a very small amount of medium red cinnabar can produce a powerful purple.

What are some Western dye pigments? Before the discovery of the New World, Kermes was the most common red dye which was replaced by cochineal. Otherwise, there are a variety of red dye pigments from the madder roots and indigo as a dark blue. Links in the article:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBhJP0OqqkE
https://renaissancemysteries.com