The fading of a once-vibrant yellow rose reveals how the ravages of time and chemical alteration can dampen the visual power of a painting. Paintings conservator Nouchka De Keyser of the Rijksmuseum ...

She has looked at two icons in this show—the lotus and the bee—as representing the twin poles of the passive and active. The lotus has, in fact, been a running thread through Fraser’s practice—from ...

Dutch scientists have developed a new method for studying organic pigments in the paintings of old masters. Firing a laser at microscopic paint samples releases very small quantities of paint, which ...

A fresco is made by suspending earth pigments in water and painting them onto a damp lime plaster wall. The painting literally becomes the wall. The artist begins by processing fine lime, mixing it ...

People have wondered since ancient times why we see colours. Pythagoras thought they were associated with musical notes; Aristotle, with times of day; and Plato suggested that the basic colours of ...

While scavenging paint from the rocks of the wild North Yorkshire coast, Jini Reddy discovers what our ancestors knew 70,000 years ago: the Earth is an artist’s apothecary. It’s a blustery autumn day ...

Growing up in Karachi, Schahbaz recalls hiding beneath her sheets, sketching tiny figures late into the night. Years later, ...