William Blake Egg Tempera paintings

[Diane]

Hi there,

I went to the Tate Britain gallery today in London and while I was there I wanted to see some examples of ET paintings. I found William Blake had used ET for his paintings, but was disappointed with the colours. They looked really dark, almost black and the gold gilding he had used seemed to have flaked off. Does ET change like this over time and become black? One of the pictures was Ghost of a Flea (see link below for reference)

http://www.tate.org.uk/learning/work...n/cast_02.html

Has anyone else seen this happen?
Diane

PS Tate Britain is worth a visit if you are ever in London!

[RobM]

There do seem to be strange anomolies with tempera.......the Blake referred to is dated 1819 and in pretty poor shape yet the earlier ET paintings in the Sainsbury Wing of the National are so immaculate......Birmingham Municiple Art Gallery has Southwells etc and all in good condition.........
Maybe the pigments that Blake used at that time we prone to becoming black.........I have read articles abut certain pigments changing to black.......no doubt someone here will have the definitive answer.......

[PhilS]

Diane,
If an ET painting turns black over time, it isn't the tempera that's at fault. The artist probably used fugitive pigments. Bad water could also be the culprit -for instance, chlorine turns ultramarine black, though I doubt chlorine was invented back in 1819...
I've seen egg temperas in Italy from the 1400s where the colors were almost as bright as brand new.
Phil

[jeff]

those are not egg tempera. He used carpenters glue which is probably a form of casein glue. The ingredients could very well blacken the pigments.