Luca Giordano Master Study

1. Materials & Techniques Notes

This work is not a literal reconstruction of Giordano’s technique — it is an exploration that borrows from Baroque materials and processes, while remaining open to my own interpretations and discoveries.

Initial Drawing & Composition

• Began with a gestural drawing, moving across the whole picture plane, focusing on the four corners to guide energy through natural diagonals.

• Used sanguine and vine charcoal to think in terms of warm/cool and light/dark.

• Vine charcoal sits on the peaks of the canvas weave — it must be rubbed into the valleys to soften contrast, create atmosphere, and prepare for later corrections.

Priming the Picture Plane

• Applied a scraped-on imprimatura: Indian Yellow + Flake White + Venetian Medium (2:2:1).

• If charcoal rests only on the peaks, the scraping can obscure the drawing, creating a greenish tone — partly desirable, but careful balance is needed to keep visibility.

• Continued to draw into the oil ground with sanguine and charcoal, rubbing into the wet film with fingers to integrate.

Shadow Masses & Warm/Cool Development

• Introduced Dioxazine Purple + Venetian Medium (4:1) over charcoal-darkened areas.

• Pulled this mixture into the ground, letting it seep into figures, then stretched and unified into shadow masses.

• Depth and temperature controlled by working vine charcoal back into wet paint, pushed and pulled with brush or finger.

• Since palette is limited, details in light areas developed subtractively (removing paint to reveal the luminous ground) rather than by adding opaque white.

Atmosphere & Temperature Play

• Brushed and swept cooler/darker values into midtones and shadows to let warm ground show through in lights.

• Added Burnt Sienna into the ground, weaving it into figures.

• Vine charcoal used dynamically for temperature shifts: e.g., sky tinted with hard vine charcoal to both open the vibrancy of weave peaks and push coolness into valleys.

Preparation for Dead Color Layer

• Worked figure-to-ground and ground-to-figure, reinforcing charcoal where the coolest, bluish tones would dominate (sky; anatomical areas with veins, bones, tendons).

• Allowed surface to dry overnight.

Dead Color Layer

• Mixed Flake White + charcoal dust to produce a cool, dark bluish midtone.

• Learned: it’s better to err darker in dead color — when Flake White scumbles over dark values, the temperature reads cooler, which is the purpose of this stage.

Scumble Layer

• Applied pure Flake White as the first scumble.

• Loaded brush halfway, starting in the brightest flesh lights, dragging pigment thinly across surfaces so underlying drawing remains visible.

• First pass: extend scumble into midtones and shadows selectively, seeking transitions where figure and ground integrate.

• Rule: don’t reload until brush is fully spent — let diminishing paint naturally move the stroke from lights → midtones → ground.

• Second pass: reload and return to brightest lights, repeating until compositional unity is achieved.