Layers on glass

“Partly for the sake of convenience, and partly to avoid having successive layers of paint lying too thickly on top of each other, the painters tried to apply as many sections of the picture as possible in the first layer(s) on the glass. This means that the paintings on glass can also be viewed as puzzles composed of smaller and larger areas of colour, and lines, which must accord with each other down to the smallest detail in form and colour, and must fit into each other with the utmost precision.”Van Dongen and Sikkens Paint Museum, Sensitive Plates, 16.

The technique of reverse glass painting in China is generally attributed to Europe. Rosalien van der Poel, “'Sensitive Plates' and 'Sentimental Keepsakes': The Social Life of Reverse Glass Painting: From Canton to Leiden,” Revista de Cultura = Review of Culture 59, (2019): 81-82, https://hdl.handle.net/1887/87540. However, there is also the possibility that Chinese painters figured out the technique on their own by studying existing reverse glass paintings that were already circulating through China. Thierry Audric, Chinese Reverse Glass Painting 1720-1820 (Bristol: Peter Lang International Academic Publishers, 2020), 27-28. To make the Chinese reverse paintings, high-quality flat glass was imported, presumably from Venice. Later on, Canton also started to fabricate its own glass. Simon Steger et al., “First Insights into Chinese Reverse Glass Paintings Gained by Non-Invasive Spectroscopic Analysis—tracing a Cultural Dialogue,” Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences 11, no. 8 (2019): 4025-26, https://doi.org/10.1007/s12520-019-00799-3.

The first thing a painter will do is draw an outline of the design. Any amalgam would be scraped away. The glass is then flipped, and the painter will start painting the design in reverse with oil paints. The paints used in these paintings were often oil-based, but research shows that gum-based paints were also used. In the painting of Enjoying Eating Fruit we can see that some parts have faded out more or have disappeared. That might have been because of the use of gum-based paints which are sensitive to moisture. He will start with painting every detail and end with the background. (Fig. 1) Every layer had to be as thin as possible so the paint layers would not become too thick. Some layers were between 15-17 micrometers in thickness. In the video you can see how thin the paint layers must have been for the details on the undamaged part to disappear once light shines behind it. Imagine how many layers were needed to produce a painting like Enjoying Eating Fruit! The order of the layers had to be precise too, since it was impossible to retouch the painting afterwards.Van Dongen and Sikkens Paint Museum, Sensitive Plates, 16-18. As you can imagine, this must have been difficult to do. The fact that the painter of Enjoying Eating Fruit decided to make all the clothing transparent is certainly a way to show off their skill. (Fig. 2)

In the previous step I only discussed the use of Chinese motifs. The techniques that will be discussed here are usually not considered as something common in ‘Chinese’ art. When the Canton System was in place, even more Europeans became curious about life in Qing China and wanted to learn about the people who lived there, as they were not allowed to travel around in China. Paintings were one way for them to learn about the country. However, they did prefer paintings that used relatable art techniques such as one-point perspective and use of shadows. Barry Till, Visualizing a Culture for Strangers: Chinese Export Paintings from the nineteenth century (Victoria: Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, 2012), 17-18. During the 18th century, Chinese garden scenes were in fashion. As painters were aware of these trends, they made use of those techniques in their paintings while still mainly using Chinese motifs and symbolism. In Enjoying Eating Fruit, we can see that the painter has used a one-point perspective with a vanishing point at the very right in this painting. (Fig. 3) The use of shadows is apparent throughout the painting. It accentuates how the fabric hangs on the bodies of the people. Even the smallest wrinkles are visible when you zoom in. (Fig. 4) Based on the shadows shown on the left side of the objects, the light source must be coming from the right upper corner. (Fig. 5) Despite the light source, there are not many cast shadows, and the lychee tree falls out of place because it is painted in a different style. It is possible that the stem of the tree previously blended in better with the painting, but due to moisture damage it might have lost some layers of paint, just as the grass part at the front looks all muddy and lacks depth and detail.