Guercino: beyond colour

The research project, inaugurated with a conference held in Cento in May 2017, aims to carry out a vast campaign of technical-scientific investigations aimed at characterizing the pictorial technique of one of the most important painters of the Emilian Baroque, Giovanni Francesco Barbieri known as Guercino (1591-1666). To this end, the investigation was launched with the aim of obtaining an organic view of the work of the master from Centese, comparing, for the first time in a systematic way, the technical-material data and documentary sources, with particular reference to the famous Book of Accounts of the artist.. The staff of the Diagnostic Laboratory of the Department of Cultural Heritage of the University of Bologna, in collaboration with Lumière Technology, made a mapping of the most significant works of the artist through the application of a kit of repeated technical tests on the paintings under investigation. In recent years, mobile paintings and wall paintings have been examined through videomicroscopic techniques, multispectral imaging, non-invasive and portable chemical analysis (X-ray spectroscopy, Raman) and, in some cases, micro-sampling with spectroscopic analysis of stratigraphic sections. To date, thanks to the Guercino project: beyond color, the main masterpieces of the artist preserved in Bologna, Cento, Piacenza, Parma, Genoa, Cesena, Ferrara, Rome and Turin have been subjected to investigation.

Gruppo di ricerca: Barbara Ghelfi (Unibo), Mariangela Vandini (Unibo), Chiara Matteucci (Unibo), Salvatore Andrea Apicella (Lumière Technology), Martina Cataldo (Unibo), Pascal Cotte (Lumière Technology), Pasquale Stenta (Unibo), Gaia Tarantola (Unibo).