Biography

Yve-Alain Bois is Professor Emeritus in the School of Historical Studies at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. He taught at the Johns Hopkins University (1983-1991), then at Harvard (1991-2005). He has written extensively on 20th century art, from Matisse, Picasso and Mondrian to post-war European and American art. He has curated or co-curated several exhibitions, notably of the artists just mentioned as well as “L’informe, mode d’emploi” with Rosalind Krauss at the Centre Georges Pompidou and “Ellsworth Kelly: Early Drawings” at the Fogg Art Museum. Among other projects, he is currently working on the catalogue raisonné of Ellsworth Kelly’s paintings and sculpture, the first volume of which appeared in 2015 and the second in 2021.

Project Summary

It is well established that the use of oil paint in Renaissance Italy was imported from the North (Netherlandish and German artists). It is also established that Venice was where the adoption of canvas as the material support for painting (as opposed to wood panel) was launched, the city being a center of nautical sail production. In Florence, painters did not quickly adjust their style nor take advantage of these two new mediums, and continued to paint as thinly and dryly as they had done with tempera, while Venetian artists quickly picked up canvas allowing for large formats and speed of execution. What is the connection between the adoption of oil paint and that of canvas as a support? Simple material determinism does not provide a satisfactory response (there are some examples of tempera on canvas, and of oil--or tempera mixed with oil--on wood). This project pays particular attention to the transitional period and examines the reasons why Florentine painters on the whole resisted these 'new' mediums. It is particularly interested in what one could call "Florence's aversion to impasto" in contrast to Venice's embracing of it, wondering if this is connected to the "oil on canvas" versus "temper on wood" divide.