BENGALURU: An international team of scientists has used multiple modes of light to uncover details hidden beneath the visible surface of Spanish painter Pablo Picasso’s masterpiece “La Misereuse accroupie” or “The Crouching Woman.” Researchers released their findings on Saturday’s press conference at the ongoing four-day annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of
Science held in Austin, Texas, Xinhua reported.
The 1902 oil painting, owned by Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) in Canada, depicts a crouching and cloaked woman, painted in white, blues, grays and greens. Researchers used non-invasive portable imaging techniques, including infrared reflectance hyperspectral imaging and then an X-ray fluorescence imaging instrument to detail those buried images.
It shows that Picasso painted over another painter’s work after rotating it 90 degrees to the right, using some of the landscape forms in his own final composition. For example, Picasso incorporated the lines of the cliff edges into the woman’s back. Picasso also made a major compositional change, the study showed.