On June 3rd, there will be a panel discussion with Joris Dik, who is featured in Out of the Shadows, Walter Liedtke, curator of MMA, and  Andrew W. Mellon  of The Art Institute of Chicago. This delightful panel will be moderated by Garrick Utley and will focus on new techniques for discovering hidden masterpieces. Out of the Shadows will be shown during this discusion.

Both these screenings are in conjunction with the World Science Festival.

Click here for more information about the screenings:

June 1

June 3

For full details click here.

When the canvas was X-radiographed during routine technical examination in 2009 the presence of the underlying composition was immediately detected (Fig.34). Because the sitter’s head is almost entirely covered by Satué’s – his eyes and chin are somewhat higher than the latter’s – few characteristics of his physiognomy can be gleaned with certainty. But it is clear that he was shown seated, wearing a high collar, sash and épaulettes, with his legs to the left and both hands visible. This presence of so formal a sitter beneath Goya’s supremely casual image of Ramón Satué demanded investigation; and as the X-radiograph is considerably less informative than, for example, those of the Chinchón and the Foraster, it was clear that further information would have to be sought by other means.

The surface of Satué’s portrait is intact, allowing no scope for the taking of paint samples. X-ray Fluorescence (XRF) spectrometry has been increasingly used as an alternative to sampling: it allows certain chemical elements, and thus the components of pigments, to be identified by briefly exposing a pinpoint of the surface to X-rays and analysing the resultant emissions. Until very recently XRF – which has the disadvantage that the layers in which the identified elements occur are not differentiated, and that some elements, particularly those present in several blue pigments, are not necessarily recognised – has, like sampling, been confined to discrete local areas. A joint project of the universities of Antwerp and Delft is now seeking to extend the technique by developing a scanner which, by means of a moving armature, is able to take multiple readings over large areas of a painting and thus map the distribution of various elements within them.

Click here to read the rest of the article.

The prayer nut depicts the Passion of Christ in remarkable detail for such a small object. Tiny enough to be clasped in the hands during prayer, the prayer nut must have given the worshiper a heightened and very personal connection to the suffering of Jesus.

Hundreds of years may have passed since the prayer nut has been used for worship, but the meaning behind the figures carved delicately in the soft boxwood endures to this day.

To learn more about this incredible Christian artifact and to view it in 3D click here.

Today only, pick up your copy of “Out of the Shadows” for 50 % off here.

Joris Dik, whose X-Ray techniques are described in Kevin Sullivan’s “Out of the Shadows“, has helped authenticate a painting by Dutch artist Vincent Van Gogh. The painting, “Still Life with Meadow Flowers and Roses” has been at the  Kröller-Müller Museum in Otterlo, Holland, since 1974. However, various examinations over the years led to the conclusion that the painting was not painted by Van Gogh. This conclusion has now been overturned thanks to the revelation that a painting of two wrestlers lies beneath the many layers of colourful paint that has concealed it for over a hundred years.

Here is news report about this new discovery:

For more details about this astounding find, click the links below:

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/news/two-for-the-price-of-one-van-gogh-confirmed–with-another-underneath-7578001.html

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/beneath-a-riot-of-flowers-evidence-of-van-goghs-hand/article2375922/

http://www.spiegel.de/fotostrecke/fotostrecke-80099.html

This mini documentary explores how a lost Rembrandt painting was uncovered and authenticated by the Rembrandt Research Project in 2011 using innovative scientific data generated by an atomic particle accelerator at Brookhaven, Long Island.

For hundreds of years the public has only seen the surface of famous masterpieces by artists such as Van Gogh and Rembrandt. Now, through a melding of innovative scientific techniques and art connoisseurship, completely different paintings and important clues about the artists themselves are being uncovered one layer at a time using xray fluorescence

This mini documentary is from a press conference held on December 2nd, 2011 at the Rembrandt House Museum in Amsterdam, where the painting – “Study of an Old Man” – was unveiled to the public by Rembrandt Research Project director Dr. Ernst van de Wetering and material scientist Dr. Joris Dik.

An in depth one hour documentary titled “Out Of The Shadows” (http://shopatsullivan.com/out-of-the-shadows.html), narrated by Donald Sutherland and produced/directed by Kevin Sullivan (Anne of Green Gables, Road To Avonlea, Wind At My Back), also explores the work of Dr. Joris Dik finding hidden masterpieces under existing paintings by Van Gogh and Rembrandt.

Dutch with English subtitles.

Click here to read more.