Art over easy

The Society of Tempera Painters at Moll Art Center

by Leon Nigrosh

EGG TEMPERA: AN ENDURING TRADITION
at Saint Luke's Gallery, Moll Art Center, Anna Maria College, Paxton, through April 14.

To the uninitiated, egg tempera might sound like an entrée at a Japanese restaurant. But to connoisseurs of the arts, it is well known and respected as one of the oldest and most complex

techniques in painting. Egg tempera paintings from 1st century Greece still exist, and it is thought that the technique was employed as far back in time as Pharaonic Egypt. This type of painting gained favor during the later Byzantine period (900 -- 1100) as the primary method for painting religious icons. It reached its zenith during the Renaissance (1400 - 1600), when such famous artists as Cennino Cennini, Giotto, and Fra Angelico became masters of easel painting with egg tempera. With the advent of oil paints, egg tempera fell from grace, and only recently has begun to stage a comeback.

So what is egg tempera anyway? This simple medium is made up of powdered pigments, water, and egg yolk. The pigments are ground to a paste in water and then the fresh yolk is added as the material that binds the pigments to a surface -- usually a specially prepared wooden panel. Sounds easy enough. But now comes the hard part. This admixture must be prepared in small amounts and used immediately, because the egg coagulates and dries very quickly. To maintain any semblance of control, the mixture is diluted and painted onto the panel in successive layers. Further compounding the situation, if there is any hesitation with the brushstrokes, the underlayers can be pulled off, spoiling the painting. Thus, egg tempera is closer to drawing than painting in application. The artist must build up areas of color one line or stroke at a time. All of which adds up to many days or weeks before the painting is complete - and then you have to wait 8 to 10 months forth the painting to fully harden and cure.

As daunting as all this may seem, there have always been those artists who enjoy the challenge. Recently an international group of artists reconstituted The Society of Tempera Painters, which had its origins in London in 1901. Thirty-one of the Society's members are currently showing together for the first time in the Moll Art Center at Anna Maria College.

Surprisingly, few of the works are stuffy reproductions of 15th century paintings, and there is a great variety in the images on display. Father Anthony Salzman does purposefully set out to reproduce Byzantine religious icons for "churches and the faithful" in his parish in Athens, Georgia. But at the other end of the spectrum California artist Patricia Kelly and Illinois painter Kathleen Waterloo both show that this demanding medium can be used to successfully create contemporary abstract compositions.

The majority of the paintings in the show are representational and strive toward realistic depiction of their subjects, whether still lifes, landscapes, or portraiture. Northampton's Fred Wessel does an outstanding job of meticulous rendering in his small panel, La Giovanotta. Not only does he work color and shading miracles on the skin tones and hair of his model, but he articulately recreates the varied textures in her clothing as well. The gold-leafed and tooled panel that defines the image enhances the total effect. Marci Gintis, also from Northampton, plays a real "fool the eye" trick on viewers with her large still life panel, Flora. Her bowl, cup, and fruit arrangement with the spectral reflections is a marvel of craftsmanship, but the heavily gilded frame of bas-relief cherub, flora, and goddess is a real teaser. On closer examination, we discover that there is no frame, it's the panel itself that Gintis has extensively embellished.

The single work that epitomizes the show's title is Boston artist Suzanne Vincent's untitled portrait of a stylish longhair right out of the 1970s. Expertly rendered in minuscule detail, Vincent's layers of changing color vividly delineate the young man's flowery vest, his turquoise and rubber bracelets, and his pensive pose, right down to the corner of his yellow shirt that overlaps the edge of the silver gilt molded frame. Her technical mastery of the ancient egg tempera painting method blends perfectly with her choice of modern subject matter to produce an image filled with many subtle surprises in color, form, and idea - virtually bridging the centuries.

As to what becomes of all the unused egg whites -- ever hear of angel food cake?

Saint Luke's Gallery is open Monday through Thursday and Saturday from 2 to 4 p.m., or by appointment. Call (508) 849-3442.