De gebroeders van Eyck vallen van hun voetstuk.

De eerste kunstschilders die olieverf gebruikten waren de gebroeders van 
Eyck.  Zij staan wereldwijd bekend als de uitvinders van olieverf voor 
artistieke doeleinden. Varsari heeft dat uitgebreid "aangetoond"
Tenminste, dat dacht men tot hier toe.

Een team van wetenschappers uit Frankrijk, Japan en de USA  die de 
mogelijkheden onderzocht om de gigantische boeddhabeelden (die de taliban in 
Afghanistan gedynamiteerd werden)  heeft in de dieper in de dezelfde bergen 
gelegen grotten en monikkencellen muurschilderingen met olieverf ontdekt die 
uit de 5e of 6e eeuw dateren.

Lang voor van Eyck dus.  De schilderijen zijn wellicht gemaakt door Chinese 
kunstenaars die langsheen de zijderoute op weg naar het Westen waren.  De 
schilderstijl is dezelfde zoals in de grotten van Dunhuang in China (4e tot 
14e eeuw)

Hebben de Chinezen nu echt alles uitgevonden ?
Als dit soort ontdekkingen aan dezelfde snelheid doorgaat, dan blijft er 
straks niks meer overeind van al de zekerheden die ze ons in school verteld 
hebben.



http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/01/26/2147150.htm

Afghan caves hold world's first oil paintings: expert
A recent handout picture, released from the Japanese National Research 
Institute for Cultural Properties, shows an oil painting of a Buddhist 
image, discovered in a cave in Afghanistan's Bamiyan. (AFP: Japanese 
National Research Institute for Cultural Properties)
Forget Renaissance Europe. The world's first oil paintings go back nearly 14 
centuries to murals in Afghanistan's Bamiyan caves, a Japanese researcher 
says.
A group of Japanese, European and US scientists are collaborating to restore 
damaged murals in caves in the Bamiyan Valley, famous for its two gigantic 
statues of the Buddha which were destroyed by the Taliban in 2001.
In the murals, thousands of Buddhas in vermilion robes sit cross-legged, 
sporting exquisitely knotted hair.
Other motifs show crouching monkeys, men facing one another or palm leaves 
delicately intertwined with mythical creatures.   The paintings incorporate 
a mix of Indian and Chinese influences, and are most likely to be the works 
of artists travelling on the Silk Road, which was the largest trade and 
cultural route connecting the East and the West.

The Los Angeles-based Getty Conservation Institute analysed 53 samples 
extracted from the murals. Using gas chromatography methods, the researchers 
found that 19 had oil in the paint.

"Different types of oil were used on the dirt walls with such a 
sophisticated technique that I felt I was looking right at a medieval board 
painting dating from 14th or 15th century Italy," Ms Taniguchi said.

The discovery would reverse common perceptions about the origins of oil 
paintings.

The technique is widely believed to have emerged in Europe leading into the 
Renaissance, which flowered from 1400 to 1600.  Italian artist and architect 
Giorgio Vasari first wrote of oil painting in his book, The Lives of the 
Artists, in the mid-16th century.

Art historians, however, argue that 15th-century Flemish painter Jan van 
Eyck may have known of the technique because he had developed a stable 
varnish, although he kept it secret until his death.  "It was very 
impressive to discover that such advanced methods were used in murals in 
central Asia," Ms Taniguchi said.

"My European colleagues were shocked because they always believed oil 
paintings were invented in Europe.
"They couldn't believe such techniques could exist in some Buddhist cave 
deep in the countryside."
Painters of the Buddhist murals used organic substances - including natural 
resin, plant gum, dry oil and animal protein - as a binder, which even today 
is an important element in paint.

A binder keeps pigment particles together in a cohesive film and allows the 
paint to resist decay.

The researchers are trying to restore the murals amid international efforts 
to salvage what is left of Bamiyan.

The Taliban, ignoring global protests, dynamited the two 1,500-year-old 
statues, the world's biggest representations of the Buddha, in March 2001, 
branding them un-Islamic idolatry.

The regime was ousted later that year in a US-led military campaign after 
the September 11 attacks on the United States.

Although oil was used in ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome, there currently 
exist no examples of their use in painting. The oil was used for medicine, 
cosmetics or to coat boats, Ms Taniguchi said.

Ms Taniguchi hopes the advanced techniques used to analyse the murals would 
be put to use in ruins of other ancient civilisations.

Other early civilisations including those in current-day Iran, China, 
Turkey, Pakistan and India may have used similar techniques as well but 
their ruins have not been subject to advanced, extensive research, she said.

"In analysing old murals throughout Europe and Central Asia, I look forward 
to throwing light on the roots of oil paintings," she said.

- AFP







[......]



ook in Die Welt  (enkel de papier versie)

Europa Jahrhunderte voraus
In Afghanistan haben Forscher in Holen die weltweit fr¨¹heste ?lmalerei 
entdeckt.
Peter Dittmar  in Die Welt  26.04.2008