The Tickle College of Engineering at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, will offer a seminar analyzing the paintings by Ralph Albert Blakelock.
Blakelock was an American landscape artist (1847–1919) famous for his paintings of moonlit Western landscapes.
"Reverse Engineering Redo: Casting New Light on Ralph Albert Blakelock’s Dark Paintings” will be held Tuesday, March 12, in the Science and Engineering Research Facility on the UT campus.
The seminar will feature Yale University’s Dr. Aniko Bezur, the Wallace S. Wilson Director of Scientific Research of the Technical Studies Laboratory at the Yale Institute for the Preservation of Cultural Heritage.
She specializes in examining and analyzing cultural heritage objects to learn about materials, manufacturing techniques, and changes in appearance and other properties due to aging and human activities.
Blakelock painted dark landscapes in the late 1880s and early 1890s. Prices for his paintings soared and forgeries quickly multiplied after he was institutionalized with mental illness in 1899.
This talk considers the utility of a suite of imaging and instrumental analysis techniques for understanding Blakelock’s selection of paint materials, his painting technique, and the consequences of these choices for changes in the optical and mechanical properties of his works.
The seminar is free and open to the public. Refreshments will be served at 2:10 p.m. preceding the talk, which wraps up at 3:15 p.m.