By Spike Bucklow

Through these microscopic cross-sections of thirteenth- to twentieth-century paintings, Spike Bucklow unearths the hidden processes, materials, and techniques of Rembrandt, Carravaggio,Artemisia Gentileschi, Walter Sickert, Claude Monet, Marianne North, and more. Within onesample of paint, the size of a pin prick or full stop, lies a vast and complex geological strata; amasterpiece by Titian becomes an abstract landscape of yellowing varnish, crunchy blue lapis, asilken slab of lead white, sea shells floating in chalk, egg mingling with oil atop of taut canvas. The Art Beneath, reorients painting as three-dimensional and durational, revealing the painter's patient assembling (and conservators' quiet retracing) of an artwork from ground up.