Materialità e Imaging. Le ricerche radiografiche di Alan Burroughs su Giorgione e Tiziano alle radici della Technical Art History

The thesis Materiality and Imaging. Alan Burroughs’ X-ray studies on Giorgione and Tiziano at the Roots of Technical Art History aim to retrace the beginning of Technical Art History, searching for the documents that show the pioneering work of few art historians and scientists in the field of scientific analysis of artworks. This took place in 1920s and 1930s in both America and Europe and the archives of Harvard Art Museums Archives, the National Gallery of London, and Centre de Recherche des Musées de France preserve much of this memory. In particular, the thesis focuses on the contribution of the art historian Alan Burroughs and his mentor Edward Forbes, being the outstanding figures of a crucial event: the international X-ray campaign promoted by Fogg Art Museum since 1926. The first book on X-ray in art studies was published by Burroughs (Art Criticism from a Laboratory, Boston 1938), stressing the contribution of the scientific approach to art history. This manual is groundbreaking for the methodology: Burroughs deals with specific critical issues in art studies “testing the tool” of X-ray. The thesis focuses on one issue, which is the topic of the 9th chapter in his book: the distinction between Giorgione and the young Titian. In order to detect the technical features that may differ one painter from the other, Burroughs studied several paintings through X-rays. A significant group of works is reviewed testing Burroughs’ results and following achievements by art historians and conservation scientists. The history of the conservation and technical research, relating to those paintings, may balance the real value of Burroughs’ legacy and his confidence in the new methodology, which is now called Technical Art History.