PRIM’ART research has consisted of three structural axes:
Historical Research (History and Art History) by collecting and evaluating documentation which allowed a critical analysis of the painters and of art works and its contextualisation with the mentality of the time;
Technical assessment of the paintings by in situ visual inspection and by technical photography in the ultraviolet (UVR and UVF), in the Visible (Vis and Vis_RAK) and in the infrared (IR) electromagnetic spectral range;
Technical and material characterization by combining in situ non invasive techniques (OM, EDXRF, Spectrophotometry, FORS) with laboratory micro-destructive techniques (OM in Visible and UV , SEM-EDS, µ-Raman, µ-FT-IR ,Py-GC-MS, XRD and TG );
The three axes were organized and carried out in six tasks over 28 months with the following aims.
Task 1. Historical research (historiography and art history): data collection of painters and painting sets and its analysis from a historic and history of art point of view within the geographic area of the Archdiocese of Évora, with focus on mural paintings. This task comprised recovering documents from the time period when the works of art were made, as well as documents that might the painting contract and material requirements for its execution; survey of references and comments about the Portuguese mural paintings in Chronicles of religious orders and reports of travelers from the 16th to the 19th centuries and a systematic review of the studies and critics references produced for the Portuguese Mural Paintings (and painters) up to the present day.
Task 2. Technical survey: identification and gathering the intrinsic characteristics of the whole painting sets in the architectural support such as details of the plaster work and painting execution techniques (e.g. giornatas/pontatas); under drawings and other transposition techniques (e.g direct incisions, cartoon incised , pouncing and stencil), surface appearance and state of conservation.
Task 3. In situ non invasive analysis characterization and sampling: identification and first discrimination of the constituents of pictorial supports and paint layers; assessment of the current colour palette.
Task 4. Laboratory analysis: Stratigraphic analysis of paint layers for assessment of the paint layered structure and pictorial technique, its thickness; pigments size and morphology concentration and distributionin the matrice; mineralogical, elemental and chemical characterization of mortars, pigments and binders composition.
Task 5. Integration of results: gathering and discussion of the results from task 1 to 4.
Task 6. Outreach activities: dissemination of results through scientific papers in peer-review jornals and other publications; oral and posters presentations in national and international conferences; workshops and guided visits. This task also comprised the organization of one mid-term seminar and 1 final international conference for discussion and sharing knowledge and the creation of an interactive website for a worldwide platform dissemination.