Art? science? .... Alchemy : the materiality of spiritual expression in artistic creation revealed through the analytical techniques of a heritage conservator

Abstract

To the uninitiated, it is quite probable that the results that art conservators derive from analytical techniques, may resemble alchemy, but they do not create gold from lead. Instead, they represent the composition of an object as its chemical components. X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy (XRF) has long been used for the compositional determination of minerals and metals in the mining and manufacturing industries, and over the past few years the applications in art and conservation increased rapidly. In addition, technical photography (in which filtering determines which wavelengths of light reach the camera) has the ability to create a new art form – one that, apart from being visually appealing, can provide information on the materials which had been used by the artist. In this manner, a whole new layer of information may be revealed, adding to the aesthetic and spiritual impact of the work. In this article, two objects of African art, namely a century-old prayer scroll from Ethiopia and a two-decades old sculpture by South African artist Lucky Sibiya, are investigated to see if this ‘alchemy’ can reveal that which even the artists were unaware of.