Overpainting in Art and Its Reasons
Written by Teresita Blanco (The Artsy Sister)
Overpainting is to paint over something that is more or less finished. The most common reason is to save money. Beneath the Mona Lisa there is another maiden.
The canvases were expensive back in the day. So, it was cheaper to just paint over it. Hunt painted over just the face. He had gotten married.
For this reason, he changed the face of the woman in the painting. Now, she has the face of the wife and the hair of the other woman.
Las Meninas only got a cross. It was important for folks to know that Velazquez was a knight. This translated into perks for his family.
The Last Judgement was overpainted when it was censored. As a response, Michelangelo painted the censor in hell with donkey ears and a snake biting his junk off. Ecce homo is an example of how not to restore or paint over a damaged artwork.
IT is tourist attraction now. Pieter Brueghel had his sheep and his name painted over. This caused a lot of attribution to one of his paintings.
Gerhard Richter used overpainting to make original art. He painted over photos to create interesting effects.
The last painting had the burn marks censored. There is a video of this topic in my Artsy Sister Youtube channel. Please give a like and subscribe.
