Madeline von Foerster

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An Overview of the Major Steps in Mischtechnik

 

The Mische (German for “Mixed”) Technique dates back to Flemish painter Jan van Eyck (c1395-1441). Although a debate by restorers and historians over whether it was Van Eyck, or Robert Campin who first used a Mischtechnik has been on and off over the last 60 years. Artists prior to this time mostly painted with Egg Tempera, essentially pigment mixed with an egg binder. Oil was also used before Van Eyck's time and his genius is in introducing a division of labor in the building of a picture. An artistic alchemy, it is a method of combining a water-based substance (usually egg emulsion and pigment) and a resin-oil based media in one painting; thus a painting done in Egg Tempera and Oil.  In Van Eyck's technique the artist used multiple layers of transparent oil color glazes, underpainting and then alternating with white egg tempera applied for highlights. The introduction of oil combined with the tempera facilitated the rendering of very fine detail and realism, which became main characteristics of the Northern Renaissance. The artists of northern Europe quickly learned that the usage of oils enhanced the color of their pigments and gave them flexibility for creating larger works. The Mixed Technique became a mainstay  for Dürer, Hans Holbein the Younger and other northern Masters. Most of Van Eyck's major works were  painted in the 1430s. It was several decades later before his tempera and oil technique was adopted by Italian artists, notably by the Venetian master Giovanni Bellini . Italian artists soon were experimenting with their own recipes. Artists began adding litharge (white lead) to their glazes, which promotes oxidation and thus faster drying. Soon the introduction of the plant resins, Dammar and Mastic, allowed artists to simplify and speed up the process of completing a painting and to increase the binding of oil color and tempera and gain complete control over the opacity and transparency of oil colors.

 

By the mid 16th Century, all artists had stopped using straight Egg Tempera in favor of some technique incorporating oils, including the Italians' Tempera Grassa. Variations of the Mixed Technique remained the fundamental method of oil painting used by most artists until the mid 1800s, when paint in tubes became available and the Modernists abandoned traditional approaches in favor of Direct Painting or Ala Prima. Direct painting often leaves paintings looking flat and dead. Only contemporary painters today who have been able to find  and study with a truly accomplished teacher of the Mischtechnik discover how to create an extraordinary  illusion of depth and a brilliant luminosity in their  paintings. The painting is infused with an 'inner light', a mirror to the human spirit. Through the effect of light refracting through several or many different layers of color the artist can achieve imagery that can run the spectrum from a mystical precisionism to a vibrant abstract painting; from a classical realism to an expressive and raw emotional work; even to express the ineffable.  Today it is considered a precious knowledge by any artist fortunate enough to have learned it.

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