The National Gallery has a long tradition of exhibiting and publishing the results of the technical examination of paintings. This new title in the Art in the Making series displays the
Gallery's important research into the underdrawings of fifteenth-and sixteenth-century paintings. These preliminary drawings beneath the paint layers can often be revealed by the technique of
infrared reflectography - an area of study in which the Gallery has played a leading role.
The book explains the principles of infrared photography and reflectography, what each method can reveal, and how the resulting image should be interpreted. Essays on the role of underdrawing
in the painter's workshop and on the materials and techniques employed, are followed by individual entries on the underdrawings in paintings by major artists of the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries, among them Raphael, Giorgione, Cosimo Tura, Carlo Crivelli, Hans Memling, Lucas Cranach, Albrecht Altdorfer and Pieter Bruegel.
