I still appreciate that Bougereau was able to click something on inside of me years ago and to inspire my technical development and that Picasso reminded people (as other artists have done in earlier times) that beauty and content in painting/drawing isn’t hell-bent to become visual “simulacra” (photograph).

On the Reni piece, I hadn’t considered that the green might simply be leaching through or that the the upper layer could have become that much more transparent. I think that you have a point. What I hadn’t considered is that (duh!) Reni likely wanted to visually flesh-out the Christ (main) figure before he began to add in the other subordinate ones, surrounding it in a dark tone. That fits with what we see, but he normally worked out the compositions Prior to beginning on canvas (his drawings are amazing). It makes sense in some ways though. I can’t believe how long I’ve looked at the composition and not considered that he was composing “on the canvas”.. thanks Kurt!

So taking things apart and appreciating each facet on it’s own can lead us to synthesize new art from pieces and concepts lifted from artist’s efforts. (Trilling’s ‘great artists steal.’)

As for Flagellation, I have never seen it in person, but from the photo it looks like the greenish is an area that has bled through the surface paint rather than applied over it. Note that the dark mass is continuous in a rough squarish shape to the left of the Christ figure, and seems to be consistently dark. Perhaps this is simply a case of poor craftsmanship or poor conservation efforts some time later? I’d be curious to see conservationist reports on the state of that piece…