CENTER FOR SCIENTIFIC STUDIES IN THE ARTSA COLLABORATION BETWEEN NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY AND THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO

Projects

Bringing art and science together to inspire innovation

Projects

Combining expertise and infrastructure, the Center unites academic researchers and students from Northwestern's McCormick School of Engineering, Weinberg School of Arts and Sciences, and the Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art, with conservators, curators, and conservation scientists from the Art Institute of Chicago. Together we conduct scholarly inquiry and advance conservation practices.

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Featured Projects

Hyperspectral imaging scans an ancient Coptic textile

Ancient Dyes and Artificial Intelligence: Exploring Egyptian Textiles

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Researchers examine Cezanne’s painting using a large imaging machine

Discovering the Portrait Paul Cezanne Hid Behind a Still Life

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Close-up of a featherwork design

Blue Hues: Understanding Structural Color in Chinese Featherworks

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Microscopic investigation of a plastic case containing a moldy art object

How a Pocket-Sized Room Holds an Entire World (And a Molding Banana)

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Material examined under microscope

Perfect Plastics: Investigating Josef Albers’ Structural Constellations

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Projects Gallery

Microscopic image of a cross-section of oil paint layers from a painting

Beneath the Visible Layers of Paul Gauguin's Poèmes Barbares

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Researcher leans over to adjust print on an easel to be scanned

Putting Materials to Metaphor in Maria Sibylla Merian's Prints

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Researchers examine Virgin de Guadalupe with scanning technology

Mica, Indigo, Cochineal: Meaningful Materials in the Spanish Americas

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Documentation and technical study of analog holograms

How Does a Hologram Age? New Approaches to Study and Documentation

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Painting turned on its side as it is being scanned with macro X-ray fluorescence technology

Transatlantic Palettes: Exploring Puerto Rican Artists' Pigments

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Painting being scanned by macro X-ray fluorescence technology

Orazio Gentileschi's Autograph Copies: Two Versions of Danaë

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Artist's self-portrait turned on its side for scanning

James Tissot's Embrace of Commercial Pigment Innovations

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Landscape painting with a scanner in the foreground

Diagnosing 'Art Acne' in Georgia O'Keeffe's Paintings

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Close-up image of gold refining process

Replicating West African Precious Metals Refining Processes

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Two researchers set up a scanning apparatus to analyze a painting

Picasso's Pentimenti: Revisions and Layers of La Miséreuse Accroupie

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Investigating an Ancient Mummy with Augmented Reality

Investigating an Ancient Mummy with Augmented Reality

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Scanned image of manuscript page

Safely Reading the Object Biography of a Reused Parchment

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An portrait of a human face on top of an ancient mummy case

Multidisciplinary Approaches to Studying Roman Mummies

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Colorful Ancient Egyptian painted figure of a jackal

What Makes Paint Stick? New Database Collates Historical Plant Gums

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Detail of abstracted eye in a larger painting

Georges Braque's Warning: Do Not Varnish!

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Detail of an enameled glass mosque lamp

An Original Medieval Mosque Lamp? Or a 19th-Century Imitation?

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A researcher looks at a colorful graphic painting

Documenting László Moholy-Nagy's Plastic Innovations

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Researcher holds a scanning device next to an abstract bronze sculpture

Tracing 'Elemental Fingerprints' of Alloys in Pablo Picasso's Paris

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Museum case containing numerous bronze busts of French political figures

Biographies in Bronze: Casting Honoré Daumier's Satirical Figures

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A bronze sculpture of a man in a robe

Bronze Clues: Identifying Alloys in Auguste Rodin's Sculptures

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Gloved hands peeling off a print from an experimental replication of a monotype printing technique

Computational Imaging Sheds Light on Paul Gauguin's Prints

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Abstract painting of bathing figures in gray tones with some color

Visualizing Henri Matisse's Changes to Bathers by the River

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