Clients sometimes ask me whether their oil paintings should be displayed being glass and one or two are dead-set on the idea, but whereas watercolours should always be both framed and glazed (using non-reflective UV resistant glass) oil paintings are a different story. Unless your home is of the stately variety and regularly thrown open to the public there is no need to frame your oil paintings under glass. Of course, all the important museums and galleries exhibit their collections behind glass but concern about the lighting rig in the Louvre is not why the Mona Lisa can only be seen today behind a sheet of ballistic monolithic acrylic. Prestigious galleries have always had more to worry about from lunatics than they ever have from light and other pollutants.
For centuries artists have been finishing oil paintings by applying a final layer of varnish – not only to produce an even sheen and saturate the colours – but also to provide protection to the paint layers. A professionally applied layer of varnish is usually all an oil painting needs to protect it. In fact, putting an oil painting under glass can frequently invite trouble by trapping atmospheric moisture and damp from walls.If we were lucky enough to be back in Arles in 1888 right now and walking past a window of the Yellow House I have no doubt that Vincent would invite us inside to look at his Sunflowers rather than have us peer at it through a pain of glass.
© Academy Fine Paintings Ltd 2023
Images courtesy of the Louvre Museum, Paris and the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (Vincent van Gogh Foundation).