Alyssa Dumire, Director of Education
A technique with a fun name, scumbling appears prominently in both of these paintings. Viewed at a distance, both share a soft, textured effect. Up close, that texture becomes more prominent, one color partially covering another.
To scumble, a painter uses a mostly dry brush and opaque, undiluted paint. In some instances, it could also be called “dry brushing,” but scumbling is far more fun to say! It is an alternative to, and in many ways opposite of, glazing, where the paint is applied in thin, translucent, even layers. Glazes are usually darker hues applied over a pale base, while scumbling uses opaque paint that is typically lighter than the underpainting. Both techniques allow previously applied colors to show through, visually mixing when viewed from a distance.
Scumbling highlights the texture over which it is applied, whether the woven nubs of canvas or underlying brushstrokes. In one of my painting classes, the professor instructed us to mix sand into the gesso, then paint the entire panel with a dark shade before adding highlights and midtones. The rough sand naturally caused the paint to adhere to the high points and avoid the more pitted areas. These remained dark, adding depth and drama, especially with high-contrast colors.
The technique of scumbling dates to the 16th century. Venetian artists Titian and Tintoretto employed it to emulate the effect of draped fabric or bright rays of light. The advent of techniques like scumbling (and impasto!) signaled a shift from the calm perfection of the High Renaissance towards the drama of Mannerism. Paint became more visible rather than thin, translucent, controlled glazes. Rembrandt was also partial to scumbling in his self-portraits, using it for wispy hair or aging skin. While the technique was used earlier, the first instances of the word scumble only date to the 18th century. Its etymology is fuzzy, perhaps related to an obsolete past-tense of skim, which is exactly how the technique is applied.
Like Russell Oettel and Robert Reid, above, some artists use scumbling to achieve an all-over fuzzy or airy quality. Others scumble more selectively. Can you spot the technique in these two Hoosier Impressionist paintings?
The water in Davisson’s painting is accented with scumbled highlights, perhaps ripples or bright sunlight reflecting on the water. Similarly, Forsyth uses the technique to suggest bright, dappled sunshine in his otherwise shaded market scene.
The next time you visit FWMoA, compare techniques in the paintings you see. Where is the paint thick or thin, glazed, impasto, or scumbled? How does this impact the work overall?