mikegriffith1
Mike Griffith
- Thread starter
- #21
Below are some reasons that the Shroud of Turin cannot be a painting. Rather than present numerous quotes, I will summarize the reasons and then list their sources at the end.
-- Halos of serum surround the blood stains on the Shroud. These halos are not visible to the naked eye and were only detected via ultra-violet photography by the STURP team. Needless to say, it boggles the mind to imagine that a medieval painter would have known that blood stains on cloth can include invisible halos of blood serum around them, much less that the alleged painter could have added the serum halos, given that they are invisible to the naked eye.
-- The yellowed fibers on the Shroud are the fibers that contain the image. The yellowed fibers that contain the image are only one fiber deep in most places, and possibly two fibers deep in some places. The yellowed uppermost fibers dip down under other threads; they are no longer yellow but remain their original white. Likewise, the fibers follow a normal twist of the thread: the top fibers are yellowed while the lower part of the fibers remain white. Therefore, whatever caused the image affected only the uppermost fibers, even to the point of not wicking along the fiber as a liquid would do if it had been applied to the Shroud surface. Duplicating this remarkable effect, which can only be seen under ultra-high magnification, would require a computer-controlled brush, and the brush would have to have incredibly small fibers of hair. This is far beyond the capability of any medieval painter. For that matter, no modern painter could do it by hand.
-- The Shroud of Turin does not display or contain the painting mediums used in medieval art. Convertible mediums were in use in the Middle Ages. Thermoplastic binders were not yet known. The convertible mediums show a colloidal structure and, unlike ordinary solutions, they cannot be completely dissolved in liquids, but tiny dry pigment particles remain dispersed in a suspended equilibrium. Most of these aqueous mediums are emulsions, and some of them are just colloidal solutions.
The convertible aqueous mediums remain in liquid form until they dry. Some remain water-soluble, while others, like egg mediums, do not. The mediums which remain water-soluble after drying are the most vulnerable and lose their binding power quicker than those which dry up non-soluble by water. One thing is certain, however, that the bond in the convertible mediums with colloidal structures is only temporary and their affinity is unpredictable. When they lose their binding power, they pulverize and fall off. They expose the particles of pigments they held to the ground. They too return to their original dust form and do not adhere.
The pigment particles left behind are not just any size. Ralph Mayer, an expert in paint chemistry, notes that in order for colloidal characteristics to be exhibited, at least in one dimension the particle must measure not more than 200 millimicrons and not less than 5 millimicrons. Therefore, the colloidal realm stretches between the smallest particle visible through an ordinary microscope and the largest molecules. Anything seen outside of this realm does not indicate the remnant of a medieval painting technique. Needless to say, the blood stains alone on the Shroud far exceed those measurements and thus cannot be medieval paint.
-- McCrone claimed he found part of a glue paint medium, i.e., animal collagen, on the Shroud. McCrone claimed he found tiny remnants of an animal collagen, i.e., part of a glue paint medium, on the Shroud. Isabel Piczek, a nuclear physicist who later became a renowned artist, refuted McCrone's claim. She noted that the animal glue made in the Middle Ages came from kid, rabbit, or sheep skin or goat, sheep and fish bone, and that it has problematic properties as a paint medium, which is why it is never used in art today. It has very little stability as an uninterrupted paint film and continuously absorbs and discharges moisture from the atmosphere. This causes scaling of the paint film, which remains totally water-soluble and lacks permanence.
She then noted that a painting done with glue as the paint medium would be flat and decorative. Examples for this are the Egyptian wall paintings, preserved only inside of undisturbed tombs in a very dry climate, and that this technique cannot be used for the kind realistic figurative art seen in the image on the Shroud.
More important, she observed that because of the lack of permanence of animal glue, certain chemical additives must always be used with animal glue paint medium, such as formaldehyde, or inorganic salts, zinc chloride or magnesium silicofluoride, and none of these were found on the Shroud.
-- Piczek added that watercolors cannot be used with any success on an unprepared linen. The linen would repel the water badly, even with the chemical additives that watercolors require, and, furthermore, those additives were not found on the Shroud. Their mechanical adhesion would be almost as bad as that of a dust painting. Pastels are stabilized by formaldehyde; they have to be executed on surfaces kept rigid and protected by glass, which clearly rules out their use on the Shroud.
The key point she emphasized is that glue paintings, watercolor paintings, and pastels are destroyed by water and are seriously damaged by folding, rolling, handling, and time. The Shroud was doused with water in the 1532 fire and has been folded many times. If the Shroud were a medieval painting, we would see signs of serious damage to the image as a result of the fire and the frequent folding and handling of the Shroud. We see no indications of any of glue paint, watercolor paint, or pastel features on the Shroud. Piczek concluded,
"Taking all the above-described qualities, chemistry and buildup of the colloidal convertible mediums and the submicron pigment particles found on the Shroud, actually one could not find a better proof than these for the total independence of the Shroud image from these. They lend to us the strongest support that the Shroud is not a painting."
-- Unlike paintings or wall hangings, the Shroud was not stored open and flat. You can discern the folding patterns used at different times by examining the water stains and the fire damage. If it were a gesso-based piece of art, the folds and creases would have broken down the glue. The woodcut print would detach. You would see areas on the Shroud where the image peeled away. You cannot fold and unfold a painting and then repeatedly store it folded without damaging the image along the fold lines.
-- The glue traditionally used in gesso, always cracks, absorbs moisture, and debonds with hot water. The Shroud of Turin was soaked in water on two occasions and the douse water would have been heated by the fire in 1532. Linen absorbs water from the atmosphere and so does rabbit-skin glue. If the Shroud were a painting, the paint would not have stayed in place with the water, fire, and humidity of Chambéry.
-- McCrone says he found no blood on the Shroud, and that the apparent blood stains are really paint, but McCrone performed no chemical or other scientific analysis of the sticky-tape samples. Dr. Victor Tryon, a DNA expert at the University of Texas-San Antonio, has found that the apparent blood stains are in fact blood stains, and that they contain DNA. The blood on the Shroud has been confirmed as human blood by spectrographic and chemical analyses. The results were published in the peer-reviewed scientific journal Applied Optics.
-- The linen of the Shroud is consistent with first-century weaving.
-- STURP reported the presence of red iron oxide particles, which McCrone later cited to support his painting theory, but McCrone ignored the fact that STURP also found that the particles are few in number and are scattered evenly across the Shroud, even where there is no image. The particles are easily explained by the 52 documented occasions when artists are known to have “sanctified” their Shroud replicas by touching them to the original Shroud, causing an unintentional transfer of microscopic paint particles onto the entire Shroud, and not just where the image appears. This is why the red iron oxide particles are scattered evenly across the Shroud.
Sources:
Is the Shroud of Turin a Painting?
http://www.shroudofturinexhibition.com/Shroud_of_Turin_exhibition/NOT_a_Painting_files/Not a painting.pdf
The Shroud of Turin is not a painting – Catholic Strength
Debunking The Shroud: Made by Human Hands
Debunking The Shroud: Made by Human Hands
Debunking The Shroud: Made by Human Hands
Is the Image Of The Shroud Of Turin A Painting? - Catholic-Link
Trial of the Shroud of Turin
The Shroud of Turin's Earlier History: Part One To Edessa
https://www.shroud.com/pdfs/anc-kearse-ppt3.pdf
-- Halos of serum surround the blood stains on the Shroud. These halos are not visible to the naked eye and were only detected via ultra-violet photography by the STURP team. Needless to say, it boggles the mind to imagine that a medieval painter would have known that blood stains on cloth can include invisible halos of blood serum around them, much less that the alleged painter could have added the serum halos, given that they are invisible to the naked eye.
-- The yellowed fibers on the Shroud are the fibers that contain the image. The yellowed fibers that contain the image are only one fiber deep in most places, and possibly two fibers deep in some places. The yellowed uppermost fibers dip down under other threads; they are no longer yellow but remain their original white. Likewise, the fibers follow a normal twist of the thread: the top fibers are yellowed while the lower part of the fibers remain white. Therefore, whatever caused the image affected only the uppermost fibers, even to the point of not wicking along the fiber as a liquid would do if it had been applied to the Shroud surface. Duplicating this remarkable effect, which can only be seen under ultra-high magnification, would require a computer-controlled brush, and the brush would have to have incredibly small fibers of hair. This is far beyond the capability of any medieval painter. For that matter, no modern painter could do it by hand.
-- The Shroud of Turin does not display or contain the painting mediums used in medieval art. Convertible mediums were in use in the Middle Ages. Thermoplastic binders were not yet known. The convertible mediums show a colloidal structure and, unlike ordinary solutions, they cannot be completely dissolved in liquids, but tiny dry pigment particles remain dispersed in a suspended equilibrium. Most of these aqueous mediums are emulsions, and some of them are just colloidal solutions.
The convertible aqueous mediums remain in liquid form until they dry. Some remain water-soluble, while others, like egg mediums, do not. The mediums which remain water-soluble after drying are the most vulnerable and lose their binding power quicker than those which dry up non-soluble by water. One thing is certain, however, that the bond in the convertible mediums with colloidal structures is only temporary and their affinity is unpredictable. When they lose their binding power, they pulverize and fall off. They expose the particles of pigments they held to the ground. They too return to their original dust form and do not adhere.
The pigment particles left behind are not just any size. Ralph Mayer, an expert in paint chemistry, notes that in order for colloidal characteristics to be exhibited, at least in one dimension the particle must measure not more than 200 millimicrons and not less than 5 millimicrons. Therefore, the colloidal realm stretches between the smallest particle visible through an ordinary microscope and the largest molecules. Anything seen outside of this realm does not indicate the remnant of a medieval painting technique. Needless to say, the blood stains alone on the Shroud far exceed those measurements and thus cannot be medieval paint.
-- McCrone claimed he found part of a glue paint medium, i.e., animal collagen, on the Shroud. McCrone claimed he found tiny remnants of an animal collagen, i.e., part of a glue paint medium, on the Shroud. Isabel Piczek, a nuclear physicist who later became a renowned artist, refuted McCrone's claim. She noted that the animal glue made in the Middle Ages came from kid, rabbit, or sheep skin or goat, sheep and fish bone, and that it has problematic properties as a paint medium, which is why it is never used in art today. It has very little stability as an uninterrupted paint film and continuously absorbs and discharges moisture from the atmosphere. This causes scaling of the paint film, which remains totally water-soluble and lacks permanence.
She then noted that a painting done with glue as the paint medium would be flat and decorative. Examples for this are the Egyptian wall paintings, preserved only inside of undisturbed tombs in a very dry climate, and that this technique cannot be used for the kind realistic figurative art seen in the image on the Shroud.
More important, she observed that because of the lack of permanence of animal glue, certain chemical additives must always be used with animal glue paint medium, such as formaldehyde, or inorganic salts, zinc chloride or magnesium silicofluoride, and none of these were found on the Shroud.
-- Piczek added that watercolors cannot be used with any success on an unprepared linen. The linen would repel the water badly, even with the chemical additives that watercolors require, and, furthermore, those additives were not found on the Shroud. Their mechanical adhesion would be almost as bad as that of a dust painting. Pastels are stabilized by formaldehyde; they have to be executed on surfaces kept rigid and protected by glass, which clearly rules out their use on the Shroud.
The key point she emphasized is that glue paintings, watercolor paintings, and pastels are destroyed by water and are seriously damaged by folding, rolling, handling, and time. The Shroud was doused with water in the 1532 fire and has been folded many times. If the Shroud were a medieval painting, we would see signs of serious damage to the image as a result of the fire and the frequent folding and handling of the Shroud. We see no indications of any of glue paint, watercolor paint, or pastel features on the Shroud. Piczek concluded,
"Taking all the above-described qualities, chemistry and buildup of the colloidal convertible mediums and the submicron pigment particles found on the Shroud, actually one could not find a better proof than these for the total independence of the Shroud image from these. They lend to us the strongest support that the Shroud is not a painting."
-- Unlike paintings or wall hangings, the Shroud was not stored open and flat. You can discern the folding patterns used at different times by examining the water stains and the fire damage. If it were a gesso-based piece of art, the folds and creases would have broken down the glue. The woodcut print would detach. You would see areas on the Shroud where the image peeled away. You cannot fold and unfold a painting and then repeatedly store it folded without damaging the image along the fold lines.
-- The glue traditionally used in gesso, always cracks, absorbs moisture, and debonds with hot water. The Shroud of Turin was soaked in water on two occasions and the douse water would have been heated by the fire in 1532. Linen absorbs water from the atmosphere and so does rabbit-skin glue. If the Shroud were a painting, the paint would not have stayed in place with the water, fire, and humidity of Chambéry.
-- McCrone says he found no blood on the Shroud, and that the apparent blood stains are really paint, but McCrone performed no chemical or other scientific analysis of the sticky-tape samples. Dr. Victor Tryon, a DNA expert at the University of Texas-San Antonio, has found that the apparent blood stains are in fact blood stains, and that they contain DNA. The blood on the Shroud has been confirmed as human blood by spectrographic and chemical analyses. The results were published in the peer-reviewed scientific journal Applied Optics.
-- The linen of the Shroud is consistent with first-century weaving.
-- STURP reported the presence of red iron oxide particles, which McCrone later cited to support his painting theory, but McCrone ignored the fact that STURP also found that the particles are few in number and are scattered evenly across the Shroud, even where there is no image. The particles are easily explained by the 52 documented occasions when artists are known to have “sanctified” their Shroud replicas by touching them to the original Shroud, causing an unintentional transfer of microscopic paint particles onto the entire Shroud, and not just where the image appears. This is why the red iron oxide particles are scattered evenly across the Shroud.
Sources:
Is the Shroud of Turin a Painting?
http://www.shroudofturinexhibition.com/Shroud_of_Turin_exhibition/NOT_a_Painting_files/Not a painting.pdf
The Shroud of Turin is not a painting – Catholic Strength
Debunking The Shroud: Made by Human Hands
Debunking The Shroud: Made by Human Hands
Debunking The Shroud: Made by Human Hands
Is the Image Of The Shroud Of Turin A Painting? - Catholic-Link
Trial of the Shroud of Turin
The Shroud of Turin's Earlier History: Part One To Edessa
https://www.shroud.com/pdfs/anc-kearse-ppt3.pdf
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