New Turin Shroud Speculation; Was Giotto its Creator?

The Shroud of Turin, has for centuries, created a mass of speculation and myth around its creation and authenticity; the latest of which, seems to disallow for any recent research into the carbon dating of the cloth of the Shroud, and instead propels renaissance artist Giotto into the spotlight as its cunning creator.

The commonly known 'lunatic fringe' of researchers into the relic's provenance have, in the past, linked Leonardo Da Vinci to the Shroud, suggesting that the image on the cloth is an early photo-generated image from Leonardo's experimental art studios...

This new theory seems to be clinging onto the already disproved argument, that the images on the cloth are made with paint. Artist and restorer Luciano Buso claims to have solved the allusion of the Shroud, and in good old fashioned speculative enthusiasm, has used mysterious hidden names and secret numbers to determine his conclusion.

For those who are unclear as to the history of the Shroud, here's a quick run down of recent research into its authenticity; Said to be the very cloth that Christ was swathed in after Crucifixion, the Shroud of Turin currently lies in Turin's Cathedral as a very real relic of Christianity.

In 1979, a world renowned forensic, Walter McCrone, claimed that he had found paint on the fibers of the cloth. This backed up the local legend that the Shroud had first appeared in 1356 in the hands of a French knight. The Shroud was subsequently called a fake by a local Bishop who claimed at the time, that an artist must have ''cunningly painted it''. Later in 1988, a series of very controversial carbon 14 dating tests were carried out on the edge of the cloth, after stipulations agreed with the Church, so as not to damage the relic. These carbon dating results showed that the fibers of the cloth dated to the Middle Ages between 1260 and 1390.

Skepticism as to the reliability of the dating methods used during the carbon dating experiment circulated and came to a head in 1998 after a photograph of the Shroud proved the image on the cloth to be an exact negative of a human face, and was therefore unlikely to have been painted on. This then called into question how the image was formed and furthermore, whether the carbon dating for the edges of the cloth were accurate.

The image was believed to be a chemical reaction from an embalming ointment applied to the skin of a person, which had 'caramelised' and reacted to the cloth over time.

The bloodstains

The bloodstains on the Shroud of Turin are composed of hemoglobin and give a positive test for serum albumin. Numerous tests confirm this.

The images

The Shroud of Turin's images are superficial and fully contained within a thin layer of starch fractions and saccharides that coats the outermost fibers of the Shroud. The color is a caramel-like substance, probably the product of an amino/carbonyl reaction. Where there is no image, the carbohydrate coating is clear. There is also a very faint image of the face on the reverse side of the Shroud of Turin which lines up with the image on the front of the cloth. There is no image content between the two superficial image layers indicating that nothing soaked through to form the image on the other side.

Until recently, it was widely believed that the images on the Shroud of Turin were produced by something which resulted in oxidation, dehydration and conjugation of the polysaccharide structure of the linen fibers. This is incorrect. The coating, whether imaged or clear, can be reduced with diimide or removed with adhesive leaving clear cellulose fiber.

The images as they appear on the Shroud of Turin are said to be negative because when photographed the resulting negative is a positive image.

The Turin Shroud was examined with visible and ultraviolet spectrometry, infrared spectrometry, x-ray fluorescence spectrometry, thermography, pyrolysis-mass-spectrometry, laser­microprobe Raman analyses, and microchemical testing. No evidence for pigments (paint, dye or stains) or artist's media was found anywhere on the Shroud of Turin - www.shroudstory.com

The carbon dating to the Middle Ages is also questioned as the medieval fibers which were tested have now been found to be mixed with earlier fragments of cloth in a commenly used repair method called 'invisible mending'. This is where new fibers of the cloth are woven with the old fibers so minutely that a repair is not visible to the untrained eye.

So, Mr Buso's theory, as you can see, is somewhat out of date. Nevertheless, if the Shroud is believed to be medieval, and that the image has been painted onto the cloth, and it has been proven that the image on the Shroud is in the negative, then it must have taken an extraordinary artist to complete the task, and Mr Buso believes that artist to be Giotto.

Nick Squires from the Telegraph reports:

Luciano Buso claims to have found Giotto di Bondone's signature hidden in the 14ft-long, sepia-coloured burial cloth, as well as the number 15.

The historian believes that the number is a reference to 1315, and that the artist was commissioned in that year to come up with an exact copy of the relic because the original was badly damaged after centuries of being hawked around the Holy Land and Europe.

Mr Buso, who has laid out his controversial thesis in a new book, said the idea that the existing shroud was created in 1315 agrees with modern carbon dating tests which dated the fabric to the early 14th century.

He told The Daily Telegraph that he believes the original was indeed the sheet used to cover Christ's body but that it disintegrated, or was lost or burned, sometime after the copy was made.

After months of analysis, he claims to have found several 15s and Giotto's name hidden in the imprint of Christ's face and hands – a means by which the artist stamped his mark on his work.

Jonathan Jones of the Guardian responds as to why Giotto could have been up to the task;

Well, Giotto had the genius for it, that much is true. He could probably have knocked up a shroud or two in his lunchtime, if he felt like it. But why would he want to? Nothing in what is known of his life or art suggests any such activities or interests. "Cimabue used to think he led the field," says his contemporary Dante in The Divine Comedy, referring to the great Florentine painter who discovered the artist's talent. But now Giotto has eclipsed him.

Giotto was the most emotionally eloquent painter of his age; he gave people expressions, gestures and statuesque figures that convey, to us as much as to his contemporaries, the deepest human passions. This was a time of great new energies and ideas. Towns and cities were full of pride and wealth, an urban world beautifully captured in Ambrogio Lorenzetti's depiction of medieval Siena. Meanwhile, the vision of Saint Francis of Assisi liberated religion from obscurities and spoke directly to hearts and souls. Giotto's art is as lucid as a Franciscan sermon, and it depicts the ordinary, unaffected faces of merchants, artisans, women and priests. You see its power in his portrayal of the death of Saint Francis in a fresco in the church of Santa Croce, Florence.

Looking at these paintings and considering the claim that Giotto created the Turin Shroud, the question is why our culture needs such a daft story to get us talking about him. Giotto was a deeply serious artist. His achievement, fulsomely recognised in the Renaissance, was to ground painting in the observation of nature, to free it from obscurities, to make it human and real. Beside his paintings, the idea of Giotto taking time off to concoct a relic seems silly. He was too well-known, too ambitious and too profound to either want to do it or get away with it unnoticed.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/italy/8561812/Turin-Shroud-the-creation-of-a-Renaissance-artist.html

http://www.shroudstory.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shroud_of_Turin

http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/jonathanjonesblog/2011/jun/09/giotto-paint-turin-shroud