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Paul Gauguin is famous for his use of bold lines and colourful imagery to depict Tahitian life.

Little is known, however, about the techniques and materials the French artist used to create his unusual and complex graphic works.

Now a team of US scientists and artists have used a light bulb, an SLR camera and a laptop to uncover new remarkable new details of Gauguin's printmaking process.

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The technique was originally revealed by peeling back layers of the 3D surface of the print 'Nativity (Mother and Child Surrounded by Five Figures),' made by Gauguin in 1902

Researchers at Northwestern University say Gauguin formed, layered and re-used imagery to make 19 unique graphic works.

The technique was originally revealed by peeling back layers of the 3D surface of the print 'Nativity (Mother and Child Surrounded by Five Figures),' made by Gauguin in 1902.

Gauguin created the print using a layering of images created on paper by drawings, transfer of images and two different inks.

The 'Nativity' findings overturn an earlier theory as to how Gauguin might have produced the print.

Oliver Cossairt, who led the research, was 'blown away' by the scientific results, so the his team reproduced what they believed to be Gauguin's process.

The printmaking process produced a piece of art very similar to Gauguin's original.

'To measure the 3-D surface of the prints, we used some very accessible techniques that can be used by art conservators and historians around the world to analyse artworks,' said Cossairt, who developed the software to analyse the imaging data.

'In applying these techniques to Gauguin's work, we came up with some interesting answers to questions about what his printing process was.'

As well as 'Nativity', the team studied 18 other Gauguin monoprints in the Art Institute's collection.

They used multiple wavelengths of light shining from different directions onto the prints to investigate the surface of the paper and re-evaluate how Gauguin created his works.

The technique allowed the researchers to separate colour from surface shape, providing a much clearer view of the paper's topography.

The scientists used multiple wavelengths of light shining from different directions onto Gauguin's prints.The technique allowed the researchers to separate colour from surface shape, providing a much clearer view of the paper's topography

Oliver Cossairt, who led the research, was 'blown away' by the results, so the his team reproduced what they believed to be Gauguin's process.The printmaking process produced art similar to Gauguin's original

For the study of an artwork, the piece was fixed in place, as was an SLR camera. 

A light bulb was moved to 20 different locations and a photo taken of the artwork for each light bulb position.

The digital data for each pixel of each image then was run through Cossairt's software.

Essentially, the researchers were measuring only the response of an artwork's surface to changing lighting

'The technique allows us to peel away the print's colour and look at the surface structure only,' Cossairt said.

'For each image, we know the angle of the lighting and the brightness of each pixel and from that we can calculate the unknown - the surface structure.'

The surface structure of 'Nativity' revealed white lines, in which there is an absence of ink.

This indicates those lines were created using a transfer process, where Gauguin drew on an inked surface, removing ink, and those empty lines were transferred to his print.

Using a simple light bulb, an SLR camera, and computer software, researchers have uncovered new details of French artist Paul Gauguin's printmaking method

Scientists reveal new insight into Gauguin's creative process

The ink of the black lines sits atop ridges in the paper.

Gauguin would have placed his paper on an inked surface and then drawn on the back of the paper, causing ink to be transferred to the paper where pressure from the artist's pencil was applied.

'Gauguin died more than a century ago, but there is still something to say, something new to find out, in large part due to this teamwork,' said Harriet Stratis, senior research conservator at the Art Institute and the museum's lead collaborator on the Gauguin project.

'Gauguin probably was doing these kinds of prints for five years, so this research puts a whole body of work together,' she said. 'The evidence points to a completely different artistic approach by Gauguin.'

Casadio says that information such as this can be included in augmented reality apps to help art lovers learn more about prints just by pointing your phone at them.  

Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin was a French Post-Impressionist artist. He is famous for his use of bold lines and colourful imagery to depict Tahitian life.