The Materials and Techniques of Medieval Painting: (Dover Art Instruction)

Based on authentic medieval manuscripts and laboratory analysis, this volume explains carriers and grounds, binding media, pigments, and coloring materials used to obtain brilliance and permanence. "A rich feast." - The Times (London). Medieval painters built up a tremendous range of technical resources for obtaining brilliance and permanence. In this volume, an internationally known authority on medieval paint technology describes these often jealously guarded recipes, lists of materials, and processes. Based upon years of study of medieval manuscripts and enlarged by laboratory analysis of medieval paintings, this book discusses carriers and grounds, binding media, pigments, coloring materials, and metals used in painting. It describes the surfaces that the medieval artist painted upon, detailing their preparation. It analyzes binding media, discussing relative merits of glair versus gums, oil glazes, and other matters. It tells how the masters obtained their colors, how they processed them, and how they applied them. It tells how metals were prepared for use in painting, how gold powders and leaf were laid on, and dozens of other techniques. Simply written, easy to read, this book will be invaluable to art historians, students of medieval painting and civilization, and historians of culture. Although it contains few fully developed recipes, it will interest any practicing artist with its discussion of methods of brightening colors and assuring permanence.

Table of Contents:
FOREWORD BY BERNARD BERENESON PREFACE INTRODUCTION I. CARRIERS AND GROUNDS Terminology The importance of book painting Parchment-making Vellum Qualities of parchment Preparations Wooden surfaces The functions of gesso The use of gesso The construction of a polyptch Variations of method Other Grounds Canvas Walls and plasters Structural woodwork II. BINDING MEDIA The three orders of binding Functions of vehicles Viscosity effects Effects of transparency Quantity relations Optics and art history Abuses of wax Media for illumination-Glair Craftsmanship and aethetic Craftsmanship and conscience Craftmanship and industry Preservation of glair Glair v. gums Gum arabic Gum tragacanth Size Adjuncts to glair Media for panel painting-Egg tempera Size Oil glazes Oils and Varnishes Media for panel painting-Lime Origin of true fresco Palimpsests Secco painting Media for structural wood painting Oil and size III. PIGMENTS Classifications Elements Minerals Vegetable extracts Manufactured salts BLACK COLOURS Inks Lampblack Vine-charcoal black Colour grinding Other carbon blacks Graphite Ivory black BROWN COLOURS WHITE PIGMENTS Manufacture of white lead Modern and medieval white leads Qualities of white lead Bone White Othe inert whites Lime whites RED COLOURS Sinopia The range of ochres Appetites for colour Minium-orange lead Minium-cinnabar Natural cinnabar Vermilion The invention of vermilion Early experimental chemistry Supply and demand Influence of vermilion A defect of vermilion Tempering The red lakes Lac Lake Hedera and lacca Grain Confusion of Nomenclature Confusion of Materials-Kermes Grain Lakes Brazil wood Brazil lakes Transparent Opaque Brazil extracts The importance of brazil colours Madder Dragonsblood Folium BLUE COLOURS Effects of age Neutrals Azurite Preparation of azurite Characteristics of azurite blues Indigo Woad Woad indigo Woad cultivation Manufacture Social and economic consequences Compound indigo pigments Other vegtable blues Turnsole Identification Manufacture Clothlets Ultramarine azure Manufacture Intrinsic value Distribution Artifical copper blues Blue bice Copper-lime-ammonia compounds The silver-blue mystery The azure-vermilion tangle PURPLE COLOURS The whelk reds Folium and archil Mixed purples GREEN COLOURS Malachite green The green earths Verdigris Effects of age Verdigris in books Salt Green and Rouen green Incompatibilities Sap Green Iris Green Other colours from iris Honeysuckle and nightshade greens Mixed greens YELLOW COLOURS Medieval use of yellow Yellow ochres Orpiment Realgar Incompatibilities of orpiment Bile yellows Giallorino-Massicot Substitutes for gold Mosaic gold Other imitations of gold Celandine Aloes Saffron Preperation and use Other organic yellows Rhamnus yellows-Extracts and lakes Weld lakes-Arzica Fustic and others IV. METALS Gold in powder Fire gilding Amalgams Gold in leaf Thickness of medieval gold Reflecting surfaces-Burnishing River gold Chrysography with gold inks Unburnished pigment gold The beginnings of mordant gilding Composition of a water mordant Burnished water-mordant gilding The binders The colouring agents The bulk-formers Other ingredients Unburnished water mordants Gilding by attrition The background of craftsmanship Burnishers and burnishing The metallic ground Gold-the original intent Preperation of surfaces &nbs