Medieval Artists – Painting and art in the Middle Ages
One of the things I definitely wanted to incorporate in my book was the rich artistic heritage that Florence is most well known for. Considered by many as the birthplace of Renaissance art, there is a history of artistry that is almost the beating heart of the city. The Power of the Wouivre: Fiorenza was set prior to this explosion of art and creativity but the origins of medieval art were already simmering under the surface. One of the earliest pioneers was an artist known as Cimabue, who many consider to have been a pioneer in breaking from the old Italo-Byzantine style of painting popular up to that point. He in turn had a young apprentice called Giotto who was believed by many to be the “father” of the Italian Renaissance. Not much is known about either of these painters’ early lives so I have included them as minor characters in my story, drawing on what little is known to create a plausible fiction.
When you think about painting nowadays, you think of purchasing some paper, or a canvas, a few brushes and some paints. You might have a brief dilemma as to whether to choose water colours, acrylics or oil paints but once you’ve made your decision, its a simple question of going to an art shop, purchasing what you need, and then letting your creativity take over! It wasn’t quite so simple for the medieval painters. Before they could even think about paints (more on that in a bit), they had to create their “canvas”. Even a simple sketch, which might be done on parchment, required the making of the parchment itself. This was done by soaking, stretching and scraping animal skins and, as with so many things in medieval times that we now take for granted, was a laborious process.
Painting was also not generally done for the pure pleasure of creativity, as much as it was a job commissioned by a patron, often a religious body, who would have very specific requirements for their chosen artwork. There were two common types of painting commissions – wood panels or murals – both of which needed extensive preparation before paint could be applied. In the case of wood panels, a primer known as gesso, which literally means “chalk” in Italian, was a type of plaster applied to the wood to allow the paint to adhere. It would be mixed up using a gelatinous substance made from boiling animal skins (usually rabbit), and chalk powder. Mural painting, or fresco, (literally fresh) required not only painting skill, but also accuracy and speed, not to mention plastering and carpentry skills, as the painter would have to build his own scaffold to reach the high walls/ ceilings, and apply the fresh plaster himself, in sections so that it didn’t dry out. Dry plaster painting may also have occurred (secco) but as this would have deteriorated more easily, it is the medieval art fresco that we still have evidence of, and can enjoy today. A fresco painting consisted of painting directly onto the wet plaster. Painting in this way, rather than applying ready mixed colours to dry plaster allowed better absorbency of the pigments into the wall, and minimised flaking and cracking.
Thus far, we have demonstrated the huge time and effort required by a medieval painter to carry out his craft and they have not even applied the first paint colour! Now we will come onto the paint itself. I already touched on methods of creating colours when I wrote my blog on fashion in the thirteenth century. Now we will look at that in a little more detail, as it applies to artists’ paints. As with clothing dyes, artist’s colours originated from pigments extracted from natural sources. Once the pigment had been acquired, it needed to be mixed with a suitable medium for application. Oil paints were not generally used in Europe until the fifteenth century so before then, the dry pigments required alternative media. With fresco painting, this was the wet plaster itself, hence the need for speed, and the foresight not to apply plaster to too extensive an area which would cause the latter part of the substratum to be dry before the artist might reach it with his colours. For panel painting, the artist would use tempera, which was created by mixing the powdered pigments with fresh egg yolk. This method required mixing fresh paints daily. Depending on the pigment and its source and method of extraction, the artist might either obtain the powdered colour naturally, that is to say manually himself, or he might go to an apothecary to purchase it. The medieval apothecary dealt in the end product of natural substances for a number of uses, so one would find a huge array of goods for sale there, from pharmaceuticals, herbal medicines and other holistic healthcare, to paint pigments and clothing dyes, and even everyday herbs and spices for cooking. Since the monasteries had their own herb garden and were also among the early hospitals, it stood to reason that they would be skilled in the use of those herbs, and thus many of the early apothecaries would have been attached to the monasteries themselves.
As far as the actual pigment colours are concerned, these are so varied, that it would be impossible to cover them all in a single post. I shall instead, just give a brief overview. Although not technically colours, black and white are fundamental to painting, both in their own right, and as a mixer to create shades of other colours. In the Middle Ages, these would mostly be extracted from soot to make carbon, or lampblack, and from lead or chalk to make lead white or lime white respectively. With regard to “true” colours, the most extensively available were red and yellow (and derivatives of these, such as orange). When discussing clothing dyes, we came across madder as a popular, easily obtainable red. However, there is little evidence of this pigment being used in the artist’s paints in the Middle Ages. Instead, red was taken from minerals in the earth (oche, vermillion/cinnabar, lead), or berries. Yellow could also be made from oche, or from tin or orpiment (arsenic sulfide). Blue could be sourced from the mineral azurite. For status, patrons would pay for the better, and vastly more costly, ultramarine made from lapiz lazuli, which was more expensive than gold, and the preferred choice for the Virgin’s robes in the fourteenth and fifteenth century religious art. Indigo, from the woad plant, was also used. Green earth was a common colour created by mixing a combination of minerals. An alternate and popular green in the Middle Ages was verdigris which was basically made by combining copper with acid or ammonia (urine being the most readily available!) Browns were also sourced from the earth (sienna/umber). Other colours would generally be made by mixing a combination of the above. For a more detailed look at the colour pigments, how they were made, and what they were replaced with later, an excellent resource can be found here.
As you can see, a medieval artist needed to be so much more than a painter. He needed to be part chemist, part painter, part builder/construction worker. He also had to have a degree of business acumen to be successful – running a workshop and negotiating with patrons. His time would be full from the moment he awoke, to the moment he went to bed, sourcing, preparing and making everything from his canvas and brushes to the paints themselves. In the fifteenth century an Italian artist called Cennino Cennini wrote an instruction book on the practise of art, called Il Libro d’Arte (the Book of Art) which included preparation of medieval art materials and recipes for making paints and is an invaluable resource for anyone wanting to delve deeper into the history of art.