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medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture

From: John Wickstrom <[log in to unmask]>

> Christopher, thanks for these insights. As long as you're at it, since I
haven't seen the actual MS, any idea what the medium is (aside from pen and
ink?). Anybody?


?

technically, i think that it's called "paint".

pigments made from All Natural ingredients.

i don't know whether that lovely green was based on arsenic, which i do know
was used in the 18th c. for a green paint (pretty green, arsenic-based
wallpaper in his bedroom on St. Helena is said to have been what killed
Napoleon).

the range of colors is quite limited, even with variants being supplied by
dilution.

note that the orange of the "rubrication" lines in the text 

http://www.kzoo.edu/history/Wickstrom/bene2.jpg

is the same as that found here and there in the illumination, on clothing, the
capitals behind the figures and the "shadowing" on some of the nice ashlar
masonry below. 

some of the architectural elements (cornices, mainly) are done in a dark red
which looks suspiciously like a pre-dilution version of that orange.

i've been told but have forgotten what they used to get that blue (perhaps
cobalt, though that was expensive), and there is that one (at least) example
of the use of a very strong purple

http://www.culture.gouv.fr/Wave/savimage/enlumine/irht7/IRHT_109816-p.jpg

i would imagine that its use in that particular scene has some iconographic
significance, which i could not begin to guess about.

i know nothing about painting techniques in this period.

for instance, i don't know (though i certainly should) whether the initial
light brown drawing of the outlines of the figures and architecture was done
with a pen or a fine brush --i rather suspect the former.

perhaps Florence Brémond 

http://www.terebenthine.com/medieval_illumination/florence/main.html

is still on this list?

she has a portion of her site dedicated to technique:

http://www.terebenthine.com/histoire/principal.html

c

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