The Origin of Icons

The origin of icons, and by extension of Christian painting, can now be traced to the panel painting tradition of pagan divinities in wide use in Late Antiquity throughout the Mediterranean. Both pagan and Christian panel paintings were employed as votive or thank offerings. According to an ancient phenomenon known as “syncretism,” emperors were identified with gods and Greek gods with Egyptian ones. Triptych paintings were a new way of exploring the implications of syncretism. In the sixth century, icons went from being single offerings to an assembly on the templon barrier. The earliest surviving evidence of church iconography, decoration and ritual cult, or liturgy, comes from Constantinople, at the churches of St. Polyeuktos and Hagia Sophia.

Original Varnish Recipes in Post-Byzantine Painting Manuals

During the last decades, manuscripts have become increasingly available through digitization and deposition in online repositories. This trend has very much facilitated primary source research, as scholars are no longer subjected to time- and effort-consuming processes such as travel, applications for photography permissions, and so on. In this framework, the authors set forth the results of research that deals with post-Byzantine panel-painting varnish recipes which were found in a hitherto unpublished Greek painting manual dating back to 1824. The recipes in consideration are compared to those existing in the renowned “Hermeneia” by Dionysios of Fourna (early 18th century) painter’s manual. A brief discussion dealing with various pertinent terms, along with a note on data deriving from the analytical investigation of varnish samples stemming from post-Byzantine icons are also included in this work. The study reveals a shift towards lean and intermediate varnish recipes during the early 19th century that might reflect the progression of resins and oleoresins, and the gradual replacement of oil-based varnishes. In addition, a unique recipe describing various methods of varnish application is transcribed and commented upon. Finally, the analytical data revealed an unexpected employment of a protein-based varnish in a mid-19th century icon.

Three-dimensional numerical and experimental study of fracture saturation in panel paintings

Panel paintings—complex multi-layer structures consisting of wood support and a paint layer composed of a preparatory layer of gesso, paints, and varnishes—are among the category of cultural objects most vulnerable to relative humidity fluctuations and frequently found in museum collections. The current environmental specifications in museums have been derived using the criterion of crack initiation in an undamaged, usually new gesso layer laid on wood. In reality, historical paintings exhibit complex crack patterns called craquelures. The present paper analyses the structural response of a paint layer with a virtual network of rectangular cracks under environmental loadings using a three-dimensional model of a panel painting. Two modes of loading are considered—one induced by one-dimensional moisture response of wood support, termed the tangential loading, and the other isotropic induced by drying shrinkage of the gesso layer. The superposition of the two modes is also analysed. The modelling showed that minimum distances between cracks parallel to the wood grain depended on the gesso stiffness under the tangential loading. Despite a nonzero Poisson’s ratio, gesso cracks perpendicular to the wood grain could not be generated by the moisture response of the wood support. The isotropic drying shrinkage of gesso produced cracks that were almost evenly spaced in both directions. The modelling results were cross-checked with crack patterns obtained on a mock-up of a panel painting exposed to several extreme environmental variations in an environmental chamber.

Nondestructive Evaluation of Heritage Object Coatings with Four Hyperspectral Imaging Systems

Advanced imaging techniques can noninvasively characterise, monitor, and evaluate how conservation treatments affect cultural heritage objects. In this specific field, hyperspectral imaging allows nondestructive characterisation of materials by identifying and characterising colouring agents, binders, and protective coatings as components of an object’s original construction or later historic additions. Furthermore, hyperspectral imaging can be used to monitor deterioration or changes caused by environmental conditions. This paper examines the potential of hyperspectral imaging (HSI) for the evaluation of heritage objects. Four cameras operating in different spectral ranges were used to nondestructively scan a beehive panel painting that originated from the Slovene Ethnographic Museum collection. The specific objective of this research was to identify pigments and binders present in the samples and to spatially map the presence of these across the surface of the art piece. Merging the results with databases created in parallel using other reference methods allows for the identification of materials originally used by the artist on the panel. Later interventions to the original paintings can also be traced as part of past conservation campaigns.

Continuity or Rupture? Further Thoughts on the ‘Classical Revolution’ (2500+ Years after Salamis)

In the last half-dozen years, the early fifth-century BC ‘Classical Revolution’ in Greek sculpture and painting has become ‘hot’ again.1 Did it develop gradually, incrementally, and logically out of the Archaic, or emerge quite suddenly (if so, when?), or involve some combination of both? Since chronology drives the debate, as usual in the study of ancient material culture, to restate some basic principles seems appropriate. I. Absolute chronologies, independently derived, should always underpin and guide relative ones. II. In a relative/gradualist chronology, the ‘latest’ feature of an artifact determines its stylistic terminus post quem, and thus its place in the series.2 Nevertheless: III. Such relative dates cannot be turned simply or unproblematically into history.3 IV. Nothing new comes out of nothing (even Athena came from the head of Zeus). Yet: V. Supposed ‘predecessors’ to a revolution on a gradualist chronology often turn out to be hesitant reactions to it when more data emerge.4 In the present case, unfortunately, the Sicyonian, Argive, Aeginetan, and Athenian bronzes celebrated in the texts are all lost, together with all contemporary wall and panel painting; no absolute chronology exists for early fifth-century East Greek sculpture;5 and West Greek sculpture clearly trails that of the mainland. So by default, our spotlight must fall largely on the marble sculpture of Athens, Aegina, and the Cyclades, and on red-figure vase-painting.

Co wspólnego ma Wniebowzięcie Marii z Ostatnią Wieczerzą, czyli o genezie formy i ikonografii późnośredniowiecznego obrazu ze zbiorów Muzeum Narodowego w Poznaniu,(...)

The late medieval panel painting of the Assumption of Virgin Mary from the Collection of the National Museum in Poznań was most likely created in Greater Poland (Wielkopolska), probably in Poznań, in the early 16th century. Scholars have pointed out the connection of its iconography with several other art pieces from the area of Greater Poland. In the light of these findings, our painting seemed to be traditional in the terms of form, as well as of content. This paper shows that some formal solutions and motifs used in the painting from Poznań differ from a typical iconographic practice, and it has only partial coverage in literary sources. The Apostles’ behaviour not fully corresponding to the subject and the chair in which an unidentified Apostle is sitting in a strangely complicated pose by the sarcophagus are the exceptional traits of the Poznań painting. The reason for their presence is the fact that the painter quoted a large part of the copperplate engraving of the Netherlandish Master IAM of Zwolle on a completely different subject: the Last Supper. The painter repeated selected elements quite accurately, without trying too much to adopt them to the new context. The Poznań painting is one of the countless examples of the use of prints as a pattern in the late medieval workshop practice. But at the same time, it belongs to the smaller in number works that were created in a more sophisticated way, through a compilation of motifs taken from various sources, combined with iconographic transformations. The paintings of Jörg Stoker, active in Ulm, and the prominent Antwerp artist Joos van Cleve analysed in the paper, are the examples of the application of a similar creative procedure. The last part of the text is devoted to the reception of the copperplate engraving by Master IAM of Zwolle, which determined so markedly the form and iconography of the painting at the National Museum in Poznań. The range of impact of this pattern, including Northern France, Greater Poland, Austria, Southern Germany (?), Northern Italy, Sardinia and Castilla, illustrates how universal, despite all the regional differences, the visual culture of Latin Europe was at the time.

Thomas De Coloswar. On The Esztergom Altarpiece and An Addition to His Oeuvre

The large triptych in the Esztergom Christian Museum, painted in 1427 by Thomas de Coloswar, is a work of art typical of the International Gothic style, and includes formal elements that can be related to the schools of Bohemia, or better to the school of Nuremberg. The painting is analysed from an iconographic point of view, pointing out the most peculiar features, that may lead to an interpretation of the altarpiece also as an affirmation of the Catholic Eucharist doctrine. A new panel painting is added here to Thomas’ catalogue: a Vir Dolorum with Saint Francis receiving the stigmata in Cologne (Wallraf-Richartz-Museum), formerly attributed to the Master of the Lindau Lamentation (Meister der Lindauer Beweinung).

Monitoring the Restoration of a Seventeenth-Century Wooden Artwork Using Laser-Induced Fluorescence and Digital Image Analysis

The present paper is aimed at demonstrating the capabilities of digital image analysis (DIA) to support conservation of painted artwork. Laser-induced fluorescence (LIF) imaging has been usually used in the diagnosis of wall paintings. In this case, LIF is applied to the case study of a painted wooden canopy, and most successful data processing techniques are presented in the discussion of results. The Jesús del Gran Poder canopy, completed by Francisco Ruiz Gijón in 1692, is an oil panel painting on wood. Eight panels of the canopy have been study by LIF. This technique is capable of remotely acquiring hyperspectral images operating in fluorescence mode following ultraviolet laser excitation. LIF spectra combined with principal component analysis, spectral angle mapper, and DIA provide a chemical mapping of the treated wooden surface of the panels. Besides, LIF spectrum is as a fingerprint of the panels that allows stablishing differences between them. LIF imaging analysis has proven to be a very useful tool for mapping retouching work, tracking previous restorations, and detecting chemicals on the wood in order to monitor restorations.