Sunday, October 21, 2018

Surviving Devotional Panels from Renaissance Europe

Barna da Siena
Mystic Marriage of St Catherine
ca. 1340
tempera on panel
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Barnaba da Modena
Virgin and Child
ca. 1360-70
tempera on panel
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

"Through the fourteenth century, the primary support for portable paintings  from monumental church altarpieces to diminutive works used in private devotion  was the wooden panel.  Masters were assisted by pupils and workshop members in their lengthy and complex preparation.  Modern technical analysis and x-radiography have deepened our understanding of this process, allowing for a close examination of the materials and techniques used by the artist.  The basis of our knowledge, however, is a 600-year-old source: a treatise on the art of painting called Il Libro dell'arte, composed about 1390 by the Italian painter Cennino Cennini (ca. 1370-ca. 1440)."

"A seasoned plank – one that had been allowed to dry out for some time – was first layered with several coats of size, a glue made from animal skins.  In Italy, the planks used for panel paintings were often made of native poplar, a widely available wood that was, however, soft and vulnerable to warping.  A piece of linen soaked in size was often laid over the front of the panel to conceal any surface flaws.  Over this, coats of gesso were applied. Gesso, a mixture of powdered calcium sulfate (commonly called gypsum) and animal glue, provided the ground for preliminary drawings."

"When the underdrawing was complete, the panel was ready for gilding.  Areas to be gilded were prepared with a layer of bole, a reddish clay that provided an adhesive surface for fragile gold leaf.  The gold leaf was made by pounding a small amount of gold into thin sheets, which were then applied to the panel using a tool called a gilder's tip.  The gilded surface was rubbed with a hard-tipped instrument to smooth and polish the gold leaf, a process known as burnishing.  Additional decoration could be incised or stamped into the surface using metal rods, called punches, with patterns cut into one end.  The tip of the punch, placed against the panel and struck from the other end with a mallet, pressed the design into the wood.  Punching was often used to achieve intricately detailed haloes surrounding the heads of holy figures.  Finally, the panel could be painted, [most commonly with] tempera paints, made by mixing ground pigments with egg yolk.  This medium produced a brilliant, pure hue."

– excerpted from an essay by Jennifer Meagher in the Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York 

Pellegrino di Giovanni
Archangel Michael
ca. 1428-37
tempera on panel
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Fra Carnevale
Presentation of the Virgin
ca. 1467
tempera and oil on panel
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Master of the Holy Kinship
St Peter and St Andrew
ca. 1475-1500
oil on panel
Philadelphia Museum of Art

Master of the Holy Kinship
Apostles Matthais and Matthew
ca. 1475-1500
oil on panel
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Hans Memling
Christ Blessing
1481
oil on panel
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

"The beginnings of oil painting are recorded as early as the twelfth century in Northern Europe.  But it was the virtuoso handling of the medium on panel by early Netherlandish painters . . . in the fifteenth century that represented a turning point in its eventual adoption as the major painting medium in Europe in the sixteenth century.  . . .  Oil painting is highly flexible in that it admits application both in thick impasto and fine detail: countless types of descriptive brushstroke are possible in oil.  Since it is slow drying, it can be carefully blended to make soft, seamless shadows essential for the suggestion of three-dimensional forms, as well as worked while still wet.  All these properties make it especially suitable to communicate the reflective properties of different surfaces, from polished marble to dazzling jewels, from soft velvet to luminous highlights on hard metal plate.  . . .  In stark contrast, the medium of egg tempera, tradition in Southern European panel painting, results in a more schematic rendition of light, shade, and color.  Egg dries quickly to a relatively light tone, is suitable for bright colors, and must be applied thinly in short, hatched strokes.  . . .  Artist in Southern Europe learned Netherlandish handling of oil through a combination of travel, imported paintings, and information gleaned from those who had contacts with the Netherlands."

– excerpted from an essay by Susan Jones in the Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York 

workshop of Domenico Ghirlandaio
Virgin and Child
ca. 1485-95
tempera on panel
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Jacopo da Valenza
St Jerome in the Wilderness
ca. 1485-1500
oil on panel
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Anonymous German painter
St George, St Michael, St John the Baptist
ca. 1500-1525
oil on panel
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Master of Hoogstraeten
Virgin and Child with St Catherine of Alexandria, another Female Saint and Angel
ca. 1500-1520
oil on panel
Philadelphia Museum of Art

Andrea del Sarto
Virgin and Child
ca. 1509-1510
oil on panel
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Lucas Cranach the Elder
Lamentation, with Two Thieves Crucified
1515
oil on panel
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Bernardino Luini
Salome with the Head of St John the Baptist
ca. 1515-25
oil on panel
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston