CONTEXT
The medieval manuscript production continued in Europe for fifteen centuries, between the fall of the Roman Empire and the Renaissance epoch approximately. That great production was done in many different ways starting with scribes working alone in small rooms and ending with huge ecclesiastical scriptoriums at abbeys or monasteries. Generally speaking, every author’s copy or draw depended on the style of his respective epoch.
Iconography and symbolism were very important in medieval art and the attributes of the different images that appeared in manuscripts required detailed description if the artist did not have the right model or if the new manuscript was to have a more refined appearance than its original or was to be organized in a different way.
The practice of copying an image in a manuscript that was seen in another one goes back to the beginning of medieval book production.
This Contemporary Antique Masterwork (12 x 12 cm. approx.) has its model of inspiration in the miniatures showing scribes working on medieval manuscripts.
The masterwork shows a medieval illuminator in the figure of a sitting monk working alone with a feather at a sloping desk, writing or illuminating a codex, predictably during the monastic epoch of manuscript production.
In the 11th century and up to the end of the 12th, most of the manuscripts were made in monasteries but approximately in the year 1100 the number of existing books grew so much that in order to maintain the libraries’ growth it became necessary to resort to secular copyists, who specialized in writing or illuminating manuscripts. This fact laid the beginning of the secular epoch of manuscript production.
There are many images of scribes with feathers belonging to various times during the Middle Ages, especially in the Books of Hours. The lectern depicted in this masterwork is of a big size, obviously made so for work with large books.
According to facts uncovered in research, the illuminators worked sitting straight up in chairs with tall backrests in front of sloping desks due to the reason that feathers worked only when used at the right angle to the paper or the vellum leaf. The easiest way to achieve this was using an inclined plane.
All these elements and details recreate the convincing plot, interpreted by an author endowed with rich visual sensitivity.
Technique is understood as the accumulation of means and devices used by the author to realize his/her work. It could be more specifically presented within the following major points.
1.- The work was done manually by the author without the implementation of any industrial procedures. The most adequate materials were used in order to arrive at an original master work with the looks and characteristics almost adequate to those of the model of inspiration.
2.- The wooden basis on which the drawing was manually done was repeatedly treated with bone-glue solution. To the glue a specific proportion of chalk was added. The resultant homogeneous prime was used to level out the drawing surface.
3.- The next stage included the transfer of the author’s drawing which interpreted the respective miniature from the manuscript and its further development with the help of red Armenian bolus (poliment).
4.- With the pictorial development of the work the colors were added from dark to light and finally the forms were emphasized with a black contour.
5.- The last stage included the laying of a protective and aging patina, which contains wax, turpentine asphalt (betun and raw linseed oil). After partial drying of this covering the surface of the work was polished with the help of a small woolen cloth. As a result certain pictorial effects were also achieved.