Medieval art is a fascinating confluence of powers. Most of its imagery is explicitly connected to the power of the church but not far below the surface is physical evidence of the power of science and money. We can still appreciate the power of money in medieval art – the gold- and silver-ware in cathedral treasuries obviously ties-up capital in a relatively portable form that can, if necessary, be liquidated. Some of the pigments in paintings – like lapis lazuli, cochineal or saffron – could be worth their weight in gold. So paintings and illuminated manuscripts also lock-up capital although they can’t be melted-down.
This course looks at quite why pigments were so expensive – where they came from, how they were processed and the alternative uses to which they were put outside artists’ studios. It is guided by medieval artists’ recipe-books and draws upon the (modern) scientific examination of 13th- and 14th-century illuminated manuscripts and altarpieces.
The power of science in medieval paintings is less obvious, but paintings – like the great cathedrals and churches, for which they were originally made – are the products of extraordinarily sophisticated technologies. The processes of converting raw materials that may have been traded from the other side of the world, into the refined colours that we can still enjoy today were the absolute peak of contemporary science. If the cathedrals embody medieval maths and engineering, then the paintings embody medieval optics and chemistry.
This course uses artists’ colours to look at the science of the day and to elaborate on the craft tradition, a holistic way of looking at the world that was remarkably stable throughout the whole Middle Ages and across the whole of Christendom (and far beyond). It looks at Aristotle’s four elements, and other paradigms, that helped people understand how to make colours and, more importantly, also helped them understand themselves, their health, their place and their destiny.
The science buried in the paint layers was not in competition, or in conflict, with the religious message that was projected from the front of a painting. This is why some paintings and painted statues were credited with miraculous, wonder-working or healing properties. By looking at pigments and paintings together, the course aims to bring back into focus some aspects of medieval art that have now been lost but which would have been completely familiar to those who commissioned and paid for paintings, those who painted them and, most importantly, those who enjoyed living with them.
