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March 10, 2009, Lisbon, Portugal
Organiser: Centre of History from the University of Lisbon For those interested in the study of art materials and techniques it is always a surprise to be able to attend a conference fully focused on a single, important historical source. I am referring to a Portuguese treatise on illumination, “O livro de como se fazem as cores” (or The book on how to make colours), dated 1262 and whose authorship is attributed to Abraham ben Judah Ibn Hayyim. This document is the oldest medieval Judeo-Portuguese text and was written with Hebraic characters. The conference As Matérias da Imagem (The Matter of Image) was organised by the Centre of History from the University of Lisbon (CHUL) and was held in the Faculty of Letters (FLUL) of the same university in March 10th 2009. The event was organised for the dissemination of the work developed in a research project – “As Matérias da Imagem: os pigmentos na tratadística portuguesa entre a Idade Média e 1850” (The Matter of Image: pigments in Portuguese treatises from the Middle Ages to 1850) - dedicated to the study of art technical treatises and performed by the Centre of History (CHUL) in partnership with the Department of Chemistry of the Faculty of Sciences (FCUL) from the University of Lisbon. The conference was organised in 5 different sessions in order to offer an overview of the work performed in the project and covered various topics from the study of the treatise to the reproduction of pigments based on old recipes. The first two sessions were focused particularly on the study of the treatise, while the others comprised analytical studies of pigments and the study of the European context of technical literature production. The first session - O Livro de como se fazem as cores I - was presented by Ivo de Castro, Professor at FLUL, and Devon Strolovitch from the Cornell University (USA). As linguists, this first session focused on the particularities of the language used in the treatise. For those interested to know more about this topic, chapter 4 of Strolovitch’s PhD thesis is a critical edition of the book and it is available online at www.jmrg.org/strolovitch/disspage/4.pdf. The second session - O Livro de como se fazem as cores II – was presented by Luís Urbano Afonso (FLUL/CHUL) and Mark Clarke from the University of Amsterdam. Dr. Luis Afonso presented the full history of the treatise since it was first studied by Giovanni Bernardo De Rossi in 1803. It was him who attributed the authorship to Abraham ben Judah Ibn Hayyim although this is no longer certain once several handwritings were identified in the book. Most likely the document was produced by copyists and through time each owner added some notes and comments to it. Mark Clarke’s presentation focused on the European context of the treatise. For most professionals, who are not knowledgeable of medieval art treatises, his presentation was a good introduction to the mediaeval production of art books. In fact, it was mentioned that most researches concentrate on the known Il libro dell'arte by Cennino Cennini and Theophilus manuscript while this treatise is seldom referenced. There are nearly 450 manuscripts in Europe that refer to art materials but while mostly are compilations, there are only few original treatises fully justifying the importance of the study of this book. It is believed that the manuscripts we know today are not original books from the workshop, where the artists use to write their instructions, but final versions from those books. The third session – Material Analysis of Portuguese Mediaeval Art – comprised two presentations. The first talk, given by Adelaide Miranda and Ana Lemos from the New University of Lisbon (UNL), focused on the formal comparison of the three mediaeval copies that are know in Portugal of the Aviarium (book I of De bestiis et aliis rebus), a book about birds. In detail, the technique and the colour of some illuminated figures were explained. The second talk was given by Maria João Melo, Catarina Miguel and Ana Claro from UNL and was focused on the identification of the materials used in the Aviarium by means of several analytical techniques. Apart the complete identification of the pigments and medium, interesting details were also revealed such as the practice to mix vermilion with red lead, most likely because the former was quite expensive. The origin of some materials in Portugal was also discussed, as indigo and a lake dye were identified and these materials were likely brought through Arab commerce. The forth session – Technical treatises for pigment preparation – included three presentations made by researches from the University of Lisbon (UL). The first talk was given by Vanessa Antunes and Isabel Dâmaso Santos, who had researched several documents, from contracts of the XVI century to treatises and XXI century dictionaries, and studied the etymology, the evolution of the history, use, variations and meanings of three preparation- related terms: preparação, imprimatura and aparelho. The second talk was given by Patrícia Monteiro from the Institute of Art History, who presented a study of the “Breve tratado de Iluminação”, an anonymous manuscript without date and whose author would have been from the Order of Christ. The manuscript is original, except for one chapter which was actually copied from the “Arte da Pintvra” by Philippe Nunes. It is composed of 88 folios and has not yet been published. Several references, however, to the techniques of many artists were found such as a varnish recipe used by El Greco and the description of the preparation of a panel by painters Vasco Fernandes and Luz Morales. Vitor Serrão, Professor at FLUL, spoke about pigments used in paintings from the XVI and XVII centuries and referenced in Portuguese contracts. It was noticed that despite the existence of nearly 1500 contracts from that time period, details concerning the art materials to be used are rarely mentioned. Unlike Spanish contracts, the Portuguese are profuse in vague terms such as the best or the richest when referring to materials. However, the researcher was able to compile a list of over 30 artist pigments. Finally, the fifth and last session – Reproducing recipes of pigment preparation in laboratory – comprised three interesting presentations. The first was an experiment presented by Ana Paula Carvalho from FCUL. The researcher prepared lead white in laboratory conditions based on a recipe given by Philippe Nunes in “Arte da Pintvra” (1615). As the production of lead white is a naturally slow process, it was attempted to change several experimental parameters in order to assess their influence on the speed of the product reaction and transformation from lead to lead acetate and basic lead carbonate. The products obtained during the different steps of the experiment were analysed by analytical techniques. It was concluded that the temperature was not a fundamental parameter as it was not enough to precipitate the transformation while the presence of CO2 is a very important factor for the transformation. The second talk, given by P.M. Gonçalves from UL, was focused on the study of the traditional production of red lead. For this, a traditional wood oven was used and the oven temperature was monitored in order to correlate it with the shades obtained by the heating. The last presentation was made by António João Cruz from the Polytechnic Institute of Tomar, who presented a comparative study between the “Livro de como se fazem as cores” and the “Mappae Clavicula”, which is a compilation dating from the year 821-822 but with additions from the XI and XII centuries. For the comparative study of the recipes, a series of less common materials were selected in order to maximise the probability of finding comparisons: ouro músico (“music gold”), azul de prata (copper acetate), azarcão (minium), azinhavre (verdigris) and vermilion. It was found that there are some similarities but in fact no close connections could be made, which underlines the complete originality of the “Livro de como se fazem as cores” as a treatise. Nevertheless, an influence at the vocabulary level concerning the use planet names to designate metals was noticed by the author. The conference highlighted the importance of the study of old manuscripts and treatises for the technical art history. The historical knowledge of art materials is relevant not only for the history of art but also in other fields such as conservation and it can be also very helpful in the study and technical analysis of paintings. It is a highly interesting subject that I would like to find more often in publications. The conference has shown that the study this important treatise is not as developed as thought so I would like to congratulate the project promoters to have taken this step forward. Moreover, I look forward to seeing the conference postprints and the results of the project published by the organiser. ▲TOP
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