Pastiglia 12th-14th Century
The Czech School of Restoration has long devoted itself to the techniques of wall and panel painting. M. Hamsík and J. Tomek published an extensive study in 1983 on the technical parallels of the two branches of painting 1. M. Hamsík drew attention to further European centres where plastic decoration was used in painting and thus linked up with the long-term research of M. Frinta 2. The oldest examples of plastic elements in Czech wall painting are considered to be the haloes of the Pantocrator and angels in the Chapel of the Virgin Mary in the Monastery Church of St George in Prague Castle, from the 1st quarter of the 13th century 2a.
In his paper on European wall painting around the year 1200 O. Demus expressed the idea that this type of art became dead at the moment when walls were replaced by glazed windows in cathedrals 3. In this connection he drew attention to the wall paintings in St. Jacques des Guéretes, the author of which was inspired by the art of Limoges enamels and used it in the figure of Christ on the halo and especially in the painting of the drapery. The imitation of enamels in wall painting also preserved the nature of the partitioned enamel with its ability to change colours. In the chapter house of the Cathedral of Le Puy on the composition of the Crucifixion the haloes of the figures were gilded, as was the framing of the Cross and the hems of the cloaks of the figures. The colourfulness of the composition was enhanced by the blue background which was scattered with gilded raised circles. The researcher observed that local artists tried to enliven the wall paintings with the application of methods and effects from other techniques. The artists thus transposed one branch of art into another, counting on their complicated mutual relations. O. Demus did not suppose that the painter of the fresque in Le Puy was a goldsmith, he saw in him a painter of monumental paintings who must, however, have known and felt that »wall-painting had lost its specific monumental nature« and therefore used for its further development the means of other art techniques.
Similarly E. Lanc in recently published paintings from the castle of Petersberg near Friesach drew attention to the wealth of ornamentation carried out in stucco, in imitation of marbling and precious stones and in terra cotta ornaments on paintings of the 12th, 13th and 14th centuries 4. From the older Chapel of St Gebhard (around 1140) the figure has been well preserved of St Roman, Bishop and patron of the person ordering the decoration of the Chapel, the Bishop Roman of the time. (The painting has now been removed and deposited in the museum in Friesach.) St Roman was surrounded by pillared architecture with a semicircular enclosed arch, edged with diamonding. Over his white alba the Saint had a valuable pontifical robe. His dalmatica, patterned with diamond shapes, was edged with gold bands with imitations of precious stones. The casula was decorated with red hems adorned with pearls and precious jewels. It is obvious that the 12th century painter used motifs from the sphere of goldsmithing and artistic crafts. The researcher explains the origin of this decoration as a synthesis of Western and Byzantine influences. The younger Chapel of St Rupert was also decorated with stucco ornaments of Oriental or Western origin. For the first time of Austrian wall paintings there appeared on the figure of St Vigilius terra cotta applications, in relief and originally gilded. The actual painting was carried out by the tech-nique of lime secco with the addition of tempera. The intonaco was applied to plaster 1-2 cm thick and into this the underdrawing was painted. The haloes, the edges of the robes and the architecture of the throne were carried out in plastic relief in burnt clay and are among the oldest of this type in Austrian painting. The ornament of the other plastic ornaments was stucco. The paintings are from the years 1220-1225 and on the stylistic side represent a late phase of the Salzburg school of painting. The Chapel of St Rupert is quite exceptional in its entirety the balanced nature and artistic effect of the chapel derived from the very combination of several art forms, the ornamental decoration and the delicate colouring, culminating in the gilded plastic reliefs. The raised treatment of Salomon's Throne shows its direct connection with the Biblical text of Ist Kings 10, verses 18-20, which describe the splendour of the tvory throne covered in gilded foil. It was most probably the technique of ivory reliefs which influenced the decoration of the moulds for terra cotta imitation Iconographically close are the paintings on the West empora of the cathedral in Gurk from the sixties of the 13th century on which rich plastic ornamentation was used on the haloes, brooches, the hems of the robes, but also on the framing areas with openings for intarsias of rosettes and quadrifoils. Similarly on the paintings in the Bishop's Chapel in Göss the openings in the haloes and in the framing of the medallions indicate that in them there were probably also terra cotta imitations or other plastic applications imitating precious stones. The paintings came into being around 1270 and, together with the paintings in Gurk, demonstrate the penetration of the so-called »Zackenstil« into monumental paintings 5. The terra cotta haloes and plastic raised decorations have been preserved best in the Gottweigerhofkapelle in Stein from the 1st decade of the 14th century 6. Undoubtedly the terra cotta plastic decorations here, too, were gilded and it is therefore an interesting question where this technique was taken from. In the three most famous Medieval tracts on painting and other techniques Heraclius wrote most widely about terra cotta, but more in the sense of practical and decora-tive ceramics 7. The idea of using decorations of fired clay could have been taken over from the monastery workshops, where they produced paving tiles, watt tiles and building elements vaulting ribs, bolts, consoles, portal and window jambs. Here there clearly came into being the carved moulds for the shapes of the decorations used in the wall paintings. A characteristic fact is that in Austrian painting this technique, implemented in rich episcopal or cathedral areas, survived for almost one hundred years.
English monumental painting of the 2nd half of the 13th century also used raised decorations in the most important places, carried out by the techniques of enamels or goldsmiths' work. An example are the now famous monumental paintings of Westminster Palace in the form of precise copies or, in the case of paintings taken from the Chapel of St Stephen's, in partly preserved form; these paintings are today in the British Museum. Material for comparison are, for instance, historical objects from Westminster Abbey, especially the famous panel retable, the dating of which varies it is either placed at the beginning of the 2nd half of the 13th century or at its end 8. P. J. Biński attempted, on the basis of copies from the so-called Painted Chamber in Westminster Palace, to reconstruct the original technique and method of decoration. He stated all the historical sources connected with the paintings and all accessible reports from the time of the discovery of the Medieval decoration. In connection with the reference to the combination of monumental paintings with the methods of other artistic professions especially the already mentioned enamels, goldsmiths' work and other works of artistic crafts there are the important compositions of the Coronation of St Edward and the figures of the Virtues. The arcades bordering the individual figures and the baldaquin architecture of the Coronation scene show clearly, in spite of their indirect knowledge thanks to copies, that on monumental paintings there worked, apart from the painters, other artists who carried out the little enamelled plates with the motifs of heraldic black eagles and a trio of gold lions, framed in a motif of raised tendrils executed in gold and motifs re-calling pastiglia, clearly used on the royal crown, mitres, croziers and the reliquary case held by one of the Bishops. On the earlier Old Testament scenes plastic relief decorated the clothing and shields of the warriors. P.Biński stated, with reference to sources, that also the Royal bed was decorated in relief and he described the technique used according to a chapter from the tract of Theophilus Presbyter »De diversis artibus«, where the technique of intarsia is described 9. An English researcher compared the relatively true copy of the wall paintings with the probably contemporary panel retable from Westminster Abbey from the 2nd half of the 13th century which was executing using the tempera technique and the frame of which shows the same stamps for pastiglia as were used on the Westminster wall paintings. The technique of raised stamped ornamentation was also used on the tombstone of Edmund Crouchback and at an earlier period on the paintings from St Stephen's Chapel in Westminster. Restorers' investigations of these paintings showed the use of tempera technique and dry oils, the final colouring was carried out using the secco technique. Proof that the painters really did use oil as a binding agent is provided by accounts from theyear 1265, which mention eggs as well as oil; there are similar references in accounts from 1270 and in the nineties of the 13th century a combination of the technique of oil and glue is mentioned.
Detail of the varied applique on the de Bois Tomb at Ingham (Norfolk) 14th century.
Apart from pastiglia the Westminster Retable is also decorated with little enamelled and glazed plates and above the wimberg with glass discs which recall a honeycomb. This means that in the Westminster workshop there were working alongside one another painters, goldsmiths, enamellers and probably also glass maker s who participated in the combined techniques of wall and panel painting. The Westminster works have long been compared with French painting and French crafts, not only because of the French inscriptions and the close kinship of style, but especially because of the artistic preliminary stage of combined techniques.
Petersberg Castle near Friesach (Kärnten, Austria). Plastic elements in wall paintings of the Chapel of St Virgil (on the left) and of the Chapel of St Rupert »Solomon's Throne« (on the right).
The researcher drew attention to the châsse in St. Taurin in Evreux, completed in 1255, the reliquary from the Ste Chapelle from the same period and a further châsse from the Ste Chapelle, now known only from a drawing. P.Biński found a parallel to the glass applications in the retable from St Denis from the middle of the 13th century. Mentioned in connection with French art was the decoration of the Ste Chapelle, the interior of the Lower and Upper Chapel. On the painted decoration of the interiors in the Ste Chapelle use was also made of metal objects, glazing, gilded raised backgrounds, false enamels combined with the actual architectural decoration.
Plastic decoration was a progressive element in the technique of wall paintings and panel altars, the use of which we find in works of the 14th and 15th centuries, especially in East Anglia (Norwich, Ipswich, etc.). Typical and very well known is the newly reconstructed altar, probably originally intended for the Dominican Monastery in Thedford, today in ruins 10. The reconstruction was carried out by English researchers who managed to show convincingly that the altar panels now displayed in the Musée de Cluny in Paris, depicting Marian scenes, undoubtedly formed the lower part of the altar, the remaining part of which is now kept in the little parish church in Thornham Parva. The centre of this altar is the Crucifixion, the row of saints ends at either side with St Dominic and St Peter the Martyr, securely indicating the Dominican origin of this panel altar from the years 1320 1330. One of the reasons for the linking of the two retables is the very close link of the use of the same stamps for the relief treatment of the gold background to the paintings. The pastiglia combine a vegetable design and a form of chessboard arrangement of dark platelets with lilies in combination with a gold ornament. Apart from the already-mentioned goldsmith's techniques P. Biński also drew attention to the decoration of book bindings where the leather-covered boards were imprinted with ornaments using stamps with various motifs (lilies, leaves, etc.). Their similarity to the designs on the wall paintings in St Stephen's Chapel in Westminster shows another possible origin or inspiration for the painters of wall paintings.
As in Austria, so also in English Romanesque monumental painting there were found raised gilded stars on the vaulting in the Chapel of the Guardian Angels in Winchester and these can be seen as a preliminary stage to the later decoration in Westminster 11. In this connection P. Biński mentioned the decoration of the vaulting in the lower Church of St Francis in Assisi, where the vaulting was inlaid with little mirrors imitating the sparkling stars.
A further area where the cooperation of the painters of wall paintings and panel altars with the goldsmith's techniques used on the backgrounds of painters' works was very close is shown by Cologne on the Rhine 12. The paintings on the choir stalls of Cologne Cathedral (6 stone walls 5.6 m wide, 2.8 m high and 0.43 m thick) are dated thanks to the portrayal of the last Bishop Walram von Jülich in the years 1332 1349. On the outer walls the background of the saints portrayed is carried out with gilded pastiglias in the shape of diamonds and spiralling rosettes. The technological investigation of the paintings showed the following composition of layers: the stone, which here functioned as the support, was coated with a layer containing yellow ochre. There followed a layer of calcium carbonate (chalk) to which was again applied a coat of ochre as a primer. After the under-drawing in wood charcoal there followed the layered application of the pigments usual in panel painting 13. Ivan Bentchev emphasised that the ground for the wall painting here was not plaster, but a chalk ground and he substantiated the ascertained procedure with quotations from the tracts of Heraclius and Theophilus 14.
The patterns of the pastiglia on the outer walls of the stalls have close analogies in the later panel altar of St Clare, where the technique of the painting is also similar. As far as technical details are concerned I would refer you to the detailed study by Bentchev already mentioned here. An interesting detail is the priming coat of ochre, minium and glue binding agent, also containing resin and oil components, further the »stamping« of the pastiglia in the ochre-minium material. In the rotating rosettes there were also hollows for the setting of pearls, which again has an analogy in the panel altar of St Clare. Also decorated similarly to these two works was the pillar in the Choir and probably also the side chapels. Apart from a number of works in the Cathedral, this workshop was also active in other churches in Cologne (e.g. St Cecilia, St Severin, St Cunibert and the Minorite Church). Outside Cologne the activity of the workshop can be localised to Steinfeld, where the Crucifixion and the Last Judgement were ordered by the brother of the Bishop of Cologne, Wilhelm von Jülich (1328 1361). Around the years 1360 1370 the wall paintings in the Hanseatic Hall of the Cologne Townhall were carried out in tempera technique, also on a chalk ground. It is clear, then, that in Cologne the painters' workshop used the tempera technique for monumental painting for more than two generations, but its activity was clearly limited to Cologne and Steinfeld.
Charles' period brought to a peak the idea of the combination of painting and artistic crafts to the extent that believers did not have to admire only beautiful work (raised gilded imitations), but also precious material in the shape of real semi-precious stones. The combination of semi-precious stones with gilded pastiglia in the St Vitus' Cathedral and in Karltejn Castle shows the continuity of the links between monumental painting and the techniques of other fields which, as we have tried to prove, was characteristic of a number of European artistic centres for more than a hundred years.
