The Christmas Story from Santa Maria Foris Portas

  Happy Christmas and good riddance to a year that I am sure most of us would just as soon forget.

"The Annunciation to the Shepherds", a scene from the 
Christmas story as depicted in Santa Maria Foris Portas, Italy.
The pock-marks are from where the surface was "keyed"
to allow a new layer of plaster to adhere to the old. It was
this layer that preserved these paintings, albeit in an
incomplete and damaged state, for us today.

As has become my tradition, I wish to present another glimpse of a Medieval view of the Christmas story. This particular instalment comes from an amazingly happy accident in the form of some remarkably preserved early medieval paintings in a small chapel some 50km north-west of Milan. It seems that the church, along with the rest of the town was mostly destroyed in the 13th century and never re-built, but by the time of the destruction, the paintings had become old and outmoded and were thus covered over with new plaster, which helped to preserve the frescoes until their rediscovery in 1944. 

What is left of the Annunciation scene and part of the 
Visitation between Mary and Elisabeth. 
Incidentally, the "annunciation" scene evolved and changed
considerably over the course of the Middle Ages, but the 
"Visitation" scene has already been firmly established and 
is no different from that still in use in the 13th century.

There seems to be a lot of debate as to when these frescoes were painted, and small wonder that, because there are simply no other paintings like them to have survived from the Middle Ages. It is important to realise, however, that this sort of decoration was normal and common in the early Middle Ages, and there were probably dozens of buildings dotting the surrounding landscape, decorated by this anonymous artist (or artists). Someone with the skills this artist had does not do "one-off jobs". He obviously made an entire career of painting and it is a shame that so little of what he or his peers produced has come down to us- which is also what makes this find all the more spectacular, having survived at all.

Gifts of the Magi. Because only part of the painting was done
"al fresco" (in the wet plaster) much of the colour and details
have been lost to time, or pealed away by the removal of the
overlaying plaster layer. Of particular note is that nearly 
every trace of Mary's chair has been lost, only a bit of the 
foot-stool remains. 

Carved to imitate contemporary metalwork of the time, 
this relief from the "Ratchis Altar" seems to have been 
inspired by the same model as that used by the Santa Maria
painter.
In a world without photography, artist relied on one another's
work and certain models became more popular and iconic,
 in time becoming the "standard" design from which to work.
 This did not mean wholesale copying, just a point from
which to begin. Each artist left his own nuances and stylistic
contributions. This adaptation and individuality is what leads
to stylistic and chronological changes in art. If every artist
simply copied exactly what he saw, then art would have been
stagnant.

Now in the Vatican, this 3rd century sarcophagus front
has a different version of the same scene. It was this version
which would become the "standard" method of depicting the
scene. Note the more natural and spacial depiction from 
Santa Maria Foris Portas.

I prefer to join the camp of those who opt for a 6th century date of these works as the iconography of many of the scenes is very different to much of the Western art tradition by the 9th century (the alternate proposed date). One example would be that, although the style is very different, the basic model of the Three Magi seems to be the very same one used for the right-hand end of the famed 8th century "Ratchis Altar", down to the little round hats worn by the three Magi and the angel flying overhead. Neither of these details is in the 3rd century catacomb depiction of the scene (now in the Vatican Museum) which seems to have become the more popular model and the one which most western art followed from the 4th to the 10th century. Most early depictions, also opted for the Phyrgian Cap, as opposed to these little round hats. By the time of the Ottonian dynasty, the hats had changed to crowns and the "wise men" had become "kings". 

Another reason for my view of the earlier date is the very fact that these frescoes do not follow the more "conventional" model of many of the scenes. At the dawn of the "Middle Ages" there was a lot more variation on any number of themes, but as time wore on, "conventional norms" fashioned "iconic" models from which various subjects were depicted giving rise to instant recognition of biblical narrative depictions across a broad spectrum of art forms. In Sana Maria Magiore, In Rome, there is another version of this scene which is neither like the Vatican version nor that of Santa Maria Foris Portas. There were probably still other versions which have not survived at all. These painting then, in my opinion, are from the period when Christian art was still young and finding its form.

The Flight into Egypt, in this scene Mary rides
an ass led by a nearly obliterated figure; Joseph trails behind.
As time wore on, the figure leading the ass morphed into that
of Joseph leading; the other figure fell by the way. Also taken
from the same original model, a panel from the so-called 
Throne of Maximian, in Ravenna informs us that the steaks
above the donkey's head is a wing of an accompanying
angel, another figure that often dropped out of the
pictorial lexicon by or before the 11th century. 

Lastly, because of the style of the paintings themselves, I opt for an early date. The similarity of "Byzantine" art and these paintings have been noted, but it has also been noted their many differences. It is important to realise that "Byzantine" art was, in fact, Roman art in its beginnings. Byzantium was the new Roman capital city (called Constantinople) set up by the Roman emperor, Constantine in the 4th century. What was artistically produced there was simply the natural evolution of Roman/Western Mediterranean art at the time. The fact that a similarity of style between what was produced in Constantinople and Rome would occur only some two hundred years after the shift from one place to the other as the capital should come as no surprise to anyone. 

The angel warns Joseph in a dream, to flee to Egypt.
Unfortunately, much has been lost in this picture as well but
the remnants of Roman artistic style is still very evident.

This depiction of the same scene comes
from the "Throne of Maximian" an ivory
chair in Ravenna, from the 2nd quarter of
the 6th century, It is interesting to note 
that this and the Santa Maria painting share
the same model for this scene; the one of 
the Flight into Egypt, below, however,
comes from a different one than that
used in Santa Maria.

This fresco from sometime between
the 6th & 8th centuries in Santa
Maria Antigua, in Rome is 
somewhat similar in style to those
we are discussing, but this "simi-
larity is only like saying a 1955
Borgward is similar to a 1955
Cadillac. If we are comparing it to
a 2010 Prius, then yes, it is "similar"
The "similarity" is only from
a lack of additional items with 
which to compare it. This illustrates
the problem of art history. Sometimes
we have nothing much to compare
.
(All pictures for this article sourced
from Wikipedia and the "web".)

Regardless of the whom and the when of these frescoes, they are indeed the remnants of a master artist, and give us a tantalising glimpse of how churches, and even small chapels were decorated in the early Middle Ages. Nearly 1500 years have come and gone since these paintings were finished, but part of a Christmas Miracle remains in that they still live and we are again able to view these works today. Thanks to the power of the internet, even those who have no ability to travel to Italy can now, too, view them.

Happy Christmas.

Videre Scire

Learning To Paint (Again)

 I n previous posts I have introduced my "Millennium Box". In the beginning it was not so named because I had expected it to take that long to finish, but because it is supposed to be patterned after the art of the "turn of the millennium", as in circa 990-1010 AD. My first post, after completing the construction of that box was 12 November, 2017; an unbelievable quick three years ago. 

"Turn of the Millennium" 10th century box,
front detail

I have always been an artist, and have been painting since I was 12, but I had to learn to paint all over again to work on this box. My intent, from the conception more than three years ago, was to crate an expensive painted medieval box, and I had even worked out the theme, some of the designs, and had begun to purchase authentic pigments for executing the plan. The idea was to not only paint it with art inspired from late 10th/early 11th century manuscripts, but to do it with egg tempera, one of a few different options available to a turn-of-the-millennium artist. 

The box with a new coat of gesso. The top has been
scraped smooth but the sides are still unfinished. I used
a cabinet scraper for the flat areas and a file to trim up the 
rim of the box and give tiny chamfers to the corners.

There were several factors that caused the process to take three years, one of them being that after I finished making the box, I covered it in gesso and then left the country for six months to work on a job. When I returned to my workshop, I found the gesso on the top had cracked. Somehow, the fabric that I had put on the box prior to the gesso, (as per Theopholis' instructions) had not adhered well, and it seems that there was also a bit too much glue in the mix. Whatever the cause, I had to remove everything from the top and do it over. I had also made some "gesso sotile" following the instructions of Cennini, and that was put over everything and scraped down after I had repaired the top.

The second, and even more fundamental reason for the delay, was that I had to mentally get myself ready to do the painting. I had never made or worked with egg tempera before, and there are so many factors that come into play that made it a bit daunting to commence. Once I finally spent enough money accumulating pigments, and had read, ad nauseum, the medieval treatise available to me on the subject, it was actually time to stop baulking and get to work. 

BNF Lat. 9448 fol 54v and 73r ca. 990-95 (cropped)

As I mentioned, my idea was to make a box with a theme, specifically my own zodiac sign of Leo. I also wanted to incorporate the Sol and Luna (sun and moon), which was a popular, oft repeated theme, in medieval art. As with medieval artists, I would chose my subject mater from the images available to me, and adapt them as my artistic skill and inspiration allowed, to come up the with figures to fit my intended theme. I had seen several examples of the sun and moon personified as king and queen, but all of them were only bust or half length figures. I wanted full figure seated persons, and so adapted figures which were originally other characters. These images came from a manuscript produced in Prum Abbey (Northern Germany) around 990-95 and are now housed in the BNF. (French national library) My second source comes from a manuscript now in the Boulogne-sur-Mer branch of the French Municipal Library, which is a late tenth century copy of a 9th century copy of a now lost, but probably Roman original. The extant 9th century copy is known as the Leiden Aratea. There are scores of surviving medieval manuscripts which point back to this model. 

Some of my drawings for the design of the box. Changes 
and adaptations were made as I went along, but this was 
a starting point. Nearly all peripheral decorative elements for
the box were taken from the Prum Abbey manuscript. 

One must always bear in mind, when it comes to art, that an artist needs images to work from, and he will make the best he can with those he has access to. A well paid and traveled artist would be able to visit many libraries and source an abundance of imagery, but a less-well-off artist would have been more limited, and thus need to rely more on his imagination; the resulting work would probably be viewed by modern eyes as more "crude" or "primitive" looking. There are hundreds of examples of medieval art which clearly show that one artist had access to another work, or indirect copies thereof. 

For my box, my imaginary medieval alter-ego had direct access to both of these primary sources; his own artistic ability took those models and made an original work of art to suit his patron's requirements, as was the practice of every medieval craftsman. One cannot begin to stress enough, the difference in the creative process that would have existed in a world without the photographs, printed images, and magazines, not to mention all of the digital media, that we now take so much for granted. Copying was not seen as a sin, but as an essential element for creativity. Everything that we have, owes its existence to all that came before.

Boulogne-sur-Mer, Bibliothèque municipale,
MS 0188 Fol 32v sp. 10jh (cropped)
Sadly, the 9th century version of this image has been lost,
it would be interesting to see what changes had been made by
the 10th century replicating artist.

Having gotten all of my images together and planned out, I was still not quite mentally ready to tackle the job, so I decided to ease myself into it by painting the inside of the lid. Most boxes of this calibre would have had cloth linings, but I reasoned, that it would be difficult to line the lid, given all of its angles, with a piece of fabric, and if I did so, the pattern on the fabric would necessarily have been almost completely obliterated, thus it would make more sense to paint simulated fabric where the pattern could be "bent" to give the illusion of following the contour of the lid but maintaining a discernible design. My pattern is a combination of two ornamental garment designs found in the Prum manuscript. 

The extent of the "practice" that I did prior to beginning the lid

This illustrates most of the process of egg tempera.
The dry pigment is "ground" with water to give it a "paint"
consistency, the colour is then transferred to an authentic
medieval "paint cup" (shell) and mixed with egg yolk,
 itself  tempered with water and vinegar.

As in my model manuscript, most design elements were not
drawn out beforehand. The artist just started out and whatever
happened is what it was. This, in my opinion, lends
to what I see as the natural beauty of medieval art. Not 
over-thinking and over-planning. The results look more
spontaneous and natural. They are perfect in their
imperfection 

A "red" colour, and the components used to achieve it. 
On the green background it looks much more like red

One of the challenges that reared it head almost immediately was getting the desired colours from the dry pigments. As soon as water is added, the colour changes. The relative colour also seems very different on a white box than it does on my black granite grinding slab. Most of my painting career has been in oil, and I have always had a white or light wood-coloured (maple) background on which to mix it. The medieval manuscripts on painting recommend a "porphyry" slab for grinding the colours. Porphyry is rather purplish red with white spots, and though light, is certainly not white either. I did not have any porphyry in the first place, but this granite slab seemed a good substitute. Learning to judge the finished colour on a black background took a lot of "trial and error", (mostly error) however.

The finished inside of the lid

Even the border decoration was painted without prior drawing. I did put a dot of white paint at the point where each curve reached the edge and then started connecting the dots. Somehow I got one more repeat of the pattern on the lower edge than what I had on the upper.

After finishing the inside I was finally ready
to take on the outside. I began at one end and
painted the border to completion. 

I then realised that I should be painting everything in stages as I went, colour by colour. This would serve two purposes, first, the whole box would be more harmoniously decorated, and second, I would not have to be constantly re-mixing the same colours.

With that Idea in mind, I began the entire box as a single
unit.

One problem with that plan, however, was that I had never finalised the design of Sol and Luna for the front of the box. I had to stop and do that. Once they were drawn, however, I spent more time working on the front at the neglect of other panels, so the idea of mixing each colour only once did not really work out very well.

Starting to show some real progress

At this point, I felt a sense of actually "getting it"

One frustration that I encountered was in attempting to replicate the colour purple. I had purchased two different "purple ochres", but neither one of them came close to the purple of my Prum Abbey model. I also had purchased several "reds" and "blues" which were supposedly what "was available" to a 10th century European artist, but no amount of mixing of any of them came close to achieving the desired colour. In the end, I had to do as any other medieval artist would have done, and content myself with what I had to hand. The bold use of purple in this 10th century manuscript is almost taunting however, and it seems, in looking through the entire volume, as if the artists (there were at least 4 working on this) after having gotten hold of some purple, were able to refine its colour to greater advantage as they went on, and made more flamboyant use of, and greater glee of having gotten hold of it. I would really love to know what their source of pigment was!

A brilliant "true" purple from the Prum Manuscript
By comparison, my purples are hardly purple at all

At this point I am more than two weeks into the process,
Using every minute that I can carve out for the purpose

The next big transformation
came when I began adding
details

The details were fun and why I so loved this particular
manuscript in the first place.
Painting parts of a single pattern in different colours was
"a thing" in 9th, 10th and 11th century art.

The end where I began wound up being the
last to be finished. The horses were a bit
mentally daunting for some reason. 

Sol in his Quadriga rides across
the sky, bringing light to the world
Krebs, or Cancer, is on the left lid end as he is
the sign before Leo.

Abstract stars and clouds in a night sky for the back panel

Textile inspired designs make up the back, as was a very 
common practice with medieval Chests, boxes &c.

Luna lumbers across the night sky in her ox-cart. 
Virgo, holding Libra, a common means of depicting
both signs together follows Leo as the year advances.

After some 80+ hours of work over a period of one month,
The box is finally finished.

After putting away all my pigments, and cleaning up and stowing all of my equipment, I realised that I had forgotten to paint in the scepter which was supposed to be in Sol's hand. I just did that this morning as can be seen in the first picture at the top.

Finished, including the 23K gold-leaf accents, but not without
the scepter - This would never due.

In all, this has been an educational, interesting, and fun project. If I could do it again, I would make some changes, but I feel fairly happy with it. Most important, however, is that it achieves its original goal of demonstrating the possibilities and potential beauty of the millions of lost objects from the earlier centuries of the Middle Ages. We have many examples from the 14th and 15th century, but these hardly reflect an entire millennium of artwork, nor do they illustrate the complexity and skills which early artisans had in the so-called heart of the "dark ages"! This box, then, is a slight attempt at demonstrating that reality. 

Still to come will be a set of cast bronze feet to stand on, a lock to secure the contents, and a ring-handle by which to lift or carry it. I wonder how long it will be before that part is finished...

Videre Scire

Fabeltier

There is doubtless no definitive, universally accepted reason why, but since the beginning of time, man has been inventing fantastic, made up creatures. Forty some years ago I even once read a book that proffers the view that the dinosaurs were actually living experiments in crossbreeding by an antediluvian society, for the purpose of gladiatorial type sports. Probably a very far-fetched notion, but the point is, that somehow, humans (myself included) have always had a fascination with making up fantastic creatures, known in German, as Fabelwesen or Fabeltieren.('en' makes a noun plural in German)

Fabeltier

Some eleven or twelve odd years ago, looking through a book, I came across a drawing of an early medieval decorative motif for some metal object, in the form of an unidentified, (to me) rather contorted, creature in a roundel. I found it fascinating and wound up drawing him myself. That led to to the concept of creating a carved chest somewhat following after the manner of a small casket in the MET, which has a series of roundels with animals. With this idea in mind, I began making up additional creatures that might suit the purpose.

My dabblings with Fabelwesen. Somehow, they seem to fit more
appealingly in a roundel. They are numbered in the order in which they
were drawn over a couple of days. Number one is the one that started it all
and I believe number three was at least partially inspired by an historical
creation as well; the rest were figments of my own imagination.

The little casket from the MET which was the second part of the inspiration
for this project

That chest is yet to materialise, but in the autumn of the year of this initial conceptualisation, the organisers of a local event asked me to do some demonstrating. I decided to try carving one of my creatures, which I had recently finished drawing. In my wood-rack were several planks of pine left from a project, and as it was rather soft, seemed like a good wood to make the carving "easy". (As it turns out, carving pine is not particularly easy, - no forgiveness in grain direction and it is easily dented - oak would have been a much better candidate)

The carving progressed slowly over the course of the one day event, and by the end of day, his head and part of his body were defined inside a circular perimeter, his tail was also fairly well finished. After that day, however, he spent more than a decade in storage, almost completely forgotten.

Recently, in need of some material for a project, I was rummaging in the storage and happened upon this unfinished work. As I had been trying to think what meaningful gift I could give to my friend, Steffen, for his birthday, this suddenly presented itself as a good candidate. I got the carving out and took it back to my shop. It took me parts of four days to complete him because I completely re-carved every last millimetre in order to get the background much deeper than it had been. I "took a picture" of the piece as it was, but like many times before, there was no memory card in the camera, so no picture of how he was at that stage.

By the time I realised there was no memory card in the camera, the carving
was almost complete. The exposed dark colour is due to the 12+ years of
waiting in the storage building to be finished. Another plank of timber
 partially covered it, resulting in the lighter coloured upper half.

As I like to do with this blog, a bit of historical context to these imaginary creatures is warranted. I have no idea of the origin, and have not found any pre-medieval examples that show a very close connection, though there no doubt are such prototypes. The Gundestrup Cauldron shows on the "exterior plate A", two lion/dog looking creatures. Perhaps this is part of the tradition that eventually was codified by the early Middle Ages. The earliest versions that I know of, come from the 7th and 8th centuries. I do not profess or pretend to be an expert on the topic, however; the purpose of the following is simply to show some examples of the evolution of one branch of the Fabeltier through the course of the Middle Ages.

These characters, here shown in an 8th century iteration, will continue
in the ever changing styles throughout the course of the medieval period

It is hard to say what they are, or if they were actually, originally intended to be a real animal and, over time, became so stylised as to become Fabeltieren. Whatever the earliest intentions, by the 8th century they were already canonised as decorative repertoire for almost any ornamental purpose.

Amiens BM MS Lescalopier 030 fol 10v 4. V. 12jh Weissenau

In this late 12th century manuscript, from Weissenau Abbey, God is depicted creating the animals and fish on the fifth day of creation. (Latin; "Dies V") The interesting thing is that the "animals" portrayed are all mythical creatures. The "sea dog" and flying "sea lion" both have faces similar to our character.

Kölner Diözesan- und Dombibliothek MS Cod 83ii Fol 146r
798 (Detail)

Petrischrein, Domschatzkammer Minden
Carolingian Enamel plate re-used in an 11th century reliquary

Sometimes these creatures take on more of the characteristics we would ascribe to our notion of "dragons" such as those shown in the last example above, but often both these and dragons are shown together. Generally, the dragons will have thicker and often split tails, as well as wings, whilst the other, unnamed guys have neither of those.

Sometimes they take on more lion-like features, whilst other representations have them more dog-looking. My Fabeltier is a nice mixture of the two, which is also often found, as is exemplified in the following French miniature of the late 12th century. (middle left)

Getty MS Ludwig XIV 2 fol 126r um 1170-80 Umkreis Paris

These creatures seem to be prevalent throughout Europe, with slight regional artistic nuances, but generally recognisable as stemming from the same tradition, they can be found in all types of surviving artworks from as far apart as Spain and Norway.

Anglo-Saxon Stone Fragment from Jedburgh, Scotland, 9-10th cent.

North Italian or French Capital, now in the Louvre, 11th cent.

From a former frieze of Cluny Abbey, 12th cent.

Schaffhausen, Stadtbibliothek, Ministerialbibliothek Ms Min. 15 fol 45v
ca. 1100

One of my favourite characteristics of a sub-group of these creatures are those with a propensity to bite something (fruits, flowers, vines - see the Jedburgh stone carving above) or even their own backs or tails. In my opinion, they work best in a rounded fatter form, such as that shown in the Cluny fries-fragment above.

(A not very good picture of a detail from the) Basler Antipendium (altar)
now in the Musee de Moyen Age (Museum of the Middle Ages) in Paris
1st decade of the 11th cent., gifted to Basel Cathedral by Emperor Henry II 

In this roundel, the creature is biting his foot, which is another version of the biting theme. This is the sort of image I had in mind when designing my creatures for the box.

Taking advantage of some nice afternoon light to have a look
at the progress of my own carving

Once my animal was carved it was down to thinking about how to finish off the whole thing as a stand-alone piece of art. I took a cue from 12-13th century ivory mirrors and put "ears" (stylised leaves) on the four corners. In all, I think it worked out good. Once it was all done, I rubbed it down with some abrasive leaves and linseed oil, then I put it in the sun to give it a bit of a "tan" in an attempt to eliminate the piebald effect from a decade of being half buried and half exposed. I should mention that Steffen's Christmas gift to me aided my carving of his birthday gift; he gave me some very narrow carving chisels which worked great for getting into the gap between the border and the feet and rump. (1.5mm)

My Fabeltier - finished and delivered