9th century "Lady and the Unicorn" after the Bern Physiologus

IIn the National library in Bern, Switzerland, is found a treasure of a manuscript known as the Bern Physiologus. It is a 9th century book with a lot of illustrations of animals with the intent of portraying certain characteristics of these creatures in an allegorical sense. My primary fascination with this work is that it shows a still very real and strong connection to the Roman Empire in the second quarter of the 9th century. We often hear and read of the "fall of the Roman Empire" but in the 9th century, someone forgot to give that memo to those in control of the Carolingian Dynasty, and they saw themselves as the very real and unbroken continuators of said Empire. As such, many of the artists and architects continued on with their own versions of "late Antique" styles, including the illustrator of this Bern Physiologus. 

In progress view of my version of this painting.

The hand of this particular illustrator can be seen in several other surviving works from the period as well. Later manuscripts show that this particular "school" (a modern Art History word to denote a recognisable style produced by a groupe of artist over a period of decades.) of painting lasted well into the last quarter of the century, showing that whoever this original artist was, he must have been very well known and respected in his day and made a lasting impression on the field of art in the Carolingian world. From his work, one can see that he very much admired, respected, and above all, still had a lot of actual Roman art from which to draw inspiration from, at his disposal. 

The original Lady and the Unicorn from the Bern Physiologus
Some details have been obliterated from centuries of wear

An illustration from the Virgilus Vaticanus
At the time of the Bern Physiologus this would already
have been about 400 years old but the influence of this style
on the 9th century work is instantly recognisable.

I have already produced a couple works based on this manuscript and have posted them on this blog. Recently, I felt compelled to do another. As is typical of myself, however, I did not make a direct copy; just as every medieval artist took inspiration from something that he saw, and made it his own, I also put my own interpretations and subtle changes into what I produced. In this case, I particularly made changes to the "virgin". The original illustration is about 40 per cent smaller than my panel, so it was proper, in my mind, to give more detail to the woman's face and clothing, a possibility which the scale allowed for. I thus chose, as my model, another 9th century illumination for the source of inspiration of a new and more detailed face. 

Two other works that were also inspired from the same manuscript,
The first one, I cropped part of the image, the original had 
another bird and tree. The second one, I added the background
as the original just had the figure on a blank page.

For the painting itself, I went again to my egg tempera recipe, a painting medium and technique that I am really learning to love and enjoy working with. I also prepared a panel as per the ancient treatises on the proper methods of painting and made a panel of wood with many layers of gesso applied and then scraped down to a smooth satin feeling surface. I then used a silver stylus to draw in the design. After that, the actual painting began. I was so engrossed in the work that it was nearly half finished before taking any more pictures of it.

The lady on the far lower left was my source
for the face and garment

Gesso panel prepared and the design sketched in
(rather hard to see as silver point is not very dark)

This was how far I had gotten before I thought of taking 
another picture. The pencil was placed for scale

The completed painting

One thing that I noticed, after finishing the painting is that her arm looks very long. I compared it to the original, and the proportion is right, but because her shawl is draped different, it is not as noticeable in the original.

I really enjoyed creating this and hope you have also enjoyed seeing it. I am sure I will be doing more paintings from this manuscript in future. This is an extremely rare glimpse at non-biblical medieval illustrations, and because of that, I find additional fascination with it.

Should you be interested, I produce artworks, boxes, chests and other objects inspired by my years of research into the decorative styles of the early and high Middle Ages. Feel free to contact me if you would like to know more or to have something personal commissioned. 

12th Century Style Painted Dragon

Last Autumn I got a commission to do a painting of a dragon; the what and how of it was entirely up to me. Since I love medieval things, I naturally went in that direction. Several years before, I had come across an illuminated letter in Amiens BM142 an illuminated Manuscript in the Amiens library. This is a "lectionary" produced in Corbie Abbey around 1150 which is full of fun animals in vegetal swirls. All of the decorations which are called "illuminated initials" (first letters of words drawn with pictures or other decorations) are fantastic, but I was drawn to this dragon, especially. At the time I first saw it, I worked out a sketch, taking it from a roughly square format to a vertical one and eliminating its use as a letter, totally focusing on the dragon as a stand alone artwork. 

Detail from the 12th century style dragon
painted with hand-made traditional egg tempera

When I got the commission, I instantly knew that I already had my planning stage nearly finished. so I transferred it onto some watercolour paper and did a bit more fine tuning of the design. At this stage I had to think about how I would paint it. When I initially drew it eight years ago, I had thought I would paint it in the same manner as the original, but as a commissioned work it needed more colour and substance.

Amiens, BM MS 0142; the inspirational source

Drawn out and ready with the
 illuminator's bole

Applying the bole
(Still taken from a video)

After application of the bole

A lot of medieval painting and artwork from the 10th into the14th centuries utilised a gilded background as the basis for the painting. That seemed like a perfect starting point for this work as well, so I began by making up some traditional illuminator's bole ("bole" is the substance that the gold is stuck to in gilding work) from a mixture of yellow clay, animal glue, egg white, and honey. This I applied to the proper areas and then applied the gold. With this type of bole, one moistens the surface by breathing on it and then immediately pressing the gold into the freshly dampened area. One must go over it two or three times in this manner to get complete and deep coverage of the gilding.

23.5 karat gold leaf applied to the bole

Once the gilding has been done, the painting starts. To make the paint, one takes mineral powders of a desired colour and puts them on a heavy flat stone, adds a bit of water and then with a muller, begins to grind the pigment into a smooth paste. The grinding finished, the artist scoops up the mixture and adds it to an equal portion of egg yolk that has been mixed with water. This is the binder which turns what is essentially "coloured mud" into paint. For this style of art, each colour is painted on one at a time and there is no "blending" or mixing of colours. Any shading that occurs is done by lightening the saturation of pigment or over-painting with a lighter or darker colour.

The first two colours

The method of grinding the paint and the egg
used for the binder seen in a small jar

Rather like a "paint by number" the picture
slowly comes to life

The painting process went on nicely and I really enjoy painting with this medium. It almost transports one back in time working in this method. For even more "authenticity" I opt to use clam shells for my paint cups. Something that I have seen in a couple of 14th century illustrations. It is fun to see the painting "come to life" one colour at a time.

Nearing completion, but there is a flaw...

Even though I decided not to paint in the same manner as the original, which is actually painted with coloured inks as opposed to egg tempera, I did draw heavily from the colour arrangement that the original artist used. Two new colours, blue and a purple were added, but I still got in trouble when it came to not having two of the same colour beside each other. Because the original artist was using ink, and thus left a lot of white parchment show through, he was able to make a line on one side of a shape in one colour, but the opposite side of the same shape was done with a contrasting colour, thus ensuring that no two colours bordered each other. Painting in solid form, however, soon produced a "choke point" where the intertwining tail came back on itself, causing the green to encounter more green. I first tried to solve this by lightening the edge of the larger section of the tail, but this did not look authentic and I was not happy with it. 

The good thing is that freshly painted tempera can be easily scraped off and one has a chance to have another go at it. Incidentally, medieval scribes are almost always depicted with a feather (their pen) and a knife. The knife is both for sharpening the pen and as a "rubber" for removing mistakes or making corrections in the work. Turns out this is a very crucial piece of equipment.

After scraping and the beginning of some
colour changes

To keep the "flow" the orange of the body
was extended to the first break before
switching to the green of the tail

The funny thing is, once you decide that one area has to be changed, it affects other areas and soon you have a "snowball" effect going and lots of colour has to be removed and changed. Fortunately the avalanche was not huge and I found a stopping place for the scraping. Several areas had to have their colours re-done differently to maintain harmony and balance, but I think overall there was an improvement in the outcome.

At the same time, I also made another change to an area that had been vexing me, but until that point, I had not thought of how to fix it. I wanted the gold background to extend more on the righthand side, but there was no natural break in the design to conceal the transition. Every other place with the exception of one, in the entire picture has outlines for colour breaks. That one spot, between the blue and the green of the background in the final curl of the dragon's tail gave me the clue on how to do it, but it took me a while to realise how to adapt the idea elsewhere. The end solution was to have a serpentine line making the break between the green and the gold. (A keen observer will also note that I changed the colour of green for the background; this was because the original was too close to the green of the tail and did not provide enough contrast.)

 

The finished dragon

The final step, in keeping with the style of the medieval source material, was to add white highlights and then to outline all the major components in black. In all, this was an extremely fun and inspiring work and I thoroughly enjoyed my time doing it. The client was also extremely pleased with the outcome.

I am always accepting new commissions; feel free to reach out to initiate your very own special project. I may be contacted by phone, (number at the top in the banner) or through Instagram or WhatsApp. at Johann International.

Fine

12th Century Style Wedding Box, Part V; The Hardware and Finish

 This will be the end of blogging about the wedding box. It was such a major project that I wanted to make several posts about it. Normally, such projects take months or years to complete, so there is plenty of time to make several updates on the progress. In the case with this one, though, it was a commission which had to be completed in less than three months, so there was definitely no extra time for blogging.

Custom made hinge ready to be drilled and the installed

Once the basic concept of the layout and design of the box had been solidified in my mind and I commenced its construction, the concept of hardware began to scratch the back of my mind. Anyone who has tried making medieval furniture will know that there is not much suitable hardware that one can simply order from a catalogue, and even less (actually none that I know of) if you want 12th century style hardware.

As I worked on making the box, I began to realise that if I wanted it to look "right" I would have to make something myself; but how? As the days went by, I slowly began to develop a plan, and once that plan was fully formed, I got right into executing it, right in the middle of the bone carving stage.

Design for an 11th or 12th century box hinge

I have a friend about an hour away, who has a window and door restoration business. Often, he is not able to find hardware that he needs, so he and a couple of his guys have worked together to teach themselves how to do metal casting. I asked him if he would be willing to make something for me if I provided him with sample parts. He gave me a price he said he could do it for, and I got to work.

Once I had a means to my end, it was time to make some parts. I thought about different materials to use, but ultimately decided on making them out of wood. (walnut, to be specific) I then got some paper and a pencil and drew out what I had in mind, stuck the drawing to some timber and started in on it. It took me a bit more than a full day to make the hinge, the catch and a foot, but I had a head start on a foot because about ten years ago I tuned a 9th century style candle stick and cut away sections from the base, in order to carve three feet in the remaining portions. I saved those cut-offs because I thought that they might come in handy at some future date...

Pictures of the process of making the hinge
I cut the parts with a coping saw, then carved and filed
them to their final shape
The 'V' notch on the table was how I supported the work
whilst cutting it out.

I had hoped to be able to watch the process and even help with it, as it is something that I too have long wanted to learn about, but he  was not able to accommodate me the day I dropped off the parts so I saw nothing of it. Two or three weeks later, he met me at my place with some finished feet, a finished casting of the "Lovebirds" and blobs of brass (it was supposed to have been bronze, but something got lost in translation) which had the hinges hiding in them.

The hinges as they were delivered

After the hinges, it was on to a catch

My own invention, but in the spirit of the 
12th century. "Love birds" were a perfect motif 
for a wedding box

Lastly the feet. I started with a section of a turning that I made 
in order to make some 9th century feet for a candle-stick.

The cutting out and polishing of the parts was interesting and a bit of a challenge, but I am handy with more than just a wood saw, so metal is just another material to be cut as needed. Once they were sawn out and the backs cut and filed down, they had to be filed and then polished on a buffing wheel.

I was so pleased with the results and happy that I took the time to do them,; they really added a nice level of authenticity to the entire project.

The case built to conceal the wedding box 
for the delivery.

Since the client had no clue of what I was actually making, and never saw anything of it until the project was finished and delivered, I decided to have a little fun. I built another box of cherry which was large enough to put the bone and intarsia box inside. (It would also serve as a receptacle for the cards that would be given to the newlyweds at the reception). Thus as was my intention, all the client had to say when I delivered the box two days before the wedding was that it was very nice. When they opened it, however the plan proved to have been a great idea. I have never seen any client so astonished and beside themselves for words over anything that I have made. The best comment of all came from the soon-to-be groom who said "people just don't make stuff like this anymore! This belongs in a museum."

Mission accomplished!

Completed 12th century style wedding box with custom
made cast brass hardware ; front and back

12th Century Style Bone Box - Part IIII; The lid and interior

As promised, this post is about the making of the lid. There will be one more post to finish this, which will cover the hardware and finishing up of the project.

Intarsia is finished. At this point, no bone had yet 
been stuck on, save for the centre front.

For the outside of the lid, it was carry on with what was going on for the sides, bone border surrounding intarsia veneers. I did use a different pattern for the top, which was again parts left from another project  done some years earlier. This pattern was larger than what is on the sides, but it still worked and looked good. I have seen a couple medieval intarsia pieces with similar designs, so it is also "period correct". 

After gluing the intarsia

My cutting set-up. This is a saw I made many years
ago the glued-on miter cut piece is a guide.

Gluing the string border.

Even though the previous post shows the bone on the sides, I actually did not start carving the bone until the lid has been veneered as well. Once all the intarsia was finished, I did get to work on the bone, but the stuff for the lid was done once the front and ends of the box was finished. The bone for the back was the very last that was finished and it had a different pattern to it. I will be showing that in my next (and last) post about this box.

I had toyed with the idea of using holly as a substitute for the border of the entire box; I even went so far as cutting up enough strips of it to do the whole project. However, after I carved a bit of the holly and made a comparison with the bone I decided that I definitely liked the bone more, so I stuck with that. For the inside of the lid, however, the holly seemed like a good candidate to save my having to find a bunch more bones, since I had depleted the entire stock at the pet shop.

The plates ready for application

The nails are both functional and decorative

Close-up detail

Even if the holly was not as good for the carving, it was fine for the less complicated inside that I wanted to use. Somewhere I once saw a medieval box that was covered in plates of bone, nailed on with lots of gold pins in a geometric pattern. The memory of this was my inspiration for doing the inside lining of the lid. My pattern for the nails was mainly dictated by the size and shape of the plates of holly. Before applying them, I used wood bleach to bleach them whiter than their natural colour, even though it is already fairly white. With the application of the bleach, the colour is as bright as the bone. 

A lucky find at a fabric shop. 

I had no idea what I would do for the inside of the box, In the back of my mind, as I worked, were rather abstract ideas of block printed textile patterns or some white fabric painted to look like damask. One day I was in a fabric shop and saw a pattern that I realised would work for my project - except the only colour it was available in, was blue and white. I realised, however, that I could probably dye it and make a nicer colour, so I bought a strip of it, put some dye in a jar added the fabric, shook it up for a while, and then removed it. Once it was dry, it was perfect.

Dying the fabric. and the way it looked when still wet

The finished interior

Another nice thing about this piece of cloth, though I did not know it at the time of purchase, was that the pattern was perfect to fit the box. the sides were one square high, the width was two. and the length was three, One cannot get much more "lucky" than that.

To apply the fabric, I used a wheat glue, which is made by cooking a bit of flour and water, with a pinch of salt to prevent moulding before it dries.

12th Century Style Wedding Box, Part III; Bone Borders

I t has only been half as long from my last post about this box, as it was between that and the first one, so perhaps that is an improvement. Also, interestingly, I saw that the last episode was posted on the 19th of October; it is now the 19th of December, (though it is likely to be later before I actually finish this).

The box with the first pieces of carved bone in place
At this point, they are only stuck on with tape

When I began the bone border, I just fished around in one of my drawers and found a couple bone plates that were left from some restoration project. They happened to be the perfect length and width for my needs, so I happily used them. I realised, though, that I would need a lot more to finish. I first looked "on line" (where everything is found, nowadays) and ordered some plates of bone but they turned out to be too thick, or not thick enough to split, and not really long enough either. 

The last time I wanted bones, I had gone to a pet shop where one can find bones intended for large dogs to chew. These have been cleaned and bleached and are all nice and white with no mess to deal with; absolutely perfect for someone who does not want to spend a couple days trying to clean bones. Since they are natural animal (cow) bones, however, there is nothing flat or straight about them, therefore, there is still a lot of work to get flat straight usable plates from of them

Bones ready for slicing
A couple had two faces straight enough to yield
plates from. I wound up using ten of these bones

The first step involves finding the "flattest" (read least curved) side and then grinding that down to be perfectly flat and true, and wide enough to yield a strip of the width that is needed. For the first couple of bones, I did this by hand on a sheet of coarse sandpaper, glued to a plank, however, I soon realised I would be making a career out it so I switched to using a disk sander. That made the process go faster, but I still had to do the final bit of flattening by hand the way I started. The machine just got the bulk of the material out of the way in a quicker manner.

Once the bones had flat faces to them, thin (+/-2mm) plates had to be cut off. This was done with a saw for cutting metal. Bone is much harder than most timbers, but nothing so close to as hard as iron or steel, so the saw made fairly quick work of cutting the plates. Most bones only give one or two pieces that are wide enough and can come from the entire length of bone. (+/- 160mm) In a couple cases, the bone was thick enough to yield two plates from the same side, but this was the exception, not the norm. Usually, by the time you get a flat face, you are already running into the hollow core. A lot of shorter pieces could still be gotten from what was left of the bones, but others actually only yielded a single piece the entire length. I wanted long pieces so there would not be a bunch of joined up lengths. The idea was for a single strips on the vertical and two for each horizontal row. After going back three times to the pet shop, however, I ultimately had to give up and join up some shorter pieces for the back, because I depleted their bone stock, but this is getting ahead of the story.

Several plates cut and joined straight on one edge.
The entire box used more than 3,5 metres of bone

After the "plates" are sliced off they still needed to be trimmed down, this first involved cutting one side straight, and paying attention to how it would best produce the widest piece possible, since most pieces were wider on the ends than in the middle. After one edge was straightened, a parallel line was drawn along the other edge and then cut again. All trimming and width cutting, as well as end trimming was done with the iron saw. A file was used to true up the edges, (much like running a piece of timber over a jointer) once it has been cut. Steffen happened to stop in one day as I was cutting, so he made a video of me doing it, which is below.

That sounds like lots of work, but at this point, we are just getting started, because next comes the actual work of the carving. All the preparatory work is not really even thought about when one views the finished piece. This is usually the case no matter what sort of creation one is viewing; no one gives much thought to what must have gone into its making, and only gives a "like" "dislike" or indifferent response to the visible final product.

Comparing bone to holly
I contemplating using wood instead of bone
but the difference was a lot; in favour of bone

A still from a video of my trying to do this one-handed
Here you can see one of the tools that I made to do this

Design inspiration came from these two boxes that I saw in Cluny

For carving, the first step was to create the outside border. This was first done with a marking gauge and then with a tool to widen and deepen the groove to half-round profile. After that, the piece was divided with pencil marks and the design was laid out. I first tried using some woodcarving tools but they dulled very quickly, so I repurposed a couple files, and bought some "sticks" of machine steel for making metalworking tools. These I ground and fashioned into suitable tools for carving bone. Bone carving is quite different from wood carving. With bone, you are basically scratching or chipping away the surface. It can be shaved off, but only in very thin layers. It is meticulous, time consuming work, but the payoff is the crisp detail and smooth polished surface that results. Much like carving hardwood such as cherry or good mahogany, no sanding is needed to finish it up. The bone can even buff up to a nice sheen and requires no additional finish

A piece of paper hides the unfinished section
One is always eager to see more progress than he
has actually achieved.

Now it is starting to look like a finished box

At this point, however, there are no pieces on the other end, the back or the lid, so still quite some work to do. Additionally, as already mentioned, in these pictures the bones are just temporarily stuck on with bits of double-sided tape.

In the next post I will show what I did for the lid and the interior of the box; stay tuned.

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