A Nice Commission

Last summer, I got a commission from St Dominic's Church in Washington DC, to carve the Four Evangelist symbols for the reredos in the church. Of course I was delighted, since this is "right up my alley", when it comes to medieval art. This gave me an opportunity to make something in the medieval style which as regular followers will know, is my true passion. As a starting point, I chose an 11th century image for St Mark, the lion, which is part of a silver and jeweled book cover. I then designed the other three characters to follow the same format, relying on other 10th and 11th century work to guide me. Father Schommer, of the church, allowed me complete freedom in my design. Our only discussion was that they would be gilded and have the backgrounds painted in. Of course, the size was determined by the placement of the roundels.

What follows are some pictures of the project as it unfolded.

I started with St Mark, as I had an image from a 11thc book cover

 

 

 The lion is also my sign, so I have a special affinity towards it

Nearly finished

The source of inspiration

One down, three to go.

St Luke follows Marc in the order

The carving well under way

And finished

Next was St John

This was my primary source of inspiration 10thc Ivory

 

One challenge to the design for St John was following the same format with one appendage holding the end of the scroll and another holding down the other end, but leaving some space. Anatomically, it did not work for his other foot to be in a similar position to what Mark and Luke had, so I came up with the idea of the wing tip holding down the other end; it works.

St Mathew, working out the design

 

 

The design for Mathew held even more challenges. I had thought that I would just follow another St Mathew that I had carved many years ago, but that did not work because his hands could not hold the scroll.

 

St Mathew and his symbol, Unfinished carving from 1998

 

 

I wanted to have him holding the scroll stretched out between his hands, but that left his centre open and did not work, also it did not have the feel of 10th or 11th century art to it. I finally thought of having one hand hold one end, and the other end "held" in his wing. It works, so I went with it.

 

 

this one needed a new plank of timber, as the other one was full

finished carving and ready for cutting out

the other three, all together and ready to cut out as well

After cutting them all out, which I never took a picture of, the next step was to prepare them all for gilding. This is done with several layers of gesso and red bole

 

Scraping the bole on St Johan

 

 

To give the carvings more of an authentic medieval look, I used a scraper and scraped the bole down, as opposed to sanding it. The results were much better even if it took much longer to do.

 

 

All ready for gilding

Genuine 23 karat "red gold" was used for the gilding.

Gilded, painted, lettered and ready to go

So small one can hardly see them, but they add a nice touch

Close-up of the left side

Close-up of the right side

Videre Scire

Studying at St Denis Cathedral

As those of you who regularly follow my blog know, about a month ago I went to Europe for a study tour of some cathedrals, palaces, and museums. One of the places I visited was St Denis, an important historical place for much of the history of the French people, located in the suburbs just north of Paris. This basilica is noted for its importance as the "birthplace of Gothic Architecture", as it is the first place where "all the elements of the Gothic style" first came together. (There is a 9th century manuscript which depicts a "Gothic" type pointed arch; the importance here, is the "all the elements" bit.)

One of the capitals in the south-west of the choir depicting a pair of dragons

This basilica was rebuilt (for at least the third time; its origins as a chapel go back to the 4th century) by Abbot Suger, beginning in 1135. The choir of his newly renovated structure was complete by 1144, from which the capitals discussed here, originate.

When I was studying these capitals in the rather dim light, I saw traces of red paint on some, including this one. (the camera sees things more clearly than I could; it was a cloudy day). If you look carefully, here, you can see some hints of red on the moulding of the capital and on the tips of the dragon's wings over their heads. (it looks like reddish highlights) I asked an attendant if it was OK to use a flash, and was told that it was. (in some places it is forbidden, so it is better to ask permission if you do not want to get told off by someone) I then went and took more pictures of the capitals knowing that once I looked at the photos the colours would show up much better even if I could not see them at the time. They certainly do, as you can see from the next photograph. (you must enlarge it to see any real detail)

A similar capital, taken using a flash, showing green, red, gold, and
a hint of dark blue or purple along with lots of traces of the lime used over
the stone in preparation for the painting. (the white areas)

It is important for people to realise that these buildings were never intended to have bare grey exposed stone walls. When a church was first built every surface would have been covered in a layer of white plaster and then paintings would be done on the walls, the moulding and ornaments would have been painted,  and frescoes would have been done on important areas, such as the ceiling, and nave. The degree and quality of the decoration would have been determined by geographic location, its patron, and the amount of money those involved were willing to spend on the project. (not based on the time period in which it was built!) An important place such as St Denis would have had lavish decorations to it, incorporating lots of gold and silver along with a wide range of available colours. I have supplied another shot of part of this same capital below, with coloured arrows corresponding to the same colours, pointing to some of the areas where that colour is discernible.

The yellow areas point to places which were covered in gold leaf. The white
areas point to some of the places where the lime under-layer still remains
(much more of that is still visible in the preceding picture)

Basically, this capital had green dragons with red shading, and gold wings and it had leaves of red with 'highlights' of green, a term refereed to by medieval artists as being "shot". The idea was to give a look such as is seen in the Caladium (elephant ear) plant, (this plant is originally from Asia, but has been known in Europe since the Roman era) or iridescent silk fabric, which shows two colours and has been used since ancient times. (Bellow is an example of a man wearing such a garment from a 10th century Italian manuscript.)

A caladium plant, green leaves "shot" with red

Depiction of an iridescent silk garment, 10th century
The fact that this is a deliberate colour contrast to imply
iridescent silk is demonstrated by the fact that the blue
cloak is not shaded and highlighted in the same manner.

Here is a bit of silk showing what the artist had in mind.

Iridescent blue and red (fuchsia) silk

Think that is far fetched for 12th century art? Think again. That is why I am going to the trouble to mention and demonstrate this; because so many medieval enthusiasts and even scholars are unaware of the technical sophistication that existed in many parts of medieval society. 

There is a small collection of medieval writings on the various disciplines of art which have survived in various forms to our time. Two of the most well known are Cennino Cennini's Il Libro del'Arte (the book of art) and Theopholis' On Diverse Arts, but there are others such as Heraclius, and an unknown compiler who's work is called Liber Diversarum Arcium (book of various arts). All of these books, and a few more, either complete or fragments, have material compiled of information known to the writers at the time of their work, and spanning many preceding centuries. Some of the passages in these books have even been handed down since Greek and Roman times, as has been shown by the relation to certain passages from surviving works of those eras. Most of these works deal with the topic of "shot" drapery in their chapters on painting fabric, as is shown here, from Il Libro del'Arte. "If you want to make a shot drapery for an angel in fresco, lay in the drapery in two values of flesh color, one darker and one lighter, blending them well at the middle of the figure. Then, on the dark side, shade the darks with ultramarine blue; and shade with terre-verte on the lighter flesh color, touching it up afterward in secco" (dry). In other words, here, he is making a pinkish silk which is "shot" with blue colours, but on the lighter parts of the blue it becomes aqua coloured. He also mentions adding highlights to the flesh tones with white to further model the drapery. This is not something new from the 14th century, as many scholars have proposed, but is probably nearly as old as silk weaving itself.

I am mentioning these things because, for one, there is some bit of evidence of this type of work done in St Denis, (some figures on some of the altars have evidence of this type of painting technique as well as the already mentioned plant leaves), and secondly, I want people to be aware that the bare stone walls, and unfinished wooden furniture so much on display and in film and television was not the reality of the Middle Ages. In writing this, I am giving the hints, as I have found them, of some of what used to be.

Back to the capitals, which are the topic of this post, bellow are given a few examples from contemporary manuscripts of similar dragons. These will demonstrate, in a two-dimensional way, how artists would have seen dragons such as these, and give an idea of how they might have been painted. Medieval artists were using a combination of work they had seen in other places and pictures they had in books as reference for their own work, (no different than what artists do today) so images such as these would have influenced the way three dimensional objects were decorated.

Gilded dragon, enhanced with blue, red and green; before 1056.
Part of an initial "Q" from a manuscript produced in Freising, Germany.

A gilded dragon with blue and (formerly) silver leaf accents. (the grey colour
used to be silver leaf; most of which has corroded away.) Another initial "Q",
also from Freising dated to 984-94

A yellow, and two tones of green dragon, from an early
12th century German manuscript.
In this less expensive manuscript, yellow paint stands in for gold leaf.

Three intertwined dragons in gold, green, blue, red and white forming the
top of an initial "P". This manuscript comes from Rochester, and dates to
the first half of the 12th century as well.

I chose to first show two earlier examples of dragons of a similar design to those in St Deinis to demonstrate that whilst the construction of the choir might have been new in 1140, the designs for the capitals certainly were not. One example is from some 150 years earlier and the other from around 85 years earlier. I also deliberately chose examples from other countries, (Germany and England) to show the wide-spread range of these designs. Art styles and techniques evolved much more slowly in medieval Europe than it has since the 15th century. These days, it is possible, due to the rapid changes in style, to date most things within a few years, but for most of the middle ages, much of what was produced cannot be positively dated closer than within a couple centuries unless a date or event is somehow attached to it.

It is sad that so little of the paint is left on these capitals, but the fact that any at all survives is actually the real wonder. One must consider that, although they are indoors, and therefore not exposed to rain, wind and snow, they are certainly not protected from all of the elements. Every year in the spring and autumn, and sometimes during the winter, there are cold days followed by warm ones; on these occasions, a stone which was cold, and then is exposed to warmth begins to "sweat", as the condensation in the air accumulates on the surface, as seen in the picture of a piece of slate, bellow.

All the bright spots here are water drops caused by a cold stone exposed
suddenly, to much warmer weather

All of this repeated heating and cooling with the accompanying moisture will ruin almost anything over a period of 900 years. Cennino Cennini mentions this problem in his book, whilst treating the topic of painting and gilding stones, by telling the reader to prepare a special buffer of varnish and charcoal (which he calls a "mordant") to be applied to the stone before the gilding and painting occurs. " In explanation of the purpose of applying this mordant, the reason is this: that stone always holds moisture, and when gesso tempered with size becomes aware of it, it promptly rots and comes away and is spoiled: and so the oil and varnish are the instruments and means of uniting the gesso with the stone, and I explain it to you on that account. The charcoal always keeps dry of the moisture of the stone". This method probably helped to some degree, but the fact that so little paint on stone is left, testifies to the fact that even this method did not last forever. It is also likely that, as with all good ideas that are more time consuming and expensive, people often dispense with the implementation of said methods in favour of expedience or cost savings.

Also in St Denis was an altar retable from about 100 years after the completion of the choir, which retains considerably more of its paint. This can be explained by reason of the fact that an altar would have been given more care in its original preparation, and thus had a greater chance of surviving, coupled with the fact that it would probably have been given a little bit of cleaning and maintenance which would also have helped it to survive. In this piece, we can again see the use of colours, how stone carvingss were originally painted, and the use of gold as a key part of the ornamentation.

A 12th century altar retable showing scenes associated with the birth of Christ
Much of the paint has been lost, but with the aide of the flash, one can still
discern enough of the colour to get an idea of how it originally appeared

There is much to be learned by visiting and studying ancient places, but it is also important to study other sources of information to get a broader overall picture of what it is that you are actually looking at. By studying artwork, and written material, we can gain a broader sense of the environment in which the remains we are studying originated. It is good to go into a church and take a few pictures and appreciate what is left, but it is better to study and try to understand what it would have been like when new and realise that all that remains is a shadow and a hint of the former glory and splendor of that place.

Videre Scire

The Utrecht Psalter and its Furnishings - Part V

Once more we come to our occasional series examining the furniture found in the 9th century Utrecht Psalter, now housed in the Universiteitsbibliotheek, (University Library) Utrecht. This study is being conducted alphabetically, as I have labeled the different types of furniture, and we are now come to the letter 'P'. This is a significant classification, because as far as I know, I have coined the phrase "Plinth Chair" to designate a type of seat which is the single most popularly illustrated device used for seating prior to the 14th century, across all forms of medieval artwork, but which no history of furniture has yet to point out as a distinct form.

David composing the psalms. (detail of fol 1v)
In this illustration we see a plinth chair, a foot stool, and a desk.
both the chair and the desk are depicted as paneled furniture

Most people assume these plinth chairs to be chests; if a "chest" is completely synonymous to an enclosed square or rectangular box form, then perhaps they are chest. I strongly disagree with this narrow classification, however, as there are numerous medieval illustrations showing both chests and 'plinth chairs' in the same scene, with a distinctly different form, and manner of decoration. They are, in my opinion, no more "chests" than an "ottoman" (known also as a tuffet or hassock) is a chest, which is incidentally a modern version of the former. Modern refrigerators are basically of 'cabinet' form, yet one never sees them classified as such in furniture books. I introduced this form of seating by the name of "Plinth Chair" a couple years ago here, so there is no need to repeat myself completely.

St John from a 9th century gospel book, Rheims
Bibliothèque de l'Arsenal MS 1171 fol 164v
In this illustration one clearly seas the difference between the chest
and the chair.

In the Utrecht Psalter, there are at least 21 illustrations depicting no less than 25 separate chairs of this type. There is no need to show multiple illustrations of them here, because, in keeping with the general impressionistic nature of the illustrations in this work, they are all of near identical design, showing only the basic form. A few have, as the above illustration shows, the addition of the indication of paneled construction by way of a secondary rectangle drawn within the perimeter of the main body.

Unfortunately, no chair like this has survived from any time in the medieval period, which leaves most people, without a second thought, to assume the objects in these illustrations to be chests. As can be seen in the above illustration, though, this particular design would be very impractical as a chest in the sense that we usually think of them, for reasons such as the very pronounced overhang of the top and the large protruding moulded base. Many of these chairs are also depicted, as the above example, with curved or shaped sides. This is not to say that they could not have been used for storage, no example that I have found in artwork is detailed enough to prove or disprove this concept. In fact, there is no reason to doubt that some would have been used as such. Others, however, are depicted with open arcading or in other forms of semi-openness which indicates that even if some examples might have doubled as storage items, they were not all used as such, nor was that their primary function. Simply put, they are a distinct form of seating, made and used as such.

9th century ivory panel, formerly part of a book cover, now in the Louvre

The above ivory panel detail is great for two reasons, the first is that it shows four such chairs in various states from completely enclosed (top left) to completely open, having only a base, and seat connected by four legs. (lower left) The top right could either be paneled or having openings, and the lower right depicts a plinth chair with solid ends, but open sides. (part of the ivory has chipped off of this one) The second reason I like this carving is because of the chest in the centre which completely flies in the face of most people's concept of early medieval furniture. This is more of a 'cabinet' in size and shape, has a vault shaped lid, and carved post and panel constructed sides.

The idea that early furniture, including these plinth chairs, was necessarily "crude" or "primitive" is further dispelled by two more illustration, this time from a later 10th century manuscript now located in Strahov Monastery in Prague, but originating from Trier, Germany. I have cropped the pictures to allow the details to be readily visible. The artist (known as "Meister des Registrars Gregorium") has indicated mitred corners to the panels in the body of the chair, gold accent to the moulding, and a carved acanthus leaf panel in the second example which is all in gold leaf with painted moulding. Some of the gold leaf has been lost on the left edge, revealing the very carefully drawn details of the chair.

Two details from a Trier Gospel book, now housed in the Strahov Monastary
ca 980

These chairs are illustrated in every century of the Middle Ages, from the 6th (the beginning of the "medieval" period)...

6th century panel from Rome, still very much in the "antique"
style of the Roman era.
This chair is exactly the same as the two 10th century examples.

...to the 15th, which is the end of the Middle Ages. In fact, I have one example that I stumbled across from the middle of the 16th century, but cannot remember where I filed it.

From the British Library comes this early 15th century example
BL Yates Thompson MS 37 fol 103r 

This is an excellent illustration because it shows that just as in the 9th century, the artist made no real distinction between the altar (shown with two red tablets representing a diptych) and the chair. As I have mentioned many times before, the artists were usually not very concerned with details in book illustrations. In the Utrecht Psalter, the plinth chairs and altars have exactly the same form and only other associated items distinguish one (unoccupied) type of furniture from the other, just as the diptych does here.

As I have said, no such chair survives, so any attempt at reconstructing one would be purely speculative. Some clues to the type of ornament used, however, might come from carved stone panels of the same time period in question, such as this 10th century former altar frontal, shown below.

This carved stone altar panel might give some indication of what a moulded
wooden panel might have looked like.

I have no idea when these chairs first came into vogue, but throughout the course of the Middle Ages they remained extremely popular and survived well into our modern era. As times and tastes have changed, they have adapted to those changes in material and the application of ornament and finish, but their basic form held true for more than a thousand years. To me it is a great wonder that no one else has ever given them as much as a second thought or the place they deserve in books of furniture history.

Videre Scire

Something is Missing...

Last March I tried to watch the movie Macbeth on a flight from Bangkok, but the director had chosen such a bleak, drab, crude, grey setting for the movie, that I was not able to enjoy it, and after about 20 minutes, gave up watching. The problem, as I saw it, was that it was so inaccurate to the reality that my research has shown, insofar as the clothing, furnishings, and architecture were concerned. It was not enough that nearly everyone in the film was wearing black, brown, and drab grey, they even reduced the colour saturation in the outdoor settings to make the vivid, beautiful green Scottish landscapes appear drab.

My research has shown that medieval people loved colourful and highly decorated surroundings and objects. Modern people go into museums and see plain, dry, grey and brown wooden furniture, drab unfinished stones, and unpainted plaster and assume what they are looking at must have been how things were when they were made. Almost any reenactment setting you will see supports this by exhibiting unadorned unfinished wooden furniture as well. To me, this contrasts greatly with the fact that almost anything we find with even a hint of its original finish, shows us that even among the most remote and primitive communities, some form of coloured ornamentation was used. Wealthy people had gold, silver, jewels, and a wide range of dyes and paints to chose from, but even simple people used the natural colours around them to create yellows, reds, greens and browns, in combination with black and white to achieve a lively degree of colourfulness.

A nice example of a 14th century chest? The wood is all there, but what
about the way it was finished?

I think I borrowed my first picture for this post from my friends at St Thomas Guild, taken at Cloister Isenhagen or perhaps Ebstorf. (I forgot) It shows a "clamp-front" type of chest, probably from the late 13th or 14th century. Any medieval enthusiast, including myself, would be thrilled to own such a piece of furniture even though it is very rough and worn. Though it is a fantastic piece of furniture, I believe it looks almost nothing like it did when it was newly made.

Here, posted below, are two pictures which illustrate my point using modern objects. (It was not easy to find two pictures of the same vehicle taken at the same [almost] angle.)

1931 Studebaker Dictator, now

A 1931 Studebaker as new. 

Whilst the form and most of the basic components are still there, obviously there is a huge difference between the cars appearance, as it currently sits along the famous "Route 66", and what it looked like when it rolled off of the assembly line in 1931. Might the same not be applicable to something which has been used and abused for 600+ years? I would venture the answer is, "yes".

I mentioned St Thomas Guild a moment ago; they recently posted a link to the Norwegian University Museum's photoportal. In this website you can enter a variety of words (in Norwegian) or museum numbers and see a vast array of medieval objects, mostly from Norway and Sweden. This site was of interest to me for the purpose of finding high resolution images of some of the altar panels which I know to be in abundance in Norwegian museums. (I was a bit disappointed in this regard, as there were not that many in the database.) My search, however landed a few other gems, both real and figuratively, which I found interesting.

Door from an "altar cabinet" 13th century. The original
yellow of the robe and halo has faded to a dull colour, but
enough of the ornamentation remains to see that this was
once a very finely decorated door.*

The picture which primarily sparked the inspiration for this weeks blog post was this cabinet door from an altar shrine. It comes from the early 13^th century, and is very reminiscent in style to the drawings of Villard de Honnecourt; quite firmly grounded in the Universal Gothic style of the 13^th century. The sad part is that the rest of the cabinet which the door belonged to seems to no longer exist, but the good part is that the door itself is in a very fair state of preservation, considering its age. By comparing the painting at the top with that at the bottom, we see that some of the subtle details which gave the illusion of depth and form to the vegetal elements have worn away, and there is some chipping and flaking to the paint, but we can well see the beauty that was achieved by the use of paint on what would otherwise have been a dull, ordinary, flat wooden panel. Modern taste is perfectly happy with plain flat wooden panels (or even plastic ones - horrors!) unadorned white walls, and bare stone, but we should not try to project our modern taste onto history.

I have mentioned in previous blog postings about the way paint and ornament can be erased by time through the debonding of the gesso undercoat, so this post is a bit of a repeat on that theme, but also an expansion on it. As I said, nearly every medieval object which has any semblance of its original character shows us that people of the Middle Ages loved colourful things. Here are two very different artefacts which help to illustrate that. The first is a shard of pottery from the Norwegian database. It shows that the pot it came from was decorated in earth-red, yellow, green, white and black. Very different from the ubiquitous drab grey crockery we usually see in settings such as the previously mentioned movie. The second comes from a manuscript in the library of Engelberg, (Codex 3, folio 157v to be exact) This manuscript was written in the middle of the 12^th century, and is very interesting for the fact that several of the parchment sheets used for it manufacture had tears in them; rather than discarding these pieces of velum, someone very creatively stitched the slits together with various coloured silk thread. It is evident that the repair is contemporary with the book because the writing avoids these areas. On the portion of a page I have reproduced here, there are yellow, copper-orange, green and wine (rose madder) coloured threads, one other colour of red, another of green and two of yellow are found elsewhere in the manuscript. This shows both a level of creativity and the love of colour which I have mentioned.

*

Two very different types of objects found thousands of kilometres from one
another, but both showing that even comen objects were enhanced
with colour even if in simple detail

I mentioned the way that a gesso ground can dissolve and leave a completely blank surface to what had been quite a vividly ornamented object. The database revealed many other objects which illustrated this problem to a greater or less degree. Below are a few more examples, and my commentary on them.

Another altar cabinet, this time from the late 15th century. Note the
simple use of stars and lines to enliven the blank areas and the frame to
the doors. Observe the bottom to see what remained once the woodwork
became damp and the paint flaked off.*

This detail comes from a late 12th century sculpture. It shows a section of
Mary's chair. I included it because we can 'almost' see how this chair would
have been decorated. The pale yellow-green paint has a dark layer over it
which would have been painted in such a way as to make foliage; the lighter colour
showing through. There is a band left plain, which has been enhanced with black
'dots'. Below the knob can be seen the remains of a blue-grey and a black stripe.*

Notice the areas where dampness has entirely obliterated any
trace of the paint to this altar frontal. Scroll-work like that seen
in the spandrels could very well have been used to enhance the
decoration of chests, boxes and cupboards,*

The Borre Cross
Arm of a crucifix which has lost its Christ figure and most of its decoration.
Enough remains to reveal that it was brightly painted, as well as partially
gilded. (the carved vine scrolls and the lion which is missing its wing). The
carved lozenge shapes were also gilded and probably originally had
coloured glass inserts, imitating gems. Red, green, blue, yellow and black
were used to decorate this, as well as gilding; in all, it would have been
a very vivid object.*

Not all objects from a given time or place were created equally and there have always been more and less ornate things created. Another cross from about the same time period and geographic location illustrate this variety. This cross relied much more on paint than it did on carving for its ornamentation, and so would be much less interesting were all of its paint gone. Happily, enough has survived so that we can envision its original condition. It also illustrates the way what now looks like a plain unadorned object could have originally been very elaborately ornamented.

Base of a crucifix showing the loss of paint due to moisture*

Left arm of the same cross showing better preserved decorations (again, the
original yellow has faded to a dull buff colour) Red, black, white and
blue-grey were the other colours used on this piece.*

Not every object was so highly ornamented, whilst others were even more so. The determining factors would have been geographic location, money invested in the project, and the value the user placed on the intended object in the first place. On a whole, Norway would have had less highly sophisticated objects than things produced in Rome or even Köln, at any given period, but that is not to discount the quality of created objects in the former mentioned country. Even though Norway was remote and had less contact with the rest of Europe, it was not altogether left out, as the styles of ornamentation on these objects clearly demonstrate. 

On the other hand, Norway was a remote place, and historically, one often finds much more primitive conditions there. Subsequently the objects from these regions are also often much more "crude" than one might find in more urban areas of Europe. Regardless of the remoteness of an area, however, the same basic principle still applies; people did not like plain, unadorned objects. Here are two more objects which illustrate this point.

A section of paneling from a wall. It is only decorated
with black spots on a white ground, but still clearly
shows that no matter how primitive, people still wanted
ornamentation to their surroundings, not bare unfinished
wood and stone.*

Thousands of this sort of enameled shrine were produced in various centres
of Europe in the 12th and 13th centuries. Normally they were much more ornate
than this (though this is the back, which was usually less ornate than the front)
but it shows yet again, that even if expenses were to be spared, ornamentation
was nonetheless employed.*

With this information, let us come back to the chest at the beginning of this article. There is no way to know with any certainly exactly how it would have been decorated, but it is a safe bet to assume it was painted in some manner. The degree and quality of that painting would mostly have been determined by the amount that the owner wished to spend for the project. By studying other artwork and objects of the time period in which it was made, we can make some educated guesses on its original ornamentation. The stiles or "legs" might have had some vegetal or floral ornamentation to them, perhaps as on the inside of this Italian chest dated 1290.

A chest from Venice, dated 1290 shows again the destruction that time has
taken to a formerly very ornate piece of furniture. Incidentally this chest
was not first prepared with a heavy coat of gesso, which has allowed some
degree of the painting to survive as it was not thick enough to all scale off.

Most probably the arcades would have been filled with figures; if the chest was used in an ecclesiastical setting, they would have doubtless been saints, apostles, or the Virgin, and the Christ, or a combination of all of them. Given the proportion of the arches, there would most likely have been two figures beneath each. If the object was for secular use, it could have had figures from a romance, mythology, history, or contemporary persons.

Depending on the quality of the painting employed, the columns and arches would have been painted to represent architecture, either simply or with multiple colours, patterns and shading. (Notice how the above door panel achieved dimension to the drapery of St Peter simply by the use of black lines of varying thickness; more like a drawing than a painting.) Surely the semi-circular shapes at the bottom of the columns would have been filled in to represent a column base, and the usual method of doing this was to paint it with some sort of acanthus inspired design such as this cross terminal from an altar baldaquin of one of the Norwegian stave churches. (This is now in the Bergen Museum). Variations of this sort of base were used in paintings, sculptures and illuminations since at least the 8th century, and were extremely popular motifs in the 12 and 13th century artwork throughout Europe.

An acanthus terminal to a cross arm. This sort of terminus was very popular in
Romanesque and early Gothic artwork.*

This leaves us to ponder the detail of the remaining area of the chest. Again, the quality of its decoration would have had a lot to do with the end result. On the simplest level, it would have been a solid colour with dots, circles, stars or other simple ornament, (or it could have had some sort of grid pattern like the reliquary casket pictured above). Below is another example of this sort of simple work, from a 13th century baldaquin over a sculpture of the Virgin. (again, from Norway)

Stars and simple floral shapes painted in a single colour add decoration to
an otherwise plain area *

Were a more ambitious programme employed in the decorative scheme, perhaps thin scrolling vines like those seen in the altar panel depicted above would have been used. Another possibility could have been a geometric pattern like that in the background of the picture showing the detail of the cross arm. This was a very popular design based on interconnected circles which leave a nearly square area in the centre of each. This pattern can be found in everything from floor tiles, to wall ornamentation and jewelry; as with everything else, simple quickly executed examples exist along side of very carefully worked, multi-coloured versions. Below are more examples of fill work, used to ornament blank or flat areas of design. 

Fleur-de-Lis, and leaves from an early 14th century
chest in the MET. Notice the colour change on the recently
exposed areas of blue.

From another Norwegian altar frontal, this shows painted gems and an
imitation of figured wood. Note also the wavy two-tone green, and white and grey
 borders. This was a popular enamel technique which was also often imitated
on painted surfaces. The buff coloured areas are gilded though this picture
does not very well reflect that fact.*

More vine and scroll infill design, Also an acanthus roundel (damaged)*

This is a border from an early 12th century Spanish wall fresco and shows
another popular border treatment which could also be used on uprights such
furniture legs and columns.

Two colour ornament; the relatively thick scale is due to the size of the
ornament; this is a very small area in an illuminated manuscript.

Another fragment of an object, again a baldaquin from a Madonna sculpture.
This exhibits once more the use of colour as well as quick line ornament to
enhance an otherwise plain flat field. Green and gold originally trimmed the
arch, bordered by a thin line of black. Once again the yellow has faded to buff.

Until now I have been discussing painting as a means of enhancing furniture and other wooden objects, I do not want to give the impression, however, that I believe all wooden objects were painted in the Middle ages. Late medieval artwork by painters such as Van Eyke and Campin clearly infer that furniture could be left unpainted (though it says nothing about varnish, wax or oil). To what degree this was true cannot be determined, only that it existed. Furthermore, These paintings mostly show the possessions of the Flemish bourgeoisie in the first half of the 15th century, and therefore cannot speak for the remainder of Europe nor the rest of the medieval period. Other painters of the 14th and 15th centuries, painting in a somewhat "realistic" style, such as Master Theodoric of Prague, usually depict their furniture as being painted or gilded. Even one of Van Eyek's chairs, in the same basic form as all of his others, is depicted as gilded, because it is occupied by Mary, "Queen of Heaven" not a merchant class person. Some wooden objects were made with intarsia, marquetry, and veneers, and obviously they would not have been painted, so a balance of many sorts of finishes including natural wood, would be the most probable conclusion. 

Furthermore, though paint was a very common treatment for wooden objects, it was not the only means of ornamentation. Cenion Cennini mentions using eggshells to ornament (think low cost mosaic); cloth, parchment, leather, gold leaf and even beads were also used. Another type of ornamentation, used in connection with gesso and paint, was the art of applying moulded low-relief (usually) ornaments, also made of gesso, to the object before painting and gilding it, as is seen in this detail of a sculpture in the MET (and found in hundreds of surviving Italian "cassone" and picture frames and altars from all over Europe).

Red, yellow, and two colours of blue, along with three dimensional gilded gesso
originally decorated this French sculpture chair from the mid 12th century,
 now in the MET

I mentioned intarsia as another means of decorating wooden furniture and the Museum database did not disappoint in that regard either. Here is a 14th century (?) wax tablet, "booklet" which was originally decorated with a geometric intarsia pattern. It was a shame that I could find no coloured photo of it, but I know of other objects made with this technique from the 12th and 13th centuries. Once again, moisture damage could entirely erase any trace of such ornament from a wooden object.

A multi-leaved wax tablet (with its last writing still visible) shows the remains
of a very nice intarsia pattern. I have no idea of the precise date of this object,
it was only listed as "medieval", but other work like this exists from as early
as the 12th century.

Last of all, many wooden objects were covered in metal foils. There still exist, examples of this type of work from every century of the medieval period, in which all or most of the metal has been ripped off for its scrap value, (copper with gilding or silvering). We can usually know that the object in question was covered in this manner because some of the foil was carelessly left on, or by the shape and context of the object. (a shrine in a church) but how much private furniture would have also been ornamented in this manner? It is impossible to answer the question, but I feel confident there would have been such items, especially from the earlier part of the Middle Ages. Charlemagne had, according to his will, four tables "made of gold and of silver" with scenery and ornamentation, but surely these were wooden objects with foil coverings.

Once again, the ornamentation of the object completely transforms the
wooden object, It is surprising how little the nails effect the wood. An object
originally covered in gilded foil which no longer had its covering might be
hard to detect, and nearly impossible to distinguish from one which had been
covered in cloth or leather.*

In closing, it is impossible to recreate an accurate reproduction of something in which you have no original to go on, however, it is still important for the sake of history and those looking for answers, to be aware that the dark ages were not nearly so "dark" as modern popular culture (largely influenced by 18th and 19th century notions that everything before the present was "crude" and "horrible" -  A quick example comes a story concerning the famous Bayeux Tapestry which was used to cover military wagons during the French Revolution. Mark Twain is also reported to have commented that it was made by rank amateurs.) would have us to believe. Certainly there were many things that were crudely made, but that fact neither began nor ended with the middle ages. Crude things have been produced in every age and in every country right up until this very moment. One thing, however, that we should be sure of, was that regardless of the crudeness or fineness of medieval objects, they were highly decorated in some manner (even the smallest and simplest of objects), and above all, colourful in a natural organic way.

* All photos marked with an asterisk were sourced from the Norwegian University Museum's website though most have been cropped and all have been re-sized. They are used with the intent of education and research for the enlightenment of the general public.

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