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

Inspiration from the Bern Physiologus

Christmas time was a good excuse to do some painting, because I like to give friends gifts that I have made when I am able to make the time to do so. I have been gearing up to do some painting on a box that I am making, so a couple Christmas gifts were a good excuse to get in some practice in the art of painting without preparatory under-drawing.

I chose the Bern Physiologus, which is a 9th century rendition of a 5th century copy of a 3rd century manuscript, for my inspiration. This treaties was a precursor to the "bestiaries"  which had become very popular by the 11th century. They are a collection of writings on various animals and other creatures and were written with the intent of deriving a moral or Christological meaning  from the behaviour and characteristics of the named animals. The artist of the example found in the Bernbibliothek, must have had several different sources for his artwork, but the ones I liked best seem to be inspired by Roman wall fresco.

"The nature of animals at night"
in other words, owls. This work seems to channel the look of
Roman era wall murals such as those pictures below

A mosaic from Pompeii and a fresco from
Herculaneum exhibit the sort of artwork that the 9th
century artist had in mind when painting the
Bern Physiologus

In the world of decorative art, there is a very long tradition of decorating objects and walls with a very free and "unscripted" sort of painting. Most people are familiar with this sort of work in 19th century "folk" art furniture, but by that time, such work was already very ancient. I would venture a guess that as long as furniture has been decorated, this has been a way of ornamenting it. I do know that there is an example of this sort of painted decoration on a little book cover, also found in the Bernbibliothek, in Switzerland, which is from the beginning of the 11th century. I have reproduced a detail of it below, as well as a little painted panel that I saw in the Louvre, which was done in the 7th or 8th century.

Painted decoration on the inside of an 11th century wooden booklet cover
Bern, Switzerland

A very free and spontaneous bird catching a snake; fragment in the Louvre

To begin painting my panels, I first applied gesso as Theophilus directs, and then scraped it down with a cabinet scraper. I used a "silver point" which I made from a length of silver solder, to draw out the border. I do not believe that the 9th century artist drew in the trees or birds, so I did not either.

A blank white panel and the lines made with a silver stylus; you will have to
look carefully to see the lines that it makes because they are much lighter
than those made by a modern pencil

It is my intention to move into egg tempera painting, (something I have been wanting to do for a long time) but before I begin working with that medium I wanted to practice with something a little less expensive, (I spent over 300$ buying natural pigments for this purpose) so I opted to use milk paint. In all likelihood milk paint was also used in medieval times, along with glue based paint, gum (several varieties, including, according to Theophilus, gum derived from plum trees) and oils. Each type of medium has its own characteristics, but that exhibited by egg tempera was the medium preferred by most medieval artists.

The distinctive characteristic of milk paint is that it is rather "chalky", owing to its lime-based composition. This is great if you want to achieve the look of fresco, and that has been my main purpose in using it in the past. When it comes to applying a varnish or glaze to it, however, all sorts of weird things can happen.

A series of photos showing the progression of the work. Nothing is drawn in
beforehand, so this requires a clear concept of what you want to do before
beginning the work

Another thing that happens with this paint is that it is difficult to regulate lights and darks. When the dark colours are wet, they look dark enough, but when they dry, they become lighter. I am never sure what it will actually turn out like until I put on the varnish. If you compare the last two pictures, you will see that the dark border on the left side has turned light after it dried. Also, I had applied shadows to the trees, but they mostly vanished once the colour dried. In the same token, when I put on highlights, they were way too light and looked almost white, until I varnished the panel, and then the darks and lights came out (mostly) right again. This was definitely an experiment.

Grinding woad pigment with a muller

Another experiment that I did was adding some woad powder to my blue to make it darker. Woad was a European substitute for indigo and is a very dark blue. My blue that I had was not dark enough to make the border so I decided to use some of my newly acquired pigments to help it out. The stuff refused to dissolve in the water based paint so I had to add a lot of ammonia to it; it still did not dissolve completely, but I managed to get something that worked.

After varnish was applied

Above you can see the differences that the application of varnish had on the final results. My darks are dark again, and the highlights are not too white. The downside, however, was that the smokey haze look of the background was considerably lessened and the colour is not as pale as it was.

Once that one was finished, I did another one for another friend. 

Once I finished the first one I tried a second to see if I had learned anything

This one was based on two separate images from the Physiologus.

The two pictures which were merged to become my second one;
the original Oscar?

Very curiously, this guy is supposed to be a "salamander". In some versions of the text, it says "the lizard or salamander". incidentally, there is a lizard which looks like he could be the inspiration for this creature, but is supposedly only found in north America; I have no explanation.

Real-life horned lizard, but he comes from Texas!

I put these two panels against my box, imagining them as being painted on the box itself; the result could be quite pleasing but is not what I plan to use for its decoration. This was merely an exercise in learning to paint loosely.

The second picture was taken before the varnish. it has a very different look;
much more like a fresco

The Utrecht Psalter; Part VI

It has been awhile since we had a visit with the Utrecht Psalter, so I thought it was about time for the next installment in this series. This week's post brings us to the letter 'R' which is for Round Table. I did not do 'T' for table, because there are two types of tables and I wanted to cover each one of them separately.

Round Table from the 9th century Utrecht Psalter

I have counted 22 individual round tables in this Psalter, and they can be subdivided into three subcategories. The first are three tables which have been depicted with no visible legs of any sort. When this practice first began is not known to me, but there is a 3rd century BC painted Greek vase in the MET which has a scene with a table completely covered in a white cloth, leaving no visible legs to support it. This became an exasperating (for someone interested in furniture design history) trend in the 11th and 12th centuries, to the point that it is hard to find any depictions of tables from that era actually illustrating the legs. They are almost always shown as a top with an elaborately draped covering cloth, seemingly floating in space, as if by magic. (This is simply another example of trends in illustrated fashion, much like the overly elongated legs of female models in fashion illustrations of the mid 20th century, meant to exemplify an illusionary ideal.)

This represents a round table, but there are no details, to indicate anything
about construction details or ornamental decoration.

A round top table, again with no support depicted, but showing the fashion
for covering the table with an elaborate drapery.
This illustration comes from a 9th century book cover in the BNF.

Coming back to our 9th century Psalter, it is interesting to note that none of these tables are shown with a cloth covering. This should not be interpreted to mean that people did not cover their tables with cloths at this time, several 9th century ivory carvings show tables draped with cloth, completely obscuring the details of construction, just as with the 11th and 12th century trend that I mentioned. (see above) There was a lot of regional and artistic variation, and anything one sees in medieval illustrations should not necessarily be applied to the whole of Europe. In fact there is so little left to study, from the first two thirds of the Middle Ages, that any glimpses we see are like trying to watch a football match standing 2 metres behind a picket fence. Those glimpses, however, are enough to wet the apatite, and give people such as myself, reason to try to keep watching in hopes of seeing something fascinating.

There still exists one other very well illustrated 9th century Psalter, known as the Stuttgart Psalter, which could not be more different from the Utrecht Psalter. None of its illustration bear any resemblance to either the images used, or the driving concepts behind their inclusion in the manuscript. This shows us the wide range of style, and the variation which existed throughout Europe during the 9th century. (and nothing changed, on that note, for the rest of the medieval period) Of interest, insofar as this discussion is concerned, on that point, is the fact that whilst the Utrecht Psalter has no fewer than 29 tables depicted, (among more than 200 illustrations) the Stuttgart Psalter only has one, from more than 300 illustrations.

From our manuscript we find that the second sub-type of round table depicted is one with straight legs; there is only one such example of this type however. Since these illustrations are merely sketches, with almost no details, it is impossible to say whether the artist was intending square or turned legs, but they do seem to have a bit of taper to them. The truly unusual detail, however, is that unlike all of the other round tables depicted with legs, this one has four legs, whereas the others all have three. Given the level of detail in this manuscript, this table is no different from a dining table that might have been made in the 17th 18th or 19th century. There are a scattering of other medieval illustrations of round, four legged tables from the various centuries, and we can probably safely conclude that such tables existed, in the guise of the ever changing period decorations, right through the medieval period.

A four legged round top table. Would these legs be turned? It is hard to say.
This illustration does seem to suggest that the legs are applied to the outside
perimeter of the top (as apposed to being mounted underneath)

The third, and by far most common form of round table depicted in this Psalter, is a type carried over from Greco-roman times; this is a tripod table with lion mask and paw feet. There are 18 such tables in this manuscript, which probably doubles the number of extant illustrated examples from the whole of the 9th century. One example was given at the top of this article and another is pictured below. Both are of the same type, but this second illustration suggests that such tables could be made quite large to allow many guests to be seated, calling to mind the Arthurian legend of the "Knights of the Round Table".

A round tripod table large enough to seat many people, yet still made in
the same style as the smaller ones.

Anyone paying attention will note that all three legs seem to be on the same side, but this is a stylistic representation, and has a tradition probably as old as the actual design of this type of table, a point illustrated by the following 5th century BC Etruscan representation of one of these tables.

When I was in MET I spent time searching for origins of medieval furniture
design, this 5th century BC Etruscan table tells us that when the 9th century
Utrecht Psalter was illustrated, this table design had already been around for
more than 1300 years.

When one speaks of "the Middle Ages" most people will conjure up some mental image of what that means to them; inevitably, this image will have much more of a resemblance to life in the 13th, 14th or 15th centuries, than to earlier periods. The fact is, that styles and tastes evolved over the course of history, and by the time the 13th century came around, there was very little which resembled life of the 8th or 9th centuries, much as 1970 had very little to do with 1920. In a broader sense, the "medieval" world of the 9th century bore much more of a resemblance to the Roman period (at least in regions once included in the Roman Empire) than it did to the "Middle Ages" of the 14th century. The following six illustrations will quickly point this out.

Roman town, from a Pompeian Mural in the MET 

9th century depiction of a town, from an ivory panel in the V&A

Roman Soldiers from Trajan's Column

9th Century mounted soldiers from a mid 9th century Psalter,
St Gall, Switzerland
The helmets are still very much the same, as is the length and form of
the clothing, one change which has occurred is the more prevalent use of
chain mail armour.  

Another of the 18 round tables from the Utrecht Psalter. This one is of a
smaller personal size, such as the following charred remnant found in
Herculaneum, buried in the 79 AD eruption of Mt Vesuvius

A very rare survivor (almost a survivor) this is the charred remains of a
Roman era table, very much like those illustrated in the
Utrecht Psalter

I have read so many references to medieval tables being "planks set on top" of "crude" trestles, or "tree trunks" that it makes me want to scream. The medieval artwork tells a very different tale to that notion. It is also interesting to note that the earliest example I have found to date, of a "trestle table" is from the 13th century. This is not to say that they did not exist before that time, but most pre 13th century depictions of tables are round, demilune, or rectangular on turned or square legs, with an occasional 'X' frame or pedestal base to round out the selection. Most early illustrations of tables clearly indicate some form of decoration to the supporting members, wherever any support is actually indicated.

In centres of commerce and industry and places of education, where society continued to thrive, the Roman style of art melted away much more slowly. In Aachen, the capitol of the Carolingian realm, we find a pair of lion masks on the cathedral doors (I believe these are actually cast copies made from the originals) which were made in the 9th century, Here we still see a lot of classical influence on the design, including the panel construction of the doors, the egg and dart moulding, the acanthus leaf wreaths, and the lion faces, (they originally held rings, used to pull the doors closed), but we can also see that the changes of artistic trends have left their own period stamp on them.

One could easily imagine these lion's faces carved on the terminals of
lion-paw legs and then we would have a 9th century version of
this sort of table

A 1st Century AD table from Pompeii, This is another example
of a Roman table, but in principle it is much the same as those
illustrated in the manuscript. To get a 9th century version, we
need to add 9th century style lions, such as those pictured
in the previous illustration

To sum things up, there is so little of anything left from the early medieval period that it is impossible to recreate that world, but little hints and fragments, and a bit of logical deductive reasoning can fill in a bit more of the void left by the destruction of so much of what once was. This Utrecht Psalter gives us some tantalising glimpses, and informs us that certain stylistic trends, such as lion shaped tripod tables were very slow in dying out and continued into the 9th century

Last minute addition, just in case someone gets the idea that the tables
depicted in the Utrecht Psalter are an anomaly. This is from a manuscript
known as the Drogo Sacramentary, which is found in the BNF and was
created in the middle of the 9th century.
(BNF Lat. 9428)

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