Sound Practice and Practical Conservation Recipes as Described in Greek Post-Byzantine Painters’ Manuals

ABSTRACT

Post-medieval Greek painting manuals, exemplified by the Hermeneia of the Art of Painting by Dionysius of Fourna, were often copied, enriched, and widely used in icon-painter workshops until the twentieth century. These manuals reflect the accumulated experience of many generations of painters and include sections that pertain to preparation and application of materials and handling of works. Here we present, discuss, and, in some cases, compare with pertinent western instructions and experimental findings (deriving from the analysis of icons and wall paintings), key Greek manual instructions for sound practice, and practical conservation of paintings. Instructions in consideration come from both the published version of Hermeneia and various unpublished manuals; it is shown that the first part of the widely circulating standard edition of Dionysius is by no means an exhaustive account of post-Byzantine technical knowledge.

KEYWORDS:

• Painting manual
• conservation
• Dionysius of Fourna
• Hermeneia
• manuscript
• pigment
• gilding
• SEM-EDX
• XRF

Acknowledgments

G. P. Mastrotheodoros expresses his gratitude to the Onassis Foundation for the financial support of his PhD research. Sotirios Bekiaris (Benaki Museum, Conservation dept.) and both the Benaki Museum Library and the National Library of Greece personnel are acknowledged for their significant help during the study of unpublished MSS. Dr. Y. Bassiakos and the staff of the Archaeometry laboratory (NCSR ‘Demokritos’) are also thanked for their assistance during the analytical examination of microsamples. Sincere thanks are due to Dr. V. Papadopoulou (Artan Ephorate of Antiquities), the General Directorate for the Restoration, Museums and Technical Works, and the Directorate for Byzantine and Post-Byzantine Antiquities of the Greek Ministry of Culture and Sports for sampling permissions. Finally, Maria Chatzidakis (Dept. of Antiquities Conservation, TEI of Athens) exhortation to take part in a conservation conference is gratefully acknowledged.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Georgios P. Mastrotheodoros graduated from the department of Conservation of Antiquities and Works of Art (Technological Educational Institute, Athens) and gained a Master in Materials Chemistry and Technology (Materials Science and Engineering Dept., University of Ioannina/UoI). On 2016 he defended his PhD thesis (study of post-byzantine painting materials, contacted in UoI and the Institute of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology/INN, NCSR Demokritos). Currently he is a postdoctoral IKY fellow in INN, NCSR Demokritos. His work is focused on the analytical investigation of ancient, medieval, and post-medieval artifacts.

Konstantinos G. Beltsios holds a Chemical Engineering Diploma from NTUA (Athens, Greece) and a Materials Science and Engineering PhD from Northwestern University (Evanston, IL, USA). Following Post-doctoral work in the UOI at Champaign-Urbana (IL, USA) and research work at NCSR Demokritos (Athens, Greece) he became, in 2002, and remains (currently as a Professor) a faculty member of the Materials Science and Engineering Dept. at the University of Ioannina (Greece). His work pertains to a wide range of current and antiquity materials.

ORCID

Georgios P. Mastrotheodoros http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0320-5867

Notes

1. Texts only obliquely relevant to the present work, such as Byzantine alchemical manuscripts (e.g. Berthelot 1888) and other older Greek texts (e.g. Papyrus Holmiensis) are not considered.

2. In order to facilitate reading, the studied post-Byzantine manuscripts/sources will be cited by s/n according to the listing of Table 1.

3. Hetherington in his commentary of Dionysius (Dionysius 1996, note 5 for p. 11) states that, as a result of a certain linguistic confusion as regards the corresponding Latin term, one of the recipes [(5), §45, 31–32] describes the preparation of red lazouri. Actually, the latter recipe is a generic one for a lake having a color that depends on the color of the precursor cloth material; Dionysius presented this recipe in a ‘blue section’ and referred to ‘red or blue’ colors as examples; now for the blue color Dionysius employed the older term geranion (Vyzantios 1857, 68–69; Kriaras 1975) which Hetherington misinterpreted as signifying ‘the [red] colour of geraniums’ and then concluded that the lazouri recipe was a recipe for red (either a generic red or a geranium red). The next lazouri recipe (§46) belongs to a family of medieval recipes aiming at blue but having a somewhat uncertain outcome, that might sometimes be a green one; yet it is misleading to state (Dionysius 1996, notes 5 and 6 for p. 11) that in the work of Dionysius lazouri might also denote a green color. At the time of Dionysius, lazouri was a well-established Greek term for blue items alone for a period in excess of 1000 years; the Byzantine lazourion (> lazouri[n]) was earlier than the corresponding Latin terms, as for example shows the handling of the Byzantine term in the Codex 490 Lucca manuscript.

4. Passages have been translated by the authors.

5. Balpis also notes that an icon to be placed in a damp environment should be painted directly on the bare wood because otherwise gesso will detach and the painter will be ‘censured’ [(9), 15].

6. Occasionally the production of stronger, potassium hydroxide type solutions are described as in versions of the Hermeneia [e.g. (5), 31–31, §45; (8), 54; (14), 21v], in Doxaras’ manual [where it is named ‘άδολος αλυσίβα’-‘unfraud lye’, (4), 38] and in Ephraim manuscript [(1), 56v–57r]. There is no reason to adopt Hetherington’s suggestion (Dionysius, 1996, note 4 for page 10) that the cleaning liquid in the recipe under consideration is an organic distillate.

7. Nonetheless similar processes were involved in the framework of early ‘professional’ wood-panel conservation in Europe since at least early-nineteenth century (Schiessl 1998, 226).

Additional information

Funding

Part of this work was supported by State Scholarships Foundation (IKY) [Grant Number 2016-050-0503-7689]. In detail, part of the reported data was gained during a postdoctoral research that is contacted through an IKY scholarships program and co-financed by the European Union (European Social Fund-ESF) and Greek national funds through the action entitled ‘Reinforcement of Postdoctoral Researchers’, in the framework of the Operational Program ‘Human Resources Development Program, Education and Lifelong Learning’ of the National Strategic Reference Framework (NSRF) 2014-2020 (grant number: 2016-050-0503-7689).