Gold ground
Gold ground (both a noun and adjective) or gold-ground (adjective) is a term in art history for a style of images with all or most of the background in a solid gold colour. Historically, real gold leaf has normally been used, giving a luxurious appearance. The style has been used in several periods and places, but is especially associated with Byzantine and medieval art in mosaic, illuminated manuscripts and panel paintings, where it was for many centuries the dominant style for some types of images, such as icons. For three-dimensional objects, the term is gilded or gold-plated.
Gold in mosaic began in
The style remains in use for
Writing in 1984, Otto Pächt said "the history of the colour gold in the Middle Ages forms an important chapter which has yet to be written",[2] a gap which perhaps has still only been partly filled.[3] Apart from large gold backgrounds, another aspect was chrysography or "golden highlighting", the use of gold lines in images to define and highlight features such as the folds of clothing. The term is often extended to include gold lettering and linear ornamentation.[4]
Effects
Recent scholarship has explored the effects of gold ground art, especially in
Otto Pächt wrote that "medieval gold ground was always interpreted as a symbol of transcendental light. In the light transmitted by the gold of Byzantine mosaics there was eternal cosmic space dissolved at its most palpable in the unreal, or even, in the supernatural; and yet our senses are directly touched by this light."[6]
According to one scholar, "in a gold ground painting, the sacred image the Virgin, for example was firmly located on the material surface of the picture plane. She was, in this way, real, and the painting as much presented the Madonna as represented her ... [gold ground paintings] ...which blurred the distinction between the subject and its representation, were considered to have a physical and psychological presence like that of a real person."[7]
Technique
In mosaics the figures and other areas in colours were normally added first, then the gold placed around them. In painting the opposite sequence was used, with the figures "reserved" around their outline in the underdrawing.[8]
Mosaic
Gold leaf was glued to glass sheets about 8 mm thick with gum arabic, then a very thin extra layer of glass added on top for durability. In ancient times, the technique of creating "gold sandwich glass" was already known in Hellenistic Greece by around 250 BC, and used for gold glass vessels. In mosaics the top layer was applied by covering the sheet with powdered glass and firing the sheet enough to melt the powder and fuse the layers.[9] In 15th-century Venice the method changed and the top layer of molten glass was blown onto the other two at high temperature. This gave a better bond at the weakest point of a tessera, when the gold joined the thicker bottom layer of glass.[10]
The sheets of glass were then broken into small
Painting
There are a number of different methods for applying the gold. The prepared surface of wood or vellum to be painted was underdrawn with at least the outlines of the figures and other elements. Then (or perhaps before) a layer of a reddish clay mix called bole was added. This gave depth to the gold colour, and prevented a greenish tinge that gold leaf on a white background tended to display. After several centuries, this layer is often revealed where the gold leaf has been lost.[12]
On top of this the gold leaf was added. Most commonly this was done a whole "leaf" at a time, by the
Shell gold was gold paint with powdered gold as its pigment. This was generally used only for small areas, usually details and highlights within the coloured parts of the painting. The name came from the habit of using seashells to hold mixed paint of all types when painting. "Gilded applied relief" was unburnished gold leaf applied by mordant gilding to a moulded relief surface of gesso or pastiglia. The flat surfaces might then be "tooled" with punches and line-making tools, to make patterns within the gold, very often on halos or other features, but sometimes all over the background. Several of these techniques might be used on the same piece to give a variety of effects.[14]
Manuscripts
Any gold leaf was applied, and usually burnished, before painting began.[15] According to Otto Pächt, it was only in the 12th century that Western illuminators learnt how to achieve the full burnished gold leaf effect from Byzantine sources. Previously, for example in Carolingian manuscripts, "a gold pigment of sandy, grainy character, with only a faint glitter, was used."[16] The techniques in manuscript painting are similar to those for panel paintings, though on a smaller scale. One difference, both in Western and Islamic works, is that the gesso or bole ground is reduced in depth at its edges, giving the gold areas a very slight curve, which makes gold reflect the light differently. In manuscripts silver could also be used, but this has now generally oxidized to black.[17]
History
Paintings
In the West, the style was usual in
In Early Netherlandish painting the gold ground style was initially used, as in the Seilern Triptych of c. 1425 by Robert Campin, but a few years later his Mérode Altarpiece is given a famously detailed naturalistic setting.[20] The "near-elimination of gold backgrounds began in early Netherlandish painting around the mid-1420s", and was fairly rapid, with some exceptions like Rogier van der Weyden's Medici Altarpiece, which was probably painted after 1450, perhaps for an Italian patron who requested the earlier style.[21]
By the late 15th century the style represented a deliberate archaism, which was sometimes still used. The Roman painter Antoniazzo Romano and his workshop continued to use it into the first years of the 16th century, as he "made a speciality of repainting or interpreting older images, or generating new cult images with an archaic flavor",[22] Carlo Crivelli (died c. 1495), who for much of his career worked for relatively provincial patrons in the Marche region, also made late use of the style, to achieve sophisticated effects.[23] Joos van Cleve painted a gold ground Salvator Mundi in 1516–18 (now Louvre).[24] Albrecht Altdorfer's Crucifixion of c. 1520 in Budapest is a very late example, that also "reprises an iconographic type (the "Crucifixion with Crowd") and a non-naturalistic approach to space long out of fashion."[25]
Greek painters continued emulating the Byzantine masters in Crete and the Ionian Islands. Most Italian painters adopted oil painting opposing the egg
By the 1600s, painters began to adopt variations to their painting styles. During the mid 1600s Greek painters in the Venetian world utilized the flemish artistic style. While continuing the tradition of the gilded background they painted works featuring complex three-dimensional figures.
Theodore Poulakis integrated the gilded technique in most of his modernized paintings, one example was his work entitled Noah's Ark. Clearly, the painter intentionally replaces the sky in his work with gold sheet while maintaining the modern flemish painting style escaping the Greek Italian Byzantine tradition.[28] Another painter who emulated Titian's work was Stephanos Tzangarolas. Tzangarolas used Madonna Col Bambino as his inspiration to paint Virgin Glykofilousa with the Akathist Hymn. The gold-gilded background exults the theological figures into a supreme realm. Each biblical story in the painting is inlaid with gold. The traditional style is often continued in the Greek world until today.[29]
In later periods of European art, the style was sometimes revived, usually just with gold paint. In 1762
-
14th-century Italian Crucifixion by Allegretto Nuzi; much of the gold leaf has worn away, revealing the red bole below.
-
Antoniazzo Romano, Virgin and Child with donor portrait, c. 1480
-
Erato, byHenry Marquand
Japanese painting
In Azuchi–Momoyama period Japan (1568–1600), the style became used in the large folding screens (byōbu) in the shiro or castles of the daimyo families by the late 16th century. The subjects included landscapes, birds and animals, and some crowded scenes from literature, or of everyday life. These were used in the rooms used for entertaining guests, while those for the family tended to use screens with ink and some colours. Gold leaf squares were used on paper, with their edges sometimes left visible.[34] These rooms had rather small windows, and the gold reflected light into the room; ceilings might be decorated the same way.[35] The full background might be in gold leaf, or sometimes just the clouds in the sky.[36] The Rinpa school made extensive use of gold ground.[37]
In
Mosaics
It was only in the 1st and 2nd centuries that wall, as opposed to floor, mosaics became common in the Greco-Roman world, at first for damp tombs and nymphea, before being used in religious settings by the late 4th century. At first they were concentrated on or around the apse and sanctuary behind the main altar.[40] It was found that "by careful lighting, they seemed to not to enclose but to enlarge the space which they surrounded".[41]
One of the earliest surviving groups of gold-ground mosaics, from before about 440, is in Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome, on the "triumphal arch" and nave (the apse mosaics are much later), although those in the nave are placed too high to be seen clearly. The amount of gold background varies between scenes, and is often mixed with architectural settings, blue skies, and other elements. Later, mosaic became "the vehicle of choice for conveying the truth of Orthodox beliefs", as well as "the imperial medium par excellence".[42]
The traditional view, now challenged by some scholars, is that patterns of mosaic use spread from the court workshops of Constantinople, from which teams were sometimes despatched to other parts of the empire, or beyond as diplomatic gifts, and that their involvement can be deduced from the relatively higher quality of their production.[43]
Manuscripts
Technically, the term illuminated manuscript is limited to manuscripts whose pages are embellished with metals, of which gold is the most common. However, in modern usage manuscripts with miniatures and initials only using other colours are normally covered by the term.[44]
In manuscripts gold was used in the larger letters and borders as much as for a full background to miniatures. Typically only a few pages made much use of it, and those were usually at the front of the book, or marking a major new section, for example the start of each gospel in a Gospel Book. In Western Europe the use of gold grounds on a large scale is mostly found either in the most sumptuous royal or imperial manuscripts in earlier periods such as Ottonian art, or towards the end of the Middle Ages, when gold became more widely available. The 14th-century Golden Haggadah in the British Library has a prefatory cycle of 14 miniatures of biblical subjects on gold ground tooled with a regular pattern, as was also typical in luxury Christian illumination at this period, as well as using gold letters for major headings.[45]
Gold was used in manuscripts in Persia, India and Tibet, for text, in miniatures and borders.
Gallery
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Folio 117r of the Pericopes of Henry II, Reichenau, c. 1002 - 1012: the Angel on the Tomb
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Gelati Gospels, Georgia, 12th century. The Crucifixion.
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Persian miniature, Khusraw discovers Shirin bathing in a pool. The water is oxidized silver.
Notes
- ^ Nuechterlein, "The use of gold in luxury objects and pre-Eyckian Netherlandish painting"
- ^ Pächt, 140
- ^ Folda, xxiii–xxiv, xxv
- ^ Pächt, 140; Folda, xxv–xxvi, 15; chrysography is the subject of most of Folda's book
- ^ Barber, 114–119; Runciman, 37, 59, 104
- ^ Pächt, 140; Folda, 15 makes similar remarks.
- ^ Nygren, 15
- ^ Nuechterlein, "A brief overview of gilding techniques"; Meagher
- ^ Bustacchini, 53
- ^ Bustacchini, 55; Connor, 6
- ^ Bustacchini, 56
- ^ Nuechterlein, "A brief overview of gilding techniques"; Meagher
- ^ Nuechterlein, "A brief overview of gilding techniques"; Meagher
- ^ Nuechterlein, "A brief overview of gilding techniques"; Meagher
- ^ Gill, 64
- ^ Pächt, 140–141, 140 quoted
- ^ Fuchs, 114–119; Saha, 22–23; Gill, 64–66
- ^ Pächt, 141
- ^ Bent, George R., "Lorenzo Monaco", Britannica.com, accessed 7 April 2021
- ^ Nuechterlein, "The use of gold in luxury objects and pre-Eyckian Netherlandish painting"
- ^ Nuechterlein, "From gold grounds to depicted space".
- ISBN 9781942130345, google books
- ^ Wright, 57–59, 62–66
- ^ "Salvator Mundi", Louvre page (in French): "signe d’archaïsme à la Van Eyck, rare chez Van Cleve et inconnu de ses copistes".
- ^ Nagel & Wood, 13–14; the painting
- ^ Drandaki, Anastasia (2014). A Maniera Greca: Content, Context and Transformation of a Term" Studies in Iconography Volume 35. Princeton, New Jersey: Index of Christian Art, Princeton University. pp. 39–72.
- ISBN 960-7916-01-8.
- ISBN 960-214-221-9.
- ^ Katselakì, Andromache (1999). Εικόνα Παναγίας Γλυκοφιλούσας από την Κεφαλονιά στο Βυζαντινό Μουσείο [An Icon of the Panagia Glykophilousa from Kephalonia in the Byzantine Museum]. Athens: Journal of the Christian Archaeological Society ChAE 20 Period Delta. p. 380.
- ISBN 1857091701
- ^ Sotheby's, "Master Paintings & Sculpture Part I", 28 January 2021, New York, online (see "Catalogue Note"
- ^ Nelson, 15 (quoted)
- ^ Richman-Abdou; Nelson, 15–18
- ^ Momoyama, 2–3, #s 7, 9, 15, 24, 25, 26; Stanley-Baker, 141–143; Mymet
- ^ Stanley-Baker, 141
- ^ for example in Momoyama, # 28
- ^ Department of Asian Art (October 2003). "Rinpa Painting Style". Metropolitan Museum of Art. Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. Retrieved 18 October 2021.
- ^ Momoyama, #s 4, 6, 11
- ^ Momoyama, # 10
- ^ Connor, 5–7
- ^ Runciman, 27
- ^ Connor, 8; Runciman, 27–29
- ^ Connor, 8 and Chapter 2; Runciman, 48–49, 66–73, 128, 107 for the traditional view; this view is challenged forcefully by Liz James in her "Introduction" (also Robin Cormack).
- ^ Gill, 54
- ^ Tahan, Ilana, The Golden Haggadah (Treasures in Focus), 5, 2011, British Library, ISBN 9780712358125
- ^ Saha, 22
- ^ Jana Igunma, San San May, Burkhard Quessel, "Illuminated Buddhist Manuscripts", 2019, British Library
- ^ Saha, 22–23
References
- Barber, Charles. "Out of Sight: Painting and Perception in Fourteenth-Century Byzantium". Studies in Iconography, vol. 35, 2014, pp. 107–120, JSTOR
- Bustacchini, G., Gold in mosaic art and technique, 1973, Gold Bulletin, 6, No . 2, pp . 52 – 56, Online pdf
- Connor, Carolyn Loessel, Saints and Spectacle: Byzantine Mosaics in Their Cultural Setting, 2016, Oxford University Press, ISBN 9780190457624, 0190457627, google books
- Folda, Jaroslav, Byzantine Art and Italian Panel Painting: The Virgin and Child Hodegetria and the Art of Chrysography, 2015, Cambridge University Press
- Fuchs, Robert, in: Gillian Fellows-Jensen, Peter Springborg (eds), Care and Conservation of Manuscripts 5: Proceedings of the Fifth International Seminar Held at the University of Copenhagen 19th–20th April 1999, 2000, Royal Library, Copenhagen, ISBN 9788770230766, 8770230765, google books
- "Getty": Getty Museum, "Gold-ground panel painting", 2019, Video and transcript
- Gill, D.M., Illuminated Manuscripts, 1996, Brockhamton Press, ISBN 1841861014
- Meagher, Jennifer. "Italian Painting of the Later Middle Ages", 2010, In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, online
- "Momoyama": Momoyama, Japanese Art in the Age of Grandeur, an exhibition catalog from The Metropolitan Museum of Art (fully available online as PDF)
- "Mymet", "Why Artists Use Gold Leaf and How You Can Make Your Own Ethereal Paintings", Kelly Richman-Abdou, 1 March 2018
- Nagel, Alexander, and ISBN 9781942130345, google books
- Nelson, Robert S., "Modernism's Byzantium Byzantium's Modernism", Chapter 1 in Betancourt, Roland; Taroutina, Maria (eds.).Byzantium/Modernism: The Byzantine as Method in Modernity, BRILL, Leiden, ISBN 9789004300019, google books
- Nygren, Barnaby. "We first pretend to stand at a certain window': Window as Pictorial Device and Metaphor in the Paintings of Filippo Lippi". Notes in the History of Art, vol. 26, no. 1, 2006, pp. 15–21, JSTOR
- Nuechterlein, Jeanne, "From Medieval to Modern: Gold and the Value of Representation in Early Netherlandish Painting", 2013, University of York, Department of History of Art, History of Art Research Portal, online (or PDF) – individual PDF page titles used, see first page.
- ISBN 0199210608
- Pencheva, Bissera V, The Sensual Icon: Space, Ritual and the Senses in Byzantium, 2010, Penn State Press, google books
- Richman-Abdou, Kelly, "The Splendid History of Gustav Klimt’s Glistening “Golden Phase”", Mymet, 16 September 2018
- Steven Runciman, Byzantine Style and Civilization, 1975, Penguin
- Saha, Anindita Kundu, The Conservation of Endangered Archives and Management of Manuscripts in Indian Repositories, 22–23, 2020, Cambridge Scholars Publisher, ISBN 9781527560901, 1527560902, google books
- Stanley-Baker, Joan, Japanese Art, 2000 (2nd edn), Thames and Hudson, ISBN 0500203261
- Wright, Alison, "Crivelli's Divine Materials" (pdf) in Ornament & illusion : Carlo Crivelli of Venice, 2015, Paul Holberton Publishing / Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, ISBN 9781907372865