scholarly journals Original Varnish Recipes in Post-Byzantine Painting Manuals

Heritage ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 3572-3582
Author(s):  
Georgios P. Mastrotheodoros ◽  
Konstantinos G. Beltsios

During the last decades, manuscripts have become increasingly available through digitization and deposition in online repositories. This trend has very much facilitated primary source research, as scholars are no longer subjected to time- and effort-consuming processes such as travel, applications for photography permissions, and so on. In this framework, the authors set forth the results of research that deals with post-Byzantine panel-painting varnish recipes which were found in a hitherto unpublished Greek painting manual dating back to 1824. The recipes in consideration are compared to those existing in the renowned “Hermeneia” by Dionysios of Fourna (early 18th century) painter’s manual. A brief discussion dealing with various pertinent terms, along with a note on data deriving from the analytical investigation of varnish samples stemming from post-Byzantine icons are also included in this work. The study reveals a shift towards lean and intermediate varnish recipes during the early 19th century that might reflect the progression of resins and oleoresins, and the gradual replacement of oil-based varnishes. In addition, a unique recipe describing various methods of varnish application is transcribed and commented upon. Finally, the analytical data revealed an unexpected employment of a protein-based varnish in a mid-19th century icon.

Author(s):  
Ioannis P. Chouliarás ◽  

The monastery is located at the SE end of the settlement of the Island and became widely known in modern history, as Ali Pasha was assassinated in its cells in 1822. The catholicon today is a three-aisled basilica with a quadruple roof and in its present size was probably built at late 17th or early 18th century. The aisles are separated by wooden colonnades. The W and N walls, probably most of the E, were rebuilt after their destruction in the early 19th century by falling rocks. In the E there is a semicircular arch. The original church was supposed to be a small one-aisled with a semicircular arch, traces of which were discovered on the SE side of the modern church.The monastery is located at the SE end of the settlement of the Island and became widely known in modern history, as Ali Pasha was assassinated in its cells in 1822. The catholicon today is a three-aisled basilica with a quadruple roof and in its present size was probably built at late 17th or early 18th century. The aisles are separated by wooden colonnades. The W and N walls, probably most of the E, were rebuilt after their destruction in the early 19th century by falling rocks. In the E there is a semicircular arch. The original church was supposed to be a small one-aisled with a semicircular arch, traces of which were discovered on the SE side of the modern church.From the early building phase the modern church has incorporated part of the S wall, which dates to the early 15th century. On the W side was added a late 19th-century loggia, which is roofed with a sloping roof lower than that of the church and possibly replaced an older one. The column of the loggia comes from an earlier building phase of the church. On the W side is raised a rectangular narthex, possibly of the same date as the loggia, which is roofed with a quadruple roof. The present entrance door to the main church is located at the W end of the S wall, while the original door was opened in the middle of the same wall and has been walled today. There is a small conch above the walled door.The church is built of stone with irregularly placed stones. More elaborate construction on the arch with carved stones in the pseudo-isodomic system. On the S wall between the stones are inserted bricks. Brick arched frame is formed above the walled gate. The fresco decoration of the catholicon is confined to the outer front of the S wall and the lower parts of the main church. It is of particular importance, as we distinguish five post-Byzantine phases, the first of which at the end of the 15th century. The first is located in the E part of the outer front of the S wall. The rest continue to the W on the outer front of the same wall and on the lower parts inside the main church.In the initial phase of the frescoes belong the Deisis with the Christ and the Virgin, as well as the frontal St. Nicholas, behind the Virgin. The upper parts of the scene have been repainted. The next phase, which can be dated to the 16th century, involves the half-bodied Christ above the conch of the S wall, who blesses with open arms and two full-length archangels on either side of the conch, who have also been repainted. In the third phase of the painting belongs the enthroned Virgin holding the Child amid two angels, pictured behind her massive wooden throne. The composition is to the right of the entrance door to the church. This layer is precisely dated by a dedicatory inscription bearing the date ZΡKϚ (= 1617/18). The penultimate phase is found only in the interior of the catholicon, in the lower parts of the sanctuary, and on the N and S walls of the main church, where a decorative zone is distinguished. The feet of at least two saints are visible on the N wall, another figure of saint next to the iconostasis on the S wall and to the right of the doorway to the church the lower part of the body of a frontal archangel, who steps on a cloud. Above the door there should have been the inscription, mentioned by Aravantinos, but not preserved today, and bearing the date ΑΨΖ (= 1707). During the late 19th century, the outer conch of the S wall was painted with St. Panteleimon, who is depicted half-bodied and holding a vessel and a scalpel.The building phases of the catholicon and the multiple layers of its decoration make it one of the most important monuments of the Ioannina area, as it locates the oldest known frescoes on the Island and throughout the Ioannina basin. At the same time, after reading of one of the dedicatory inscriptions, it was possible to distinguish more clearly the painting layers and to make more effective use of the older reading, by Aravantinos, of the inscription in the interior of the catholicon.


Author(s):  
Darryl Pleasant

The location of the habitation sites of the Adaes Indians has not been thoroughly investigated by archaeologists and historians. Most researchers have placed Adaes habitation sites in the general vicinity of Los Adaes simply because the presidio and mission were named after the Adaes Indians. This paper will focus on historical documentation to provide a better understanding of the location of the habitation sites of the Adaes Indians during the 18th and early 19th centuries. The earliest accounts presented are narratives of travels along the Red River in the early 18th century. While they unfortunately have no definitive geographical data such as plat maps or land claims, they still provide relational information which can be interpreted along with the more precise geographical documentation of the latter 18th century. All of the late 18th and early 19th century documents reviewed for this paper are primary sources such as conveyances, successions and land claims. The evidence presented in this paper will reveal that the “homeland” of the Adaes was in southern Desoto Parish, Louisiana and extreme northern Natchitoches Parish. This area is approximately twenty miles north of Los Adaes, which agrees with the Spanish documents and with John Sibley’s location of the Adaes. Archaeologically, there is an abundant sample of historic sites that date to the 18th and 19th centuries in that region. These appear as pure aboriginal sites or mixtures of aboriginal and European components.


2001 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 458-489
Author(s):  
Robert M. Cammarota

The modern-day custom of performing the 'omnes generationes' section from J. S. Bach's Magnificat twice as fast as the aria "Quia respexit" has its origins in Robert Franz's vocal and orchestral editions of 1864, the details of which were discussed in his Mittheilungen of 1863. Up until that time, 'omnes generationes' was inextricably connected to "Quia respexit" and formed part of the third movement of Bach's Magnificat. Moreover, when Bach revised the score in 1733, he added adagio to the beginning of "Quia respexit . . . omnes generationes," establishing the tempo for the whole movement. In this study I show that Bach's setting of this verse is in keeping with Leipzig tradition (as evidenced by the settings of Schelle, G. M. Hoffmann, Telemann, Kuhnau, and Graupner) and with early 18thcentury compositional practice; that he interpreted the verse based on Luther's 1532 exegesis on the Magnificat; that the verse must be understood theologically, as a unit; that the change in musical texture at the words 'omnes generationes' is a rhetorical device, not "dramatic effect"; and, finally, that there is no change in tempo at the words 'omnes generationes' either in Bach's setting or in any other from this period. An understanding of the early 18th-century Magnificat tradition out of which Bach's setting derives, with the knowledge of the reception of Bach's Magnificat in the mid 19th century, should help us restore Bach's tempo adagio for the movement.


Author(s):  
Maria Berbara

There are at least two ways to think about the term “Brazilian colonial art.” It can refer, in general, to the art produced in the region presently known as Brazil between 1500, when navigator Pedro Álvares Cabral claimed the coastal territory for the Lusitanian crown, and the country’s independence in the early 19th century. It can also refer, more specifically, to the artistic manifestations produced in certain Brazilian regions—most notably Bahia, Minas Gerais, and Rio de Janeiro—over the 18th century and first decades of the 19th century. In other words, while denotatively it corresponds to the art produced in the period during which Brazil was a colony, it can also work as a metonym valid to indicate particular temporal and geographical arcs within this period. The reasons for its widespread metonymical use are related, on the one hand, to the survival of a relatively large number of art objects and buildings produced in these arcs, but also to a judicative value: at least since the 1920s, artists, historians, and cultivated Brazilians have tended to regard Brazilian colonial art—in its more specific meaning—as the greatest cultural product of those centuries. In this sense, Brazilian colonial art is often identified with the Baroque—to the extent that the terms “Brazilian Baroque,” “Brazilian colonial art,” and even “barroco mineiro” (i.e., Baroque produced in the province of Minas Gerais) may be used interchangeably by some scholars and, even more so, the general public. The study of Brazilian colonial art is currently intermingled with the question of what should be understood as Brazil in the early modern period. Just like some 20th- and 21st-century scholars have been questioning, for example, the term “Italian Renaissance”—given the fact that Italy, as a political entity, did not exist until the 19th century—so have researchers problematized the concept of a unified term to designate the whole artistic production of the territory that would later become the Federative Republic of Brazil between the 16th and 19th centuries. This territory, moreover, encompassed a myriad of very different societies and languages originating from at least three different continents. Should the production, for example, of Tupi or Yoruba artworks be considered colonial? Or should they, instead, be understood as belonging to a distinctive path and independent art historical process? Is it viable to propose a transcultural academic approach without, at the same time, flattening the specificities and richness of the various societies that inhabited the territory? Recent scholarly work has been bringing together traditional historiographical references in Brazilian colonial art and perspectives from so-called “global art history.” These efforts have not only internationalized the field, but also made it multidisciplinary by combining researches in anthropology, ethnography, archaeology, history, and art history.


Author(s):  
Mari Hvattum

In its most general sense, historicism refers to a new historical consciousness emerging in late-18th- and early-19th-century Europe. This novel “historical-mindedness,” as the cultural historian Stephen Bann has called it, sprung from a recognition that human knowledge and human making are historically conditioned and must be understood within particular historical contexts. Historicism inspired new interest in the origin and development of cultural phenomena, not least art and architecture. When used in relation to architecture, historicism usually refers to the 19th-century notion that architecture is a historically dynamic and relative phenomenon, changing with time and circumstance. This in contrast to 18th-century classicism which tended to uphold the classical tradition as a universal ideal and a timeless standard. Historicism in architecture often entails Revivals of various kinds, i.e., the reference to or use of historical styles and motifs. The term is related to concepts such as eclecticism, revivalism, and relativism. In architectural history, an early anticipation of a historicist way of thinking is Johann Joachim Winckelmann’s History of the Art of Antiquity (1764). While still idealizing Greek art, Winckelmann also analyzed Egyptian, Etruscan, Phoenician, and Persian art and architecture, paying close attention to the historical conditions in which each of these cultures emerged. This new attentiveness to the relationship between cultural conditions and artistic expression lies at the heart of historicism, as does the related idea that architecture has the capacity to represent an epoch or a nation, forming a veritable index of cultural development. There is a strong organicist aspect to historicism, i.e., a tendency to think about cultural phenomena as organic wholes that evolve according to laws.


Author(s):  
Michael W. Charney

Warfare in premodern Southeast Asia, roughly that fought up until the end of the 19th century, was shaped by the environment across the region. Maritime trade connections brought the introduction and circulation of external models of warfare that would help to frame the way warfare in the region was depicted in some of the indigenous literature and art (including the influence of the Indian epics on shadow puppet theater). Firearms played a more direct role in determining the development of warfare in the region over the course of the early modern period. As a result of better firearms, the elephant declined in battlefield importance and was increasingly replaced by cavalry. In the 18th century, Southeast Asians fielded some of their best-organized armies, and in the early 19th century there was a temporary revival of naval strength in parts of the region, particularly in Vietnam. Nevertheless, the introduction of the steamship and better European military technology from the 1820s ushered in the decline of the remaining Southeast Asian armies by the end of the 19th century. Although indigenous states would attempt to modernize and catch up with Europe militarily, all of Southeast Asia, save for Thailand, fell under European control.


Author(s):  
Nicole von Germeten

Female occupational and economic choices help clarify understandings of colonial historic agency, especially in the lives of Mexican women who made their income as alcahuetas or “bawds.” These women hosted and managed other women in the marketing and selling of sex acts in the Viceroyalty of New Spain. Viceregal bawds manipulated both the sex lives of their clients and the paternalism of crown justice in hopes of exoneration in court. They walked a precarious legal tightrope, negotiating the fluctuating margins of legal procuring and the transition to more stringent laws against sex for sale. The examples presented here, drawn from contemporary archival documents, show that these women’s lives span most of New Spain’s history, ranging from 1570 to the independence era in the early 19th century. In the 16th century, bawdry resembled the clandestine personal mediation that was common and familiar in medieval and early modern Spain. Bawds working in the 1st century of Spanish rule in Mexico carefully defended their social respectability to contradict evidence that they solicited for clients in the street. Reputable hospitality featured prominently in the early 17th-century procuring, while indigenous-influenced sorcery and love magic dominated the understanding of 17th- and early 18th-century alcahuetas. Lastly, in the 19th century, profitable market exchange characterized professional brothel operations, granting bawds honorable status within their economic and occupational community. Bawds recorded in the archives demonstrate communication skills, entrepreneurialism, and a concern for reputation through all of these eras. These intelligent female survivors offer compelling representations of viceregal women who exercised their personal agency to forge their own economic prosperity.


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