In early September I had the pleasure of attending Professor Rebekah Compton’s lecture entitled “The Glory of Color: Pigments in Early Florentine Altarpieces” in the College of Charleston’s Simons Center for the Arts. By using Giovanni Dal Ponte’s Madonna and Child Enthroned as a means to introduce the subject and as a central point of reference, the professor’s discussion essentially provided insight into 14th century Italy and the process of creating elaborately colored altarpieces. Before the lecture, I had considered my own knowledge of altarpieces to be minimal at best; to me, they were merely a common religious decoration popular in age-old churches. Several minutes into the lecture, I quickly realized the subject is much more complex than it initially seems to be.
Professor Compton began her lecture by introducing the work as one that be studied without traveling to Italy. Madonna and Child Enthroned is easily accessible for viewing just two hours away from Charleston at the Columbia Museum of Art, making the topic more relevant to an audience mostly comprised of college students. She continued by discussing the artist of the work, Giovanni Dal Ponte, and that his love for extravagance through color was shared by many in the Proto-Renaissance. Professor Compton explained that the ideology of the time involved “Worship with Images,” and in doing so, religious art achieved three main goals: telling a story, reminding viewers of that story, and “exciting the heart.” According to Professor Compton, decorating these individual and elaborate chapels funded churches, while also commemorating specific guilds and families. Ponte’s heavy use of metallic silver indicates that the altarpieces may be honoring a group of sword makers or armorers.
Professor Compton later details the complex process of embellishing a 14th century altarpiece, beginning with the selection of wood according to the artist’s budget. The wood was then prepped with a material called gesso, allowing the artist to sketch the design of the altarpiece on the surface before sending the work off to a gold or silver smith. As explained by Professor Compton, finely shaved pieces of gold, or gold leaf, were used to illuminate certain areas of the altarpiece. The material was expensive, difficult to produce, and long lasting, so therefore the product was highly sought after to add to altarpieces’ extravagance. She passed a small container of gold leaf throughout the lecture room in order for the audience to truly see the delicate and luminescent nature of the leaves. I was absolutely amazed that the material in the container was used to cover such large spaces on altarpieces.
The final portion of the lecture discussed the vibrant and wide-ranging pigments used to color a 14th century altarpiece. Like the gold leaf example, Professor Compton continued to interact with the audience by passing several pigments around the room. Each pigment was derived from a unique source, with some being more expensive and rarer than others. The finest red pigment of the time, for instance, came from a dried Indian insect known as Red Lake. The great lengths taken to use the best materials possible are indicative of altarpiece’s cultural significance in the Proto-Renaissance world.
Overall, I found the lecture to be an enlightening and a comprehensive approach to a subject that plays an integral role in historians’ understanding of Christian art. Learning about the elaborate and time-consuming methods used to construct works such as Madonna and Child Enthroned make the pieces more meaningful to me as I look back on the significance of altarpieces and their contribution to art history. Colors add a spiritual element to these works that could not be achieved by any other sorts of means. By incorporating this idea while also referring to Giovanni Dal Ponte’s Madonna and Child Enthroned, Professor Compton successfully intrigued and educated the audience in her September lecture.
Dr. Compton’s “The Glory of Color: Pigments in Early Florentine Altarpieces”
On September 10th I was given the opportunity to attend a very unique lecture presented by Dr. Rebecca Compton about Florentine altarpieces. Not fully knowing what to expect, I was pleasantly surprised at how fascinating and intricate this early form of art was. I found the lecture to be incredibly fascinating and valuable to me as an art student here at the College of Charleston.
Dr. Compton’s lecture discussed Florentine altar painting from the end of the 14th century to the beginning of the 15th century. Her lecture focused on the work of Giovanni al Ponte, a painter in Florence during the 1420s. Using his work, Dr. Compton was able to explain in the long process of altar painting and the hard work that went in to creating these elaborate declarations of faith.
Dr. Compton defined what an altarpiece was, and what purpose they served for the church. She stated that altarpieces served three main purposes. An altarpiece first served to tell a story for the illiterate. During the 14th and 15th century, many people remained illiterate, and altarpieces served as a visual narrative. Secondly, altarpieces called to mind the story of Jesus and served as a visual reminder of Jesus’ life. Lastly, altarpieces existed to excite and stimulate the viewer to allow for a more powerful religious experience.
All altarpieces first begin with wood panels. These panels then were be prepared with gesso (gypsum mixed with animal glue). The gessoing process was a long one, it took approximately four layers of rough gessoing and eight layers of smooth gessoing, this process took days to complete. After this, the artist could then incise the design with Tempera. Tempera paint dries extremely quickly, so work had to be done quickly and efficiently on those panels. After the tempera design is completed, the panels were prepared for gilding. Gilding, or the process of applying gold leaf or gold paint, increased the overall effect of the altarpiece immensely. 24 karat gold is poured and spread into sheets that are almost transparent. According to Dr. Compton, the gilding cost is one half the cost of the entire altarpiece and is incredibly expensive.
Perhaps the most intriguing part of the lecture, for me, was learning of the time and effort that went in to making the pigments of the paint for altarpieces. Altarpiece painters would visit guild apothecaries for mixed pigments, which came from different parts of the world and took hours to create. The clothing of the religious figures on altarpieces gave the artists an opportunity to use color, but using color wasn’t the same as it is for painters in the contemporary world. Pigments took time and money. The color “Red Lake”, for instance, came from the insect Cochineal, which was imported from India. To dip something in this dye just one time costed nearly two hundred dollars. To dip it twice was four hundred. The color “Ultramarine Blue”, from the lapis lazuli rock was incredibly labor intensive. To get the pigment from the rock, one would have to knead the stone for forty hours under lye to produce pigment. On top of this, Ultramarine Blue costed nearly $3,330 an ounce.
As an artist, I have always bought my canvases, bought my paint, and all of my art supplies, which only takes some gas to drive to the nearest art supply store. I never really thought about how painting must have been during a time when these supplies weren’t readily available. Dr. Compton’s lecture gave me valuable insight and the upmost respect for artists of the 14th and 15th century.