The Alchemy of Paint (Paperback)

Spike Bucklow

ISBN 10: 0714531723 / ISBN 13: 9780714531724

Published by Marion Boyars Publishers Ltd, London, 2009

About this Item

Paperback. The Alchemy of Paint examines pre-modern artists' recipes for a handful of pigments, including lapis lazuli, gold and vermilion. The author was, until 2022, Director of Research at the Hamilton Kerr Institute and Professor of Material Culture at the University of Cambridge. The book has become a recognised text in the undergraduate and postgraduate teaching of history, art history and the history of science. Historic pigment recipes - many of which were reconstructed by the author - provide evidence that practicing craftspeople had a detailed grasp of the sophisticated physical and cosmological theories that defined reality in pre-modern Europe. As such, the book is an in-depth, and heavily-referenced, primer for the pre-modern European world-view. For example, the chapter on the purification of lapis lazuli - to make ultramarine - is a practical example of how so-called Aristotelian four-element theory helped people engage productively with the material world. The first half of the book shows how theories - like the four elements, hylomorphism, emanation, etc - were reflected in practice in recipes that 'worked', as well as in recipes that 'did not work' - like dragonsblood and mercury blue - but were nonetheless faithfully repeated. The second half of the book revisits materials - including vermilion and gold - to show that widely-recognised multi-levelled meanings were inherent in materials. Physical materials could therefore contribute metaphysical meanings to the mainly religious objects that incorporated them. A fascinating look at how pigments were created, used, and revered in the Middle Ages. Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability.

Seller Inventory # 9780714531724

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Alchemy of Paint (Paperback)
• Publisher: Marion Boyars Publishers Ltd, London
• Publication Date: 2009
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0714531723
• ISBN 13: 9780714531724
• Binding: Paperback
• Condition: new

About this title

Synopsis

The Alchemy of Paint is a critique of the modern world, which Spike Bucklow sees as the product of seventeenth-century ideas about science. In modern times, we have divorced color from its origins, using it for commercial advantage. Spike Bucklow shows us how in medieval times, color had mystical significance far beyond the enjoyment of shade and hue.

Each chapter demonstrates the mindset of medieval Europe and is devoted to just one color, acknowledging its connections with life in the pre-modern world. Colors examined and explained in detail include a midnight blue called ultramarine, an opaque red called vermilion, a multitude of colors made from metals, a transparent red called dragonsblood, and, finally, gold.

Today, “scarlet” describes a color, but it was originally a type of cloth. Henry VI''s wardrobe accounts from 1438 to 1489 show that his cheapest scarlet was £14.2s.6d. and that scarlets could fetch up to twice that price. In the fifteenth century, a mid-priced scarlet cost more than two thousand kilos of cheese or one thousand liters of wine. This expense accounts for the custom of giving important visitors the "red carpet treatment."

The book looks at how color was “read” in the Middle Ages and returns to materials to look at the hidden meaning of the artists'' version of the philosopher''s stone. The penultimate chapter considers why everyone has always loved gold.

Spike Bucklow is a conservation scientist working with oil paintings at the Hamilton Kerr Institute in Cambridge.

About the Author

Spike Bucklow trained as a chemist. He worked in the film industry, creating puppets using prosthetics, including Ronald Reagan in Spitting Image and Jabba the Hut in Return of the Jedi. He became an art conservator, at the Hamilton Kerr Institute in Cambridge where he restores mediaeval art. He is an expert in craquelure, fixing the cracks in oil paintings.