Page - 251 - in Europäische Bild- und Buchkultur im 13. Jahrhundert

251 illuminators’ matErials and tEchniquEs (pl. 3a) was painted with traces of ultramarine mixed into the lead white and glazed with a transparent organic film, creating a cool, glowing tone (pl. 3b).25 Variations on the bare parchment technique, occasionally accompanied by the lead white technique, feature in the Life of St Edward, the Lambeth Apocalypse and a cycle of miniatures painted in England in the 1270s and bound with a fo- urteenth-century Psalter.26 Some of the artists working on these manuscripts sha- ded the parchment with thin washes of brown (earth or diluted iron-gall ink), green (earth), red (earth, red lead or vermilion) or blue (ultramarine or indigo); added lead white highlights; and blushed cheeks and lips with red lead or vermilion (pl. 4). The varying materials, techniques and levels of execution signal the number of hands involved in these volumes. Instead of using thin washes or solid lead white Italian artists usually shaded the parchment with strong ultramarine or azurite or applied flesh-coloured mid-tones (lead white with vermilion and earth); modelled with brown earth and red (vermilion, red lead or earth); and added thick lead white highlights (pl. 5). A few illuminators went further, using complex layers in a painterly manner. Among the earliest examples is the Peterborough Psalter of the 1220s (pl. 6a).27 Christ’s face in the Crucifixion has a green base (perhaps verdigris), covered with a pink flesh tone (vermilion and lead white), shaded with light brown earth and highlighted with thick lead white brushstrokes; the facial features are defined with carbon black; the lips and cheeks are blushed with vermilion. The image of St Peter from a Gradual painted in Umbria c. 1250‒1275 is particularly impressive (pl. 6c).28 A green-blue base is covered with a flesh-tone compound of lead white, brown earth and vermilion, and modelled with layers of the same materials. The hair and beard 25 Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Museum, Marlay Cutting Fr.1. Panayotova, Colour (cit. n. 4), no. 76. 26 Cambridge, St John’s College, MS K.26. Nigel Morgan: Early Gothic manuscripts II, 1250‒1285. London 1988 (A Survey of Manuscripts Illuminated in the British Isles IV.), no. 179. 27 Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Museum, MS 12; www.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/illuminated/. Nigel Morgan: Early Gothic manuscripts I, 1190‒1250. London 1982 (A Survey of Ma- nuscripts Illuminated in the British Isles IV.), no. 45. 28 Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Museum, MS McClean 201.9a. Morgan / Panayotova / Rey- nolds, Catalogue (cit. n. 21), no. 271. pl. 5: Photomicroscopy details of flesh tones in Fitzwilliam Museum, MS McClean 201.9m, Northern Italy, c. 1200–1250 (a); MS 1056‒1975, fol. 434v, Bologna, c. 1260 (b); MS McClean 10, fol. 4v, Venice, c. 1275‒1300 (c); MS McClean 201.11d, Perugia, c. 1300 (d)