Workshop practice in Slovenian wall paintings from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries

• Autores: Anabelle Kriznar
• Localización: The Renaissance Workshop / David Saunders (ed. lit.), Marika Spring (ed. lit.), Andrew Meek (ed. lit.), 2013, ISBN 978-1-904982-93-7, págs. 10-19
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • Several wall paintings in western and central Slovenia, dating from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, were carried out by a group of stylistically related workshops. While their style has its origin in the north Italian art from the Friuli region, the paintings clearly show the influence of an indigenous artistic tradition. The oldest paintings, which are attributed to the so-called 'Workshops of Gorizia', can be subdivided into three successive groups that were active during the period (c. 1380-1420). From the last of these groups emerged the Master of the Bohinj Presbytery (c. 1440), an independent artist who continued this tradition and who was the progenitor of the so-called Suha-Bodesce-Prilesje group (c. 1450-1470), which represents the last stage of this artistic line. The relationships between these workshops have been studied from an art historical perspective, but this study is the first to analyse their materials and techniques in an attempt to confirm these connections and examine the influences of other painting traditions from outside Slovenia. The murals were first studied "in situ", then small samples of plaster and pigments were analysed by optical microscopy and a variety of instrumental methods.

    The result mirror those from art historical reserch, confirming that the earlier murals, particularly those by the 'Workshops of Gorizia', used materials and techniques commonly employed by Italian painters, with extensive use of the fresco technique, several layers of plaster and large "giornate", while the later paintings were influenced by Carinthian painting methods, especially the works of the Master of the Bohinj Presbytery and his followers, which show the use of a single layer of a plaster, larger "giornate" and make greater use of painting "a secco". However, features shared by all the paintings confirm that all these workshops belong to a single continuous tradition, with the most important common feature being a thick base colour layer, which is not found anywhere else in Slovenia. The hypothesis that these paintings were lime-based was refuted, as limewash was found only in a few of the murals.