4.5 Article

Probing the birthplace of the Epirus/NW Greece School of painting: analytical investigation of the Filanthropinon monastery murals. Part II: non-pigment materials and painting technique

Journal

ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND ANTHROPOLOGICAL SCIENCES
Volume 11, Issue 10, Pages 5781-5798

Publisher

SPRINGER HEIDELBERG
DOI: 10.1007/s12520-019-00905-5

Keywords

Wall painting; Plaster; Mordant gilding; Fresco-secco; Dionysius of Fourna; SEM-EDX

Funding

  1. European Union (European Social Fund-ESF)
  2. Greek national funds through the action Reinforcement of Postdoctoral Researchers, in the framework of the Operational Program Human Resources Development Program, Education and Lifelong Learning of the National Strategic Reference Framework (NSRF) 201 [2016-050-0503-7689]

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The sixteenth century Filanthropinon monastery murals mark the emergence of the important post-Byzantine painting school of Epirus. Detailed probing of the materials and techniques of the Filanthropinon works revealed that the workshop involved in the first painting phase (1531/2 AD) is sufficiently distinct from that responsible for the two subsequent phases (1542 and 1560 AD). As regards gilding, high purity gold leaf decorations are mainly seen in the nave paintings; an artifact-free way of determination of leaf thickness via micro-X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy (mu-XRF) leads to a value of ca. 0.15 mu m and this is noteworthy in view of the intricate manipulations required for the gilding of murals. As regards the execution of paintings, all three Filanthropinon painting phases involve mostly a mixed fresco-lime paint technique that makes use of proteinaceous binders, while very few pictorial elements were rendered in true secco; this is a remarkable finding as according to the currently dominant view, post-Byzantine wall paintings were executed in a fresco-secco technique. Finally, a comparison of our various findings with pertinent instructions included in the well-known Hermeneia of Dionysius of Fourna suggests that the latter manual describes in a realistic manner important features of the painting practice of post-Byzantine artists.

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