Reviews
This is a dazzling book. If the mysteries of alchemy appeal to you, it is a necessity. The book is a treasure house of knowledge.Dr. Pamela Tudor-Craig, Lady Wedgewood
The Alchemy of PaintArt, Science and Secrets from the Middle Ages
Art, Science and Secrets from the Middle Ages
Spike Bucklow [+–]
Hamilton Kerr Institute, Cambridge
Spike Bucklow trained as a chemist. He synthesized sex pheromones for cockroaches, then developed materials for use in special effects. His latex creations feature in films including Indiana Jones, Greystoke, Little Shop of Horrors, Princess Bride and the 1980s satirical show Spitting Image. He then studied Artificial Intelligence and briefly worked in technical management consultancy where he discovered art conservation. He gained a PhD in art history, and is now a Senior Research Scientist and Teacher of Theory based at the Hamilton Kerr Institute in Cambridge. He has written about pigment use in art for a number of journals and draws on a wide range of experience to develop his ideas.
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.
Table of Contents
Foreword
Dr Pamela Tudor-Craig, Lady Wedgwood FSA (26 June 1928 – 5 December 2017) was a British medieval art historian.
Preface
Preface [+–]
Hamilton Kerr Institute, Cambridge
Spike Bucklow trained as a chemist. He synthesized sex pheromones for cockroaches, then developed materials for use in special effects. His latex creations feature in films including Indiana Jones, Greystoke, Little Shop of Horrors, Princess Bride and the 1980s satirical show Spitting Image. He then studied Artificial Intelligence and briefly worked in technical management consultancy where he discovered art conservation. He gained a PhD in art history, and is now a Senior Research Scientist and Teacher of Theory based at the Hamilton Kerr Institute in Cambridge. He has written about pigment use in art for a number of journals and draws on a wide range of experience to develop his ideas.
This book introduces dyes, pigments and metals as items of importance outside the artists’ workshop and then explores a few from the point of view of the artists who used them, starting with the story of a stone from beyond the centre of the earth. It looks at a chemical marriage that echoes a mystic marriage, stories about the influence of heaven, mortal combats and the quest for gold. It will explain how colour was ‘read’ in the middle ages, returning to materials to look at the hidden meaning of the artists’ version of the Philosophers’ Stone. Following the wisdom of the ancients, the penultimate chapter explores the potentially life-changing secret that artists and alchemists saw hidden in gold.
Chapter 1
Hamilton Kerr Institute, Cambridge
Spike Bucklow trained as a chemist. He synthesized sex pheromones for cockroaches, then developed materials for use in special effects. His latex creations feature in films including Indiana Jones, Greystoke, Little Shop of Horrors, Princess Bride and the 1980s satirical show Spitting Image. He then studied Artificial Intelligence and briefly worked in technical management consultancy where he discovered art conservation. He gained a PhD in art history, and is now a Senior Research Scientist and Teacher of Theory based at the Hamilton Kerr Institute in Cambridge. He has written about pigment use in art for a number of journals and draws on a wide range of experience to develop his ideas.
History of the preparation of colour paints, the economic and medical uses and spiritual properties. Reflections on the differences between the cultural significance of colour in the past and in modern times.
Chapter 2
Hamilton Kerr Institute, Cambridge
Spike Bucklow trained as a chemist. He synthesized sex pheromones for cockroaches, then developed materials for use in special effects. His latex creations feature in films including Indiana Jones, Greystoke, Little Shop of Horrors, Princess Bride and the 1980s satirical show Spitting Image. He then studied Artificial Intelligence and briefly worked in technical management consultancy where he discovered art conservation. He gained a PhD in art history, and is now a Senior Research Scientist and Teacher of Theory based at the Hamilton Kerr Institute in Cambridge. He has written about pigment use in art for a number of journals and draws on a wide range of experience to develop his ideas.
This chapter explores the source and the processing methods of the best solid blue in order to flesh-out the colour’s connections with the world and our experience of it.
Chapter 3
Hamilton Kerr Institute, Cambridge
Spike Bucklow trained as a chemist. He synthesized sex pheromones for cockroaches, then developed materials for use in special effects. His latex creations feature in films including Indiana Jones, Greystoke, Little Shop of Horrors, Princess Bride and the 1980s satirical show Spitting Image. He then studied Artificial Intelligence and briefly worked in technical management consultancy where he discovered art conservation. He gained a PhD in art history, and is now a Senior Research Scientist and Teacher of Theory based at the Hamilton Kerr Institute in Cambridge. He has written about pigment use in art for a number of journals and draws on a wide range of experience to develop his ideas.
Like ultramarine, artists held vermilion in extraordinarily high esteem, but it did not have exotic geographic origins, it was not a sought-after medicine, nor was it very expensive. The reason it was valued is found in a particular variation on the theme of four elements. The previous chapter showed how the theory explained the physical separation of lapis. This chapter will see it provide the foundation for an alchemical union.
Chapter 4
Hamilton Kerr Institute, Cambridge
Spike Bucklow trained as a chemist. He synthesized sex pheromones for cockroaches, then developed materials for use in special effects. His latex creations feature in films including Indiana Jones, Greystoke, Little Shop of Horrors, Princess Bride and the 1980s satirical show Spitting Image. He then studied Artificial Intelligence and briefly worked in technical management consultancy where he discovered art conservation. He gained a PhD in art history, and is now a Senior Research Scientist and Teacher of Theory based at the Hamilton Kerr Institute in Cambridge. He has written about pigment use in art for a number of journals and draws on a wide range of experience to develop his ideas.
An appreciation of medieval metallic blue pigments requires a deeper immersion into the artists’ mindset. Ultramarine showed that the artists’ world was different from the modern one, but at least it was securely anchored in the realm of the senses. Vermilion showed how the traditional and modern points of view differ – the shared world of sensations was accompanied by another world, one populated by ideas. This chapter explores the relationship between the world of things and the world of thoughts.
Chapter 5
Hamilton Kerr Institute, Cambridge
Spike Bucklow trained as a chemist. He synthesized sex pheromones for cockroaches, then developed materials for use in special effects. His latex creations feature in films including Indiana Jones, Greystoke, Little Shop of Horrors, Princess Bride and the 1980s satirical show Spitting Image. He then studied Artificial Intelligence and briefly worked in technical management consultancy where he discovered art conservation. He gained a PhD in art history, and is now a Senior Research Scientist and Teacher of Theory based at the Hamilton Kerr Institute in Cambridge. He has written about pigment use in art for a number of journals and draws on a wide range of experience to develop his ideas.
Dragonsblood is made from the mixed, coagulated blood of dragons and elephants. This might seem unlikely but appearances can be deceptive. Unlike the non-existent metallic blues, with their apparently straightforward recipes, dragonsblood actually does exist despite its distinctly implausible recipe. One might consider the pigment’s alleged origins to be poetic packaging for prosaic ingredients, instructions and rules. But the poetry is not peripheral – it is central to the traditional world view. Artists’ descriptions of dragonsblood are consistent with a much wider and older tradition. For millennia, it was generally agreed that dragons and elephants fought to the death and the blood they spilt produced a red pigment. The account is mythological and, as we will see, myths have their own ingredients, instructions and rules.
Chapter 6
Hamilton Kerr Institute, Cambridge
Spike Bucklow trained as a chemist. He synthesized sex pheromones for cockroaches, then developed materials for use in special effects. His latex creations feature in films including Indiana Jones, Greystoke, Little Shop of Horrors, Princess Bride and the 1980s satirical show Spitting Image. He then studied Artificial Intelligence and briefly worked in technical management consultancy where he discovered art conservation. He gained a PhD in art history, and is now a Senior Research Scientist and Teacher of Theory based at the Hamilton Kerr Institute in Cambridge. He has written about pigment use in art for a number of journals and draws on a wide range of experience to develop his ideas.
Gold owes its current status entirely to the traditional world. And appreciating gold’s value requires all the science and mythology we have covered so far, together with a review of its trade, which was very different from trade in equally prized things like Tyrian purple or Polish cochineal. In addition to the numerous natural sources of gold, gold was also recycled and synthesised. Because of its diverse origins, artists and craftsmen needed to check the quality of gold and to purify it if necessary. This chapter explains the origins of gold and looks at how it was tested and prepared.
Chapter 7
Hamilton Kerr Institute, Cambridge
Spike Bucklow trained as a chemist. He synthesized sex pheromones for cockroaches, then developed materials for use in special effects. His latex creations feature in films including Indiana Jones, Greystoke, Little Shop of Horrors, Princess Bride and the 1980s satirical show Spitting Image. He then studied Artificial Intelligence and briefly worked in technical management consultancy where he discovered art conservation. He gained a PhD in art history, and is now a Senior Research Scientist and Teacher of Theory based at the Hamilton Kerr Institute in Cambridge. He has written about pigment use in art for a number of journals and draws on a wide range of experience to develop his ideas.
The trade in artists’ materials, and their purification, synthesis and preparation provided clues about the values they embodied. But those clues all came from their outer nature, and things have an inner nature too. Lapis, for example, is the embodiment of water – which is why it lowered fevers, cleansed the eye and treated snake-bites – yet it contained a hidden germ of fire. Having looked at the outer nature of artists’ materials, the rest of this book deals with their inner nature. Of course, like ultramarine’s fire, the inner nature of things can be hidden, so this chapter explores how to see the inner nature of a colour.
Chapter 8
Hamilton Kerr Institute, Cambridge
Spike Bucklow trained as a chemist. He synthesized sex pheromones for cockroaches, then developed materials for use in special effects. His latex creations feature in films including Indiana Jones, Greystoke, Little Shop of Horrors, Princess Bride and the 1980s satirical show Spitting Image. He then studied Artificial Intelligence and briefly worked in technical management consultancy where he discovered art conservation. He gained a PhD in art history, and is now a Senior Research Scientist and Teacher of Theory based at the Hamilton Kerr Institute in Cambridge. He has written about pigment use in art for a number of journals and draws on a wide range of experience to develop his ideas.
This chapter returns to vermilion to look at something that artists knew about but did not mention. They wanted to write about vermilion but were circumspect. They knew vermilion could poison the body but they also knew it could nourish the soul. Like alchemists, they read the Book of Nature and they recognised that – like a word in a scripture or traditional verse – vermilion simultaneously possessed both ‘the letter that killeth’ and ‘the spirit that liveth’. Vermilion’s transformation of base metals into golden colours was an outward clue to its inner power. This inner power was such that artists who contemplated its Philosophers’ Stone-like properties could themselves be transformed. For those – like Dante – who had the eyes to see a colour’s smile, vermilion was a spiritual teacher.
Chapter 9
Hamilton Kerr Institute, Cambridge
Spike Bucklow trained as a chemist. He synthesized sex pheromones for cockroaches, then developed materials for use in special effects. His latex creations feature in films including Indiana Jones, Greystoke, Little Shop of Horrors, Princess Bride and the 1980s satirical show Spitting Image. He then studied Artificial Intelligence and briefly worked in technical management consultancy where he discovered art conservation. He gained a PhD in art history, and is now a Senior Research Scientist and Teacher of Theory based at the Hamilton Kerr Institute in Cambridge. He has written about pigment use in art for a number of journals and draws on a wide range of experience to develop his ideas.
This chapter looks at the stories and myths surrounding gold from Europe and beyond.
Chapter 10
Hamilton Kerr Institute, Cambridge
Spike Bucklow trained as a chemist. He synthesized sex pheromones for cockroaches, then developed materials for use in special effects. His latex creations feature in films including Indiana Jones, Greystoke, Little Shop of Horrors, Princess Bride and the 1980s satirical show Spitting Image. He then studied Artificial Intelligence and briefly worked in technical management consultancy where he discovered art conservation. He gained a PhD in art history, and is now a Senior Research Scientist and Teacher of Theory based at the Hamilton Kerr Institute in Cambridge. He has written about pigment use in art for a number of journals and draws on a wide range of experience to develop his ideas.
This chapter argues that on their own terms, dyes, pigments and metals provide access to the most profound levels of meaning in some of the greatest products of European culture. But that we have forgotten how to appreciate materials as they were appreciated in the middle ages and the products that incorporate them have been priced out of general circulation, now only available remotely or in galleries and museums. This impoverishes our everyday world.
Dr. Pamela Tudor-Craig, Lady Wedgewood
