Historical Painting Techniques, Materials, and Studio Practice

of this, a lead white undercoat provides a tough resistant layer, often also used
to enhance the colored layer above, which may in turn be covered with a
glaze color.
Techniques: Salisbury and Exeter
Although the structure of the Exeter west-front samples in no way resembles
that of the samples from Salisbury west front, there is a greater similarity to
those samples from the central porch, where a similar range of pigments are
combined with a complex layer structure. The presence of white lead in the
porch at Salisbury will have played some part in the survival of the paint
there.
The use of three different techniques, apparent even at this early stage of the
Salisbury investigation, with the indication of two different techniques
operating on the west front, is in keeping with evidence found on other
European cathedrals of a considerable variation in technique existing on
large-scale schemes (10, 11).
The richest colors and effects at Salisbury may have been reserved for the
main doorway, the grand ceremonial entry into the cathedral (12). If less
expensive preparations were used elsewhere, as is suggested by the north turret
evidence, this could explain their disappearance. At Exeter, the evidence of a
rich repainting around the main entry also suggests the important role played
by color in the liturgy of a great church, where the main entry was not
considered complete without its polychromy and was renewed more frequently
than elsewhere (13).
The medium of weathered exterior paint has naturally deteriorated, making
reliable analysis extremely problematic. Both linseed oil and egg tempera appear
to be present in the samples from Exeter west front, either as an emulsion
or to temper different layers. While no media analysis has yet been carried
out on the Salisbury west-front samples, those from the porch appear to be
in an egg tempera medium and those from the cloister in linseed oil. At
Salisbury, however, the usual problems of media analysis are fu rther complicated
by the presence of lichens, algae, bacteria, and also the identification of
wax. A protective coating applied in a previous restoration has left a brownyellow
wrinkled skin over much of the stonework, fu rther complicating anal­
YSlS.
With most surviving paint at Exeter found in deep crevices, much of the
detail of the finely carved Beer stone must have been lost, as layers of paint
fill corners of crockets, nostrils, or finely carved hair. The skill of the medieval
painter was to use his craft not merely to paint the carved form, but to
embellish and further enhance it. At times this must have entailed repainting
obscured detail by redefining highlights and shadows to carved hair.
Similarly, the moldings around the tympanum and the carved heads at the
apex in the central porch at Salisbury must have needed picking out in fresh
color, as the corners lost their clarity over the years, with a build-up of paint
particularly thick where different planes meet and overlapping of color occurs.
Where the stone is sound on the west aisle cloister bosses, the carving remains
crisp, as there is no build-up of paint layers to clog up the detail.
The painter did not rely on the play of light alone to give form to the
sculptures, but added depth to hollows with shading or highlights to high
points where paint rarely survives on an exterior. Traces of black in the inner
moldings of the orders around the tympanum at Salisbury show how hollows
were further emphasized by the choice of dark colors. Carvings are thrown
into relief by the background color from which they emerge. Thus, in the
porches at Exeter, the foliage around the doorways, now mostly bare stone,
is defined by the thick traces of indigo still surviving in the corners of the
background.
The painter would add details to carving-even if they would never be seen
by the ordinary viewer-such as the delicate red outline defining the most
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Historical Painting Techniques, Materials, and Studio Practice