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Course: Special topics in art history > Unit 2
Lesson 4: Painting materials and techniquesTempera paint
Tempera painting, popular in the early Renaissance, used egg-based paint on wood panels. Artists prepared the wood with gesso, a liquid plaster, to prevent absorption. Pigments, often ground from minerals, plants, or insects, were mixed with egg yolk to create the paint. Gold leaf, made from pounded gold, was also used, especially in religious images. Speakers: Dr. David Drogin and Dr. Steven Zucker. Created by Beth Harris and Steven Zucker.
Want to join the conversation?
- We know that oil paint ultimately replaced tempera paint as the go-to medium for painters. When did tempera painting begin? Did it replace another less advanced painting medium?(50 votes)
- Great question John. Instead of thinking about the relative strengths of a medium used to suspend and adhere the pigment (egg tempera, oil, etc.) in isolation, its useful to think about the support as well and the context for which the work of art was intended. Tempera is especially useful for panel paintings (so was oil). Canvas requires a more flexible medium such as oil. Fresco in turn is used to cover large walls. There are certainly earlier examples. The ancient Egyptians used encaustic which is basically pigment suspended in wax (Jasper Johns used this technique more recently).(38 votes)
- Are special techniques used to preserve tempera based paintings? Eggs are highly perishable so it's incredible that the paint would last as long as it has.(22 votes)
- Egg tempera was used in theatrical scenic paints, especially for backdrops all the way into the 1970's. And those last today even on the flexible paint surfaces such as canvas or muslin. What is so important about the egg white is that it is a protein.The protein structure made the applied paint very strong and unlikely to flake. Also consider the environment, a spoiled egg is usually still wet inside. Since the egg/paint mixture is being applied very thinly, and it is drying very quickly, there is no time or moist environment for bacteria to grow. And the bacteria, not the egg, is the main source of the highly recognizable rotten egg smell.(38 votes)
- Are there easy ways to try making these different kids of paints?(11 votes)
- One thing you can do is buy a dozen eggs, and a box of food coloring. Separate the yolk from the whites. Place a yolk into the place in the carton you took an egg from along with a drop or two of coloring and mix it up. Mix a few food coloring colors and you now have 12 colors to work with. When finished, simply close the egg carton, cover it with a freezer bag and place it in the fridge.(41 votes)
- So what is that word on the top right of the painting say? It looks like "Aorems."(15 votes)
- It is in Greek and is translated into English into Andreas. It means Andrew. This work is called St. Andrew by Simone Martini.(27 votes)
- Our commentators said they were using egg yolk for adhesive for their pigment, but wouldn't the painting "go bad"? What would keep the egg yolk from rotting, or stinking?(13 votes)
- It doesn't rot because it dries... same as beef jerky doesn't rot. Adding clove oil is (rarely) done to avoid mould, but that usually only happens when you frame tempera paintings with glass. I do tempera painting, and I use only yolk and pigment, never added anything else. No smell.(7 votes)
- How is gesso made? (not sure of the spelling)(7 votes)
- Gesso is a white paint mixture consisting of a binder mixed with chalk, gypsum and pigment.
You may check it up here ---> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gesso(13 votes)
- the narrator states "egg yolk" is used - is this correct? as surely the egg white would be the choice?(6 votes)
- The narrator is correct. Egg tempera uses the yolk. The egg white is sometimes used, but it is usually discarded. The yolk has all the fat which is needed to make the paint greasy and sticky. The egg white is mostly water and protein, so it wouldn't bind as well to the panels.(13 votes)
- What year was this painting done? When did artists start using canvas for painting?(5 votes)
- Saint Andrew was probably painted around 1330, and oil painting on canvas became popular at the end of the 15th century(10 votes)
- Where does the name 'tempera' come from? Tempus (time) because it is quick-drying? Temper (mix, combine) because you mix in the pigments? Some other root?(3 votes)
- Tempera is a word of Italian origin. It comes,from the phrase "pingere a tempera," which means "to paint in a distemper." It is usually made with egg yolks combined with pigment. This pigment can come from many sources. Some are made with roots. One pigment, the one they discussed in the video, ultra marine blue, uses crushed lapis lazuli, which is a gemstone.(5 votes)
- At9:34"You would not believe the ways paintings have been cleaned in the past several hundred years" - Now I'm curious! I'm picturing a monk with a Medieval hose...(3 votes)
- That's probably not very far from the truth :-) Just imagine people using regular cleaning supplies and rubbing on paintings to get dirt (and paint!!) off... Awful, right?(3 votes)
Video transcript
(piano music) Narrator: David, I wanted
to ask you about materials and I guess what we were
going to focus on now was tempera painting,
which was very popular at the very beginning of
the Renaissance period. David: In the early
part of the Renaissance up until almost the end of the 1400's, all Italian painters who were
making portable paintings rather than ones painted
directly on the wall, used tempera paint on wood panels. When we think of painting,
we think of oil and canvas. Those materials weren't really used widely until almost 1500. These kinds of tempera paintings, like the one that we're looking at here, would be for many different
kinds of purposes. They could be altarpieces, they could be paintings in private settings,
they could be portraits like this one. Narrator: Before we even
get to the painting, let's talk about what the surface was. What did the artist actually paint on? David: Well, all these
paintings were on wood panel, like I said, and the wood in Italy was always poplar wood. They didn't paint on just
a single plank of wood because over time it
would warp very easily and very quickly, so what artists did, and usually they would actually have someone in the workshop do this, is attach vertical planks of wood together and then attach them
together across the back with cross beams. Narrator: All right, that makes sense because in museums
sometimes you can actually see a little bit of a crack right along the seam of those planks. David: Exactly. Those
planks could also warp, but they wouldn't warp nearly as much as one single very, very wide plank. And those, of course, would be sanded down and smoothed out and they
would carefully choose pieces of wood that
didn't have large knots or other kinds of defects. Narrator: So, this was really
a kind of craftsmanship, that went into this. It was really like cabinet making. David: Exactly. Narrator: Would the artist then paint directly on top of the wood? David: No, they couldn't do that. Partly because of the small imperfections like the grain of wood and the knots, but also, the main problem is that the wood is absorbent. So, if they painted directly
on the surface of the wood, the paint, the pigment would
be absorbed like a sponge and you would really see the wood almost more than the paint itself. Narrator: So, did they put something sort of as a barrier in between? David: That's right. They had to prepare
the surface of the wood to make it completely smooth
and completely non-absorbent. For this they used something called gesso, which is like a liquid plaster that artists still use today. Narrator: So, that must have been a lot cheaper than the paint itself. The paint was pretty expensive, wasn't it? David: Paint was relatively expensive. Partly because of the
process of making the paint that you were going to use. The gesso was inexpensive and it was a preparatory stage that enabled
them to paint on the wood panel. Narrator: Now, what color was the gesso? David: The gesso was
essentially white or off-white. Narrator: Okay, so then
they've got this lovely, very smooth white surface and then the artist is going to go ahead and paint. Now, would they actually
do a drawing underneath? David: They would sometimes
do drawing underneath with chalk or something
like crayon or pencil. Narrator: Let's talk a little bit about what kind of materials
they used in their paint. What is paint actually
made out of? Tempera paint? David: Well, tempera paint
is an egg based paint. Essentially the way it would work is that the artist, or again, more likely someone in their workshop
would grind up pigment. The pigment would come
from minerals or plants or sometimes even insects. They would grind that up until
it was a powder or a paste. Narrator: So, we're talking
about a mortar and pestle here? David: Exactly. Narrator: We're talking
about really taking a rock and grinding. It's a very
physical kind of process. David: It's a very physical process. They're grinding something up into a paste and a powder and we
might add at this point that this is exactly the reason why, in the middle ages and
in the early Renaissance, painters were in the
same guild as pharmacists because they both ground things
up and mix them together. Narrator: Now, were these
things all local to Italy? David: Not everything. The things that were local
were the least expensive things and the things that needed to be imported from a distance were, of course, the most expensive things and the most expensive thing of all was ultra marine blue, which was created by grinding up lapis lazuli. The reason why it's even
called ultra marine blue is that it comes from very far away from a quarry that is in
modern day Afghanistan. In Italian it was called 'ultramarina' meaning from over the seas. That's why it has the name
that we use if for today. Narrator: You know, you go
into an art supply store now and paints actually
cost different amounts, if you're getting the real paint, not synthetic dyes. So, I guess, that's really
just the same reason. Would that just cause
an artist to use less of the more expensive colors or were there purposes for using the more expensive colors at times? David: Since people
recognize that certain colors were more visually dazzling
or more expensive to make, those colors would only be used for the most important
parts of the painting. Partly for economic reasons, but also for symbolic ones. So, for instance, that ultra marine blue, that very rich, deep, almost purple-y blue was only reserved for the
most important figures or the most important
parts of the painting. Usually in a religious painting, for the dress of the Virgin Mary. Narrator: Let's take a
look at this painting, for instance, what kinds of pictures are being used here? David: Well, this
painting by Filippo Lippi is a tempera painting on wood panel and the panel was created
in the way we discussed. We should add that once
they had their pigments ground up, they mixed it
together with egg yolk and that actually
created the paint itself. Narrator: Well, that's
very unexpected. Egg yolk. I mean, of all the things to choose, why in the world would
you choose egg yolk? David: Well, it had a good consistency and it was very, very
strong and it would adhere very nicely to the gesso
prepared wood panel. So, if it was prepared correctly and then maintained well,
it would actually last a very long time and the
colors wouldn't change. It was very stable. We need to understand that it also had certain physical
properties that lead to it being used in a particular way. For instance, egg tempera
paint is not transparent and it also dries very quickly and it's very hard to blend
on the surface of painting. So, if you want to have
shading and transition from light to dark or
from one color to another, you can't place one color down then put the next color next to it and try to mix them
together because by the time you're putting your second color down, the first one is already drying and they wouldn't mix together very well. Narrator: It probably dried
on the brush actually. David: It does. People
have to work quickly and they have to develop
special techniques in order to achieve the effects
that they wanted to get. Narrator: Unlike oil
painting as we know it, this is almost like drawing, in a sense. David: In a way it is more like drawing and they needed to be able
to get very fine details to achieve the kinds of shading and colors that they needed to get. And we should add that
sometimes they used brushes that only had one hair in them because they could achieve
those kinds of detail with tempera. Since I mentioned before
that it was very difficult to blend from light into shadow or from one color into another, what artists did was, they
would lay one color down and then they would place very, very thin fine lines of another
color on top of that. If those thin fine lines
were very close together you would see mostly the color on top, but if the artist started to make them even thinner and thinner and
spread them out more and more then you would see more of
the condulair underneath shining through. From a distance you don't
even see those lines. It just looks like a nice, even gradation from one tone into another, but when you look closely,
you can see that hatching and you can see the way that
the artist achieved that effect. Here you can really see it on
the chest of the young woman, where it goes from a bright
highlight on the left into the darker red on the right. If you look closely, if you zoom in or see this painting in person you can see the actual lines and how the white lines are
thick and close together on the left and then slowly
get thinner and thinner and space out the further
you get to the right. Narrator: We wanted to talk about gold because tempera was not the only material that was used in these
early Renaissance paintings. I think here's a good example. What are we looking at? David: This is a painting of Saint Andrew by Simone Martini. It's at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and this is a really great example of to talk about how
gold was used frequently up until the early Renaissance, specifically or most
widely in religious images to give them a kind of
other worldly quality to make them seem more
spectacular and spiritual. Narrator: So, this is real gold? David: This is real
gold in the background. The figure is painted with egg tempera in the manner that we discussed before, so if you look carefully you can see the hatching technique
that we talked about, but in the background we see gold and that is, in fact, real gold. It's gold leaf and the way that someone in the artist workshop would prepare that is by pounding gold very, very, very thin. Narrator: Because gold is really malleable and it's really elastic, isn't it? David: It's very, very
soft. It's very elastic and it can be pounded
into extremely fine, thin, practically transparent sheets of gold. That's exactly what they did. They prepared lots of small squares of this thin gold leaf in preparation for putting it on the painting. Narrator: So what you're telling me is if I scrape the gold off of this, I would really end up with that much gold. David: Probably not.
There's not very much there. It's very, very thin, which is important for a reason that we'll come to. But they couldn't just stick the gold onto the painting and
expect it to stay there. They had to prepare the
surface of the painting much in the same way that they used gesso to prepare the painting for the tempera. In this case, they used
a very sticky, red clay to attach the gold to the
surface of the painting. This actually served a couple of purposes. One thing is that, like
I said, it was sticky so it helped the gold to stay
where it was supposed to go, but the other thing was
that it was important it was red because the
gold is pounded so thin, it's essentially a little bit transparent and the red clay underneath helps give the gold a very,
very warm glowing tone, rather than a colder yellow
that it would otherwise have. Narrator: I can actually see that, especially on the left
side of the painting. David: That's exactly why
this is a great example to use to talk about gold leaf because you can see the red clay
coming through a little bit, since the painting is about 700 years old and the surface has degraded a little, you can see the red clay
in a much more visible way than you would have originally and you can also see
the individual squares, the individual leaves that they used. Where they overlap it's
a little bit thicker and it makes a grid where you can see how these were laid down on the surface. Narrator: Now, gold survives pretty well. Why would this degrade? Was it cleaned? Did somebody ... David: It could be from
over cleaning probably. That's the most likely cause. Narrator: So, somebody
actually, what they'll do, is takes a rag and actually rubs it. David: You would not believe the way that paintings have
been cleaned in the past several hundred years. Narrator: And actually that makes sense because in a church, soot would build up. David: Sure. Narrator: There were no
electric lights, of course. David: Exactly. In fact,
that's an important reason to think about why they used gold because the churches and the small chapels that these kinds of
paintings were displayed in were, of course, not lit
with electrical lights, but were primarily lit by candle light burning in front of these objects and so that gold,
especially with the red clay behind it would create
an incredibly reflective, glowing surface that
really contributed, again, to the other worldly quality
of the represented subject. Narrator: Oh, it must have been beautiful because you have the
flickering flames actually and it would sort of
dance against the surface. David: Exactly. It had
a much more vibrant, flickering, almost vital quality than what we see in a museum where something is lit
with a steady spotlight. Narrator: But I want to
pick up on what you said a moment ago, because you said that there was an other worldly quality, so the gold actually has a
real symbolic value here. David: Sure, exactly. Like the blue that we were talking about before, obviously on one of the
most important paintings and subjects would have
gold in the background and it does contribute a symbolic quality that comes in part from
it's economic value. Narrator: So, now. I see the squares where the individual pieces
of gold leaf were applied and I see the seams that you mentioned and that's really great, but I also see that there's a lot of detail in the gold and maybe even some words. Can you speak a little bit about that? David: Sure. If you zoom in on the head, you can see that the
halo around the figure is actually in the gold
and the way that artists did that in this period was by tooling. They used different
kinds of tools to punch and rub and pound into the gold to give it a three
dimensional textural surface. Again, if you think of
this in front of candles the light flickering from the candles when it hit that textured
surface would shine even more brightly and more vibrantly than the flat gold around
the rest of the painting. Narrator: It's just gorgeous and it does do something really interesting, which is that it makes Andrew really feel like he's not in our world. That he's really in a kind of different and a kind of spiritual space. David: Exactly and that
was largely the point of religious paintings up
until the early 1400's. (piano playing)