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3Significance of Materials Used in ArtRita Tekippe and Pamela J. Sachant 3.1 LEARNING OUTCOMES
After completing this chapter, you should be able to: • Describe the differences among valuation of art materials, especially with regard to
intrinsic qualities of raw material versus produced objects • Discuss the differences between monetary and cultural values for works of art • Discuss the idea of “borrowed” significance that comes with the re-use of components
from previous artworks • Describe the significance of value added to objects by complex artistic processes or by
changing tastes in different eras
3.2 INTRODUCTION Among the aspects of an artwork that evoke
response, aid understanding, and contribute meaning will be the material(s) used in its cre- ation. These materials might make it more or less important, more or less valuable, or might bring a variety of associations that are not in- herent in the essential form. For example, you might recognize a vase not merely as a vase, but as a Louis Comfort Tiffany (1848-1933, USA) Favrile glass vase. (Figure 3.1) Knowing the cre- ator, material, and special processes involved in the artwork’s creation would add to and might change your perception and appreciation in sev- eral important respects. For example, you could
Figure 3.1 | Bowl Artist: Louis Comfort Tiffany Source: Met Museum License: Public Domain
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link it to an important artist, an innovative artistic technique, a significant period in American dé- cor and manufacturing and marketing, a valuation based on its collectability, and numerous other interesting details about its creation and use.
The most apparent choices in this regard are for three-dimensional forms such as sculpture and architecture, where it is more likely that costly and precious materials such as gold, silver, gems, marble, or bronze are used in its creation. The distinction among material choices for draw- ing and paintings will also have certain effects for their meanings. For example, if a painter applied gold leaf, 22K gold pounded into extremely thin sheets, to a painting’s surface, the monetary and cultural value of the work increases. (Figure 3.2) The monetary value refers to the amount a buyer is willing to pay, which in this case includes the cost of the materials the artist factors into the price of the artwork. The cultural value is the perceived quality or merit of the work: what it is worth according to that culture’s standards of ar- tistic importance or excellence. If a work of art has high monetary or cultural value, the owner’s reputation and status are, in turn, elevated.
Without considering each and every possibil- ity in this regard, we should look at a few pointed examples that will help us know what to consid- er when we examine artworks with a view to the choices of materials that the artist (or patron) must have made. The techniques for many of these is discussed in greater detail in other parts of the text, so our primary focus here will be on the intrinsic materials, although the ways they are worked, used, and combined are inextricably sig- nificant in some of these cases.
3.3 UTILITY AND VALUE OF MATERIALS The earliest drawings, paintings, vessels, and sculptures were made with whatever the artists
could find and turn to their use for creating images and objects; such readily-available material includes mud, clay, twigs, straw, minerals, and plants that they could use directly or with slight alteration, such as grinding and mixing minerals with water to apply to cave walls. (Figure 3.3) Experimentation was surely part of the process and, just as surely, much of it is lost to us now, although we have some examples of works, materials, and tools to give us insight into the artistic processes and material choices.
Figure 3.2 | Annunciation to the Shepherds, illumination from the Book of Pericopes (Lectionary) of Henry II, fol. 8v, 1002-1012 CE. Source: Artstor.org License: Public Domain
http://Artstor.org
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For example, in works such as this earthenware, or baked clay, vessel, the artist had ex- plored sufficiently to discover that mixing a certain type of earth in certain proportions with water would yield a flexible substance. The resulting clay could be handbuilt, generally by wrapping and smoothing coils, into a vessel shaped with a conical bottom that would sit nicely in a coal fire for heating its contents. (Figure 3.4) A twig or string might be used to incise marks in the surface, not only to decorate it, but also to make it easier to hold onto than if it were completely smooth. Dating to c. 3,500 BCE, pots such as this from the late Neolithic era in Korea are known as Jeul- mun pottery, meaning “comb-patterned.” The clay could be found in different colors, textures, density, potential for adherence, etc. It could be manipulated by hand to make containers to store, transport, cook, or serve all sorts of goods.
The invention of the potter’s wheel allowed artists to “throw” the clay on a rotating platform the artist operated by hand or powered with a kicking motion. When and where the potter’s wheel first appeared is much debated, but it was widely used in Mesopotamia, Egypt, and Southeast Asia before 3,000 BCE. Using a potter’s wheel allowed the artist to turn vessels with thinner walls, a greater variety of and more uniform shapes and sizes, and a larger array of painted and incised decorative elements for additional aesthetic appeal. They could, as well, make molds for serial production of commonly used types of pots.
By the time of the Ming Dynasty in China (1368-1644), vases such as this from the Xuande period (1426-1435) painted in imperial (cobalt) blue and white display both the technical inno- vations and the remarkable degree of refinement achieved. (Figure 3.5) The development of such
Figure 3.3 | Reproduction of a bison of the cave of Altamira Author: User “Rameessos” Source: Wikimedia Commons License: Public Domain
Figure 3.4 | Korean neolithic pot, found in Busan Author: User “Good friend100” Source: Wikimedia Commons License: Public Domain
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mineral resources as kaolin and petuntse allowed ceramicists to create porcelain, one of the most refined and hardest types of pottery, which became known as “china” because of the origins of the materials and processes; chinaware was soon emulated the world over for its beauty and utility as tableware and décor.
Traders from Portugal returned from China with chinaware (porcelain vessels) in the sixteenth century. The semi-translu- cent material, elegant shapes, and glass-like, intricately dec- orated surfaces of the pots were unlike anything produced in Europe at that time. The demand for such wares quickly spread throughout Europe, and ceramicists on that continent spent the next two centuries trying to unlock the secret of how to create such smooth, white, and hard pottery. Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus and Johann Friedrich Böttger, both employed for that purpose by Augustus II the Strong, Elector of Saxony (to- day Germany) and King of Poland (r. 1694-1733), are credited with producing the first European porcelain in 1708. It would become known as Meissen ware because it was produced at the factory set up in the town by Augustus II for that purpose to safeguard the formula and maintain his exclusive control over the creation and sale of European porcelain. (Figure 3.6)
The monopoly held by Augustus II was short-lived, howev- er, as the secret was sold and a competing factory opened in
Figure 3.5 | A Ming dynasty Xuande mark and period (1426-1435) imperial blue and white vase Author: User “Meliere” Source: Wikimedia Commons License: CC BY-SA 4.0
Figure 3.6 | Teapot Artist: Königliche Porzellan Manufaktur Author: Walters Art Museum Source: Wikimedia Commons License: CC BY-SA 3.0
Figure 3.7 | Pitcher Artist: American Porcelain Manufacturing Company Source: Met Museum License: OASC
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Vienna, Austria, by 1717. From there, variations of the formula and the production of porcelain spread throughout Europe as demand increased from the privilege of royalty, to the rich and titled, and eventually to all who could afford the status-giving ware. For example, this nineteenth-cen- tury commemorative pitcher made by the American Porcelain Manufacturing Company would have been presented to specially mark an occasion. (Figure 3.7) Although it is a distant relative of Chinese imperial porcelain ware and the royal courts of Europe, the techniques and materi- als used in its creation were still associated with tradition, wealth, and high social standing, elevating the cultural val- ue of this mass-produced vessel to the level of a keepsake or even a family heirloom. Objects such as this are valued beyond their monetary worth or utilitarian purposes, both due to the tactile and aesthetic qualities that come from the physical substance and techniques used and to histori- cal and social associations they hold.
Similarly, drawing and painting, apparently first confined to the rock walls of nature, were areas of exploration for artists who later applied color to the built walls of architecture, and then to portable objects of various types. Ceramic ware was decorated with images from nature, pictorial and narrative motifs, and messages of myth, power, and even everyday life. The same is true of tomb walls of Egypt (Figure 3.8), palace walls in ancient Iraq, (Ashurnasirpal II with Attendants and Soldier: http://www.museumsyndicate. com/item.php?item=36470) and Greek vessels used for practical or ritual purposes (Figure 3.9).
Figure 3.8 | Egyptian tomb wall painting Author: British Library Source: Wikimedia Commons License: CC0 1.0
Figure 3.9 | Terracotta krater Source: Met Museum License: OASC
http://www.museumsyndicate.com/item.php?item=36470
http://www.museumsyndicate.com/item.php?item=36470
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Eventually such vessels, as well as books and other ob- jects, bore written information and pictorial explications of textual content: illustrations. Early textual works were often inscribed on stone tablets to ensure their durability or on relatively fragile materials like papyrus that required laborious preparation to make it suitable for conveying in- formation. In either case, the materials used added to the work’s significance. By the time of the development of the codex (probably in the Roman era), or manuscript with bound pages, the most common form of modern physical books, the choice material was animal skin, as seen in man- uscripts throughout Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, roughly the beginning of the fourth to the fifteenth centu- ries, in the Western and the Middle Eastern regions of the world. (Figures 3.10 and 3.11) Sheepskin, or parchment, the most commonly used support for written works, was obtained by laborious preparation of the pelts, through scraping and buffing the surface to make it suitable for use
by scribes and il- lustrators who add- ed the words and pictures. The most refined book arts were often presented on vellum, or calfskin, prized for its smoother and finer surface. When used for especially im- portant works or those made for royal purposes, it was often dyed purple or dark blue, with script applied in gold or sil- ver ink and illustrations that included areas of gold or silver. (see Figure 3.2) These lustrous images were known as illu- minations, that is, given light. The viewer would at once recognize the special and distinctive treatment implied by the use of such precious materials and know that the patron had paid well for an elegant and important book.
3.4 PRECIOUS MATERIALS, SPOLIA, AND BORROWED GLORY
Objects made for sacred or royal use were often wrought of such lavish and treasured components as vellum, silk, lin- en, wool, ivory, gold, silver, gems, and rare stones and min- erals. Frequently crafted for further refinement, such works
Figure 3.10 | Historiated Letter L, with illustration of the Tree of Jesse, Capuchin’s Bible, f. 7v, c. 1180. BNF Author: User “Soefrm” Source: Wikimedia Commons License: Public Domain
Figure 3.11 | Kitab al-Bulhan: Middle Eastern House and Lifting Machine, Arab scientific manuscript leaf. 1. 14th century Author: User “Peacay” Source: Wikimedia Commons License: Public Domain
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show their precious properties to advantage. In ancient Rome/Byzantium, there were quarries for porphyry, a rich purple marble stone (the basis for the association of the color purple with royalty). Because it was restricted to royal purposes, its very appearance carried connotations of the imperial significance of any work made from it. It was often used for columns and other architectural components that thereby accentuated important structures or parts of them. Once the imperially controlled mines were abandoned in the fifth century CE, new items could not be made of porphyry, so older monuments were sometimes pillaged and re-used, with the royal sig- nificance transferred to the plunderers, implying not only the replacement of the old order by the new, but also the superiority of the conquerors.
Porphyry burial containers were especially prized in antiquity and the Middle Ages. Constan- tina was the eldest daughter of Emperor Constantine the Great (r. 306-337 CE), the Roman ruler who in 313 CE decreed early Christians could practice their faith without persecution and confis- cated land should be returned to the Church. Although Constantine considered himself a Chris- tian, he did not abandon the Roman gods and religious rituals. For example, in 321 CE he stated that Christians and pagans alike should observe the day of the sun (later named Sunday); the cult of the sun god had been popularly observed in Roman culture for centuries, and associations of the sun as the source of light, warmth, and life had been adopted by those of the Christian faith. Constantine, according to legend, was baptized a Christian on his deathbed in 337 CE.
When his daughter Constantina died in 354 CE, she was entombed in a porphyry sarcoph- agus, or stone coffin, that was richly carved with motifs from both the pagan Roman and Chris- tian faiths. (Figure 3.12) There are small, winged cupids gathering grapes among garlands of grape vines with peacocks and a ram below on the front and back of the coffin, and cupids treading on grapes on both ends. In Roman mythology, such scenes were associated with Bac-
chus (known to the Greeks as Di- onysus), the god of the wine har- vest and wine making who as a baby was reborn after having been slaughtered by the Titans. Interpreted as Christian motifs, the cupids, who became known as putti or small, winged angels, are seen as preparing the grapes for the Eucharist, the sacrament commemorating the Last Supper by consecration of the bread and wine as the Body and Blood of Je- sus Christ. Such re-imaging and re-purposing of motifs and their meanings were frequently seen at this time of transition from pa- ganism to Christianity; further,
Figure 3.12 | Sarcophagus of Constantina Author: User “Jean-Pol GRANDMONT” Source: Wikimedia Commons License: CC BY-SA 3.0
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having been adopted by Constantine and his family, they were associated with imperial pow- er and carried connotations of the Christian con- quest of paganism.
Later, in the eighth and ninth centuries CE, Charlemagne (r. 768-814 CE) used pillaged por- phyry columns inside arches on the upper level of his imperial chapel, a building intended for his own entombment. (Figure 3.13) The Palatine Chapel (c. 796-798 CE, consecrated 805 CE) was part of the palace complex Charlemagne had built at Aachen, in what is now Germany. The interior of the chapel is an octagon topped by a dome supported by heavy piers with arches on the second level, where the imperial throne is located, with a view to the high altar (the ta-
