Method of grinding.Fluid gold was made by laboriously grinding the pure metal on a porphyry slab into the finest possible powder. This powdered gold, mixed with water and a little size, was applied with a brush like any other pigment; see Theophilus, I. 30 to 33[[252]]. When dry, it could be to some extent polished by burnishing, but as it was laid directly on to the comparatively uneven and yielding surface of the vellum it never received a very high polish. As a rule therefore fluid gold was left unburnished, and its surface remained dull or mat in appearance.
| Dull and burnished gold. |
Dull and burnished gold.For this reason it was not unfrequently used in conjunction with burnished leaf gold, a fine decorative effect being produced by the contrast of the mat and polished surfaces. Thus, for example, in fourteenth and fifteenth century manuscripts a delicate diaper of scroll pattern is sometimes painted with a fine brush over a ground of burnished gold leaf.
In the fifteenth century, during the decadence of the illuminator's art, the use of fluid gold, which had previously greatly diminished, was much revived, especially for the background of the realistic borders in Flemish manuscripts[[253]], for touching in the high lights of miniatures, and for many other purposes. When used to cover large surfaces, it is always unsatisfactory in effect and has little decorative value.
| Cistercian severity. |
Cistercian severity.The preparation of this gold pigment was a very slow and laborious matter. The severe Cistercian rule regarded this process as a waste of precious time; and indeed the use of gold in any form was prohibited in the manuscripts used in Cistercian Abbeys. In the dialogue between a Cistercian and a Cluniac monk, De diversis utriusque ordinis observantiis (Thesaur. Nov. Anecdot. Vol. V. 1623), the Cistercian asks "what use there can be in grinding gold and painting large capitals with it"; aurum molere et cum illo molito magnas capitales pingere litteras, quid est nisi inutile et otiosum opus? St Bernard himself had an even stronger objection, not only to gold in manuscripts, but to any ornaments with grotesque dragons and monsters, on the ground that they did not tend to edification.
| Fluid silver. |
Fluid silver.Fluid silver was prepared and applied in the same way, but it was much less used than gold pigment. A very beautiful effect is produced in some of the gorgeous Carolingian manuscripts by using in the same ornament both gold and silver, which mutually enhance each other's effect by contrast of colour.
| Leaf gold. Mordant ground. |
Leaf gold.Burnished Gold leaf. The extraordinary splendour of effect produced by skilfully applied gold leaf depends mainly on the fact that it was laid, not directly on to the vellum, but on to a thick bed of a hard enamel-like substance, which gradually set (as it got dry) and formed a ground nearly as hard and smooth as glass; this enabled the gold leaf laid upon it to be burnished to the highest possible polish, till in fact the gold gave a reflexion like that of a mirror. This Mordant ground.enamel-like ground, or mordant as it was called, was commonly as thick as stout cardboard, and its edges were rounded off, which has the double result of making the gold leaf laid upon it look not like a thin leaf, but like a thick plate of gold[[254]], and at the same time the rounded edges catch the light and so greatly increase the decorative splendour of the metal.