Colour: The Art and Science of Illuminated Manuscripts ed. by Panayotova, Stella (review)

The Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge has a world-class collection of illuminated manuscripts and fragments, derived from the original bequest by Viscount Fitzwilliam in 1816 as well as from subsequent acquisitions by celebrated directors like Montague Rhodes James and Sydney Cockerell. This catalogue accompanies an exhibition in celebration of the Museum’s bicentenary in 2016. The items exhibited were mostly from the Museum itself, but also included manuscripts from various Cambridge colleges, the British Library, and further afield. They are mostly, but not exclusively, Western European in origin.

The catalogue covers more than one hundred and fifty manuscripts grouped into fourteen thematic sections, with introductory essays and catalogue entries contributed by a range of distinguished scholars from Europe and North America. Each entry is given a generous amount of space, with a full description and detailed provenance, and colour illustrations are provided for each item, many of them full-page. The volume is rounded out with a useful glossary, a list of manuscripts cited, and an extensive bibliography. Perhaps the only thing missing is a general index or a provenance index.

The catalogue and the exhibition draw extensively on the findings of the MINIARE project, which has been investigating artists’ materials and techniques, using non-invasive scientific analysis. The results of this work are reported in Section 7 (‘Masters’ Secrets’), comprising much the longest part of the catalogue, amounting to a total of forty-four pages. Using techniques such as near-infrared (NIR) imaging, spectroscopic analysis, and optical microscopy, Stella Panayotova and her colleagues have been able to analyse the colours and binding agents used, and to look under the images to see erased or hidden elements. Among the conclusions drawn from this research are that the artists used a wider range of pigments and binding agents than previously thought, and that their preferences for colourants changed over time.

The project has also contributed to our understanding of the division of labour between different artists, of the extent and methods of making alterations, and of the modes of collaboration involved in making a manuscript. The MINIARE research challenges some long-held assumptions: that manuscript illuminators employed very few pigments; that they only used simple, unmixed pigments; that they used only glair or gums as binding media; and that manuscript illumination was typically static and ‘medieval’ in nature (unlike panel painting). The group of four manuscripts and fragments analysed for this project, and illustrated in this volume, shows just how vivid, varied, and sophisticated manuscript illumination actually was. This technical analysis is closely linked to historical research by manuscript experts and art historians.

The other fascinating section in the catalogue ranges from ‘vandalism to reconstruction’. It deals with replicas and forgeries, including the increasingly well-documented ‘Spanish Forger’ of the later nineteenth century, as well as digital and mathematical reconstructions, and restoration and conservation generally. This section also reveals the value and interest — and the beauty — of the Marlay cuttings collection, especially in relation to art history. From the point of view of manuscript history more generally, of course, they are frustrating and ominous witnesses to the effects of prizing the artistic content of illuminations above the value of the manuscripts which used to contain them.

This volume is beautifully produced and well designed. It presents the findings from the MINIARE project in a clear and convincing way, as well as reporting on a range of more general topics in the history of manuscript illumination. The specific thematic focus of the exhibition and the catalogue must be kept in mind; the entries usually focus on the artistic qualities and materials of the illuminations, not on the text or the more general characteristics of the manuscript. Although the theme of ‘colour’ may sound limiting, this catalogue is an impressively wide-ranging guide to the main features of medieval and Renaissance manuscript illumination, accompanied by the results of...