This painting recreates a full-page miniature painting of Neidhart von Reuental. You can find the original in the manuscript Cod. Pal. germ. 848 from the Heidelberg University Library. Painted on stretched calfskin vellum using white of egg tempera and 24 karat gold leaf. Many songs composed by Neidhart belong to my personal favorites. As a result, I chose to recreate his portrait from the Manesse Codex.
Neidhart von Reuental lived between c. 1190 — 1237 and was a famous German minnesänger. He was active in the regions of Bavaria and Austria, and even, at some point, called the Austrian duke Frederick II his patron. Medieval authors preserved Neidharts works in various ‘Liederhandschriften’ or medieval song manuscripts. As an example we can name manuscripts such as the Codex Buranus and the Codex Manesse.
The Codex Manesse was written and illustrated around 1304 and, for the most part, contains the works of 135 minnesänger from the 12th to 14th century. Therefore, we can find a total of 137 manuscript illuminations depicting these artists or their works in this book. As a result of this the Codex Manesse is named “the single most comprehensive source of middle high german minnesang poetry”.
Making-of
Unfortunately, the creation of this painting was only partially recorded. As a result, I am only able to give a general impression of the process one has to go through to create and finish this full-page manuscript illumination.
Copying the image
To begin with copying an image, the medieval artist would prick holes through the original image onto a separate piece of parchment. Then, this piece of parchment is overlaid on the document one wishes to copy the image to. Once positioned, black pigment is rubbed over the separate piece of parchment to imprints dots onto the new document. The artist then connects the dots with a lead stylus, finally tracing these with black ink to make them permanent.
Since I do not possess a medieval manuscript to copy the image from (while the original process is also destructive in nature) my own technique differs slightly. First, we digitally print the original image onto printing paper, so we are able to use that as our ‘original’. Then we prick the holes as originally described, connecting the dots with a pencil. Finally, the pencil drawing is made permanent by drawing over the lines with black ink. The video below this paragraph gives an example of this ink drawing.
Applying gold leaf
Once the illustration is finished, the next step is to apply the gold. Despite gold leaf being the most expensive material in the painting, we have to apply it first because it would otherwise it would stick to the paint. First, we apply coats of gum ammoniac that is used as the ‘glue’ to make the gold stick.
Gum Ammoniac is a type of tree resin that can bend slightly without tearing. A generally important quality for a glue used within a book where the pages are regularly bend upon turning a page. Because the sap, once dissolved, is a milky white color, I add food coloring to give it a salmon red color. This makes the otherwise near invisible gesso easy to see on the page.
Once the gesso is applied, the end result looks as shown in the image above. Before we can actually start applying gold leaf to the painting, the gum ammoniac is first ‘activated’ by breathing warm, moist air on to it. Then one presses gold leaf onto the somewhat softened gesso. After applying gold to all the gesso and carefully polishing away the excess, we get the result as shown below (shown together with the first steps of the painting process).
Applying color
I apply color when the gesso under the gold leaf hardened, which can take between 12 and 24 hours. Generally, medieval artists paint the background first. Since this illumination is lacking one, I immediately start with the skin tones which are the hardest to get right. The clip below shows me painting in the skin tone of the fourth figure.
Once I finish painting the skin tones, I paint the figures from left to right. By applying a base color mixed with a little bit of white I paint in all the areas before adding details. Then I use the original color without adding white pigment to add darker shades to the painting. To create bright, almost white areas, I paint diluted but unmixed white pigment over a colored surface. The gallery below shows an approximation of the different phases of progression.
End result
Finishing this painting took somewhere between 18 and 24 hours of work. The end result is worth it, however. This richly colored work will inevitably draw your attention once a ray of light reflects from its golden embellishments.
