On large‐scale gilding and mosaic simulation in medieval Serbian wall painting

Abstract

This article explores the materials and techniques of gilding in the Serbian wall painting of the 13th and early 14th centuries. The investigation focuses on the pictorial decoration of the churches at Studenica, Mileševa, Sopoćani, Gradac and Banjska, all founded by members of the Serbian royalty. The murals of these churches originally featured backgrounds covered with gold leaf and patterned to mimic mosaic cubes—an expensive and fragile form of decoration of which only traces now survive. Research was conducted through a combination of in situ examination, sampling and laboratory microanalyses, with the aim to identify the composition of the materials used and to reconstruct the painters’ working methods. The results reveal a highly unusual, even experimental, system of gilding. In all but one instance, the painters employed leaves of what is known as ‘part gold’—a laminate produced by beating two sheets of gold and silver together, which was seldom applied to images on the wall and never on such a massive scale. The article's goal is twofold: first, to present new data on an important and innovative, yet poorly understood, form of decoration; and second, to lay the foundation for a comprehensive art‐historical study of the Serbian gilded murals with simulated tessellation and their significance for understanding the changing dynamic between painting and mosaic in the later Middle Ages.