Probing the birthplace of the “Epirus school” of painting: analytical investigation of the Filanthropinon monastery murals—Part I: pigments

Abstract

The Filanthropinon monastery church is regarded the birthplace of the “Epirus/NW Greece School” of painting as it bears the oldest wall paintings of this very school. Surviving inscriptions bear no painter name(s), yet they testify that the murals were executed in three phases between 1531/2 and 1560. The bulk of the technical and typological characteristics of the latter paintings are typical of post-Byzantine religious art, while OM, SEM-EDX, and micro-Raman probing reveals the existence of a number of idiomorphic characteristics that might be viewed as part of the microscopic fingerprint of the “Epirus school.” A microscopic fingerprint of the school is important because current attributions of relevant works to specific painters are mostly stylistic ones, as pertinent signatures are rare. The latter characteristics include the application of a “charcoal plus blue smalt” substrate in the paintings’ background and the employment of a possibly local (: Epirus), unusual ochre pigment. Sophisticated segregation of pigment grains, employment of glauconite, and the extensive use of San Giovanni white were also documented. Analytical data support the following scheme as regards artistic identities: the 1531/2 nave paintings were executed by a single painter, possibly assisted by a pupil who also contributed to the 1542 paintings. The paintings of the 1542 and 1560 phases are apparently the outcome of another—yet related to the nave painter—workshop; there are clues which indicate employment of Georgios and Frangos Kontaris in both of these commissions. Finally, remnants of four different overpaintings were also revealed: pertinent pigments indicate successive interventions during an extended period of time, which reflect the will of Filanthropinon votaries to retain the murals vivid.