Pictorial Cycle Research Articles

Byzantine wall paintings from San Marco d’Alunzio, Sicily: non-invasive diagnostics and microanalytical investigation of pigments and plasters

A diagnostic investigation was carried out on twelfth century Byzantine wall paintings preserved in the Museum of Byzantine and Norman Culture and Figurative Arts of San Marco d’Alunzio (Messina, Italy) on the occasion of recent restoration works. First, the wall paintings were analyzed using portable X-Ray Fluorescence (p-XRF) and Fiber Optics Reflectance Spectroscopy (FORS) to obtain a non-invasive preliminary identification of the original palette. Then, five fragments were sampled for a micro-stratigraphy study using Digital Optical Microscope (DOM), Polarizing Optical Microscope (POM), and Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) combined with Energy Dispersive X-ray Spectrometry (EDS) to characterize the mortars and the blue and black pigments non unequivocally identified through non-invasive techniques. The palette included mainly earthen pigments like red and yellow ochres, green earth, and more valuable lapis lazuli blue applied on a bone black layer; while the analysis of mortars found on the different apses showed the same manufacturing technique and constitutive materials: lime-based binder with the addition of quartz, and rare calcareous lithic fragments as aggregate. The obtained results shed light on the pictorial technique used for the wall paintings and allowed us to compare the Sicilian pictorial cycle with the coeval Byzantine wall paintings preserved in Sardinia and Southern Italy.

Sinful, Sexual, Sacred: Locating a Thirteenth-Century Visuality through the Selective Erasures in Rylands MS French 5

Rylands MS French 5 is a thirteenth-century Bible picture book consisting of a single pictorial cycle depicting scenes from the Old Testament. The manuscript is remarkable for the predominance of its imagery and the erasures that selectively mar its otherwise unspoiled folios. The sites of these erasures can be categorised as evil, obscene, and divine subjects. Examining each in turn, I hope to demonstrate the importance of both the Bible picture book tradition and manuscript erasure for considerations of later medieval visuality. Where the Bible picture book encapsulates thirteenth-century confidence in the visual sense, the erasures signal the boundaries of this confidence, revealing a paradoxical mode of sight in which ocular passions merge and clash. In turn, these findings problematise attempts to theorise a homogenous thirteenth-century visuality, as different understandings of vision surfaced in the decades after the production of MS French 5 and played out in impassioned and contradictory ways on the manuscript page.

Живопись во Времени и Пространстве культуры: к столетию со дня рождения Г. О. Рокчинского (1923–1993)

Статья посвящена наследию народного художника РСФСР Гаря Рокчинского (1923–1993). В быстротечном потоке Времени творчество, одухотворенное традициями предков, органично впитывает ускользающее, живет настоящим и явственно прозревает будущее. Исследование призвано выявить в живописи дух Времени, концентрируемого в Пространстве мировидения художника. На основе произведений живописи второй половины XX в. реконструированы этапы становления и формирования творческой Личности. Произрастая на почве любви к родине, духовный мир художника воплощается в разнообразии жанров живописи и графики (пейзажа и портрета, тематической композиции), а также самобытной малой пластики. В анализе творческих поисков Г. О. Рокчинского, обозначенных циклами «Земля и люди», «Джангариада – образная память предков» и «Буддизм как философия Жизни», раскрыта глубина постижения этнической Вселенной. В произведениях, составляющих наследие художника, воплощен код национальной культуры, сохраняющий образную память народа. The study aims at understanding the creative activities of the Kalmyk artist Garri Rokchinsky (1923–1993) through the disclosure of features that make it possible to present his heritage in the space and time of traditional culture. The material included Rokchinsky’s paintings created in Shiroklag and Kazakhstan, where the artist received an art education while in deportation, as well as his canvases painted later in Kalmykia; the results of art history and cultural studies were also used. The research process in the study is a reconstruction that synthesizes the methodological foundations of history, art history, cultural studies and philosophy. The formation of the artist’s personality took place under the influence of the traditional worldview of his ancestors, which was reflected in a consistent appeal to the history of the Kalmyk people. Love for his homeland inspired Rokchinsky to understand himself and his ethnic heritage in various genres of painting, graphics and original small plastic arts. The idea that it is in fruitful activities that a person acquires ethnic identity, formed in a deeply meaningful connection of the concepts “clan”, “people” and “homeland”, was embodied in Rokchinsky’s extensive pictorial cycle Land and People. The artist’s picture of the world was further expressed through the traditions of Mongol zurag flat painting in the epic cycle Jangariada. Rokchinsky deeply understands the connection with the culture of Mongolia, the ethnic ancestral home of the Kalmyks. At this point a philosophical doctrine was introduced; the artist develops its ethical foundations in his works, which allowed him to assimilate the spiritual essence of Buddhism. In the author’s opinion, the artist’s turn to non-objective painting, which embodies the truths of existence, was a natural facet of comprehending world culture. The paintings of Rokchinsky, born in the harmony and contradictions of Existence, express the originality of the fine arts of Kalmykia as part of the artistic culture of Russia. At the same time, the universe created by the artist is one of the ethnic facets of the world artistic heritage. The space and time of Rokchinsky’s works embody the “genetic code” of national culture, preserving the figurative memory of the people. The methodology implemented in the study made it possible to reconstruct the process of formation, preservation and continuity of traditions in the art of Kalmykia, clearly represented by the works of Garri Rokchinsky, a People’s Artist of the RSFSR, whose 100th anniversary is celebrated in the Republic of Kalmykia in 2023.

Looking for the Original Materials and Evidence of Restoration at the Vault of the San Panfilo Church in Tornimparte (AQ)

This paper reports the investigation of six microsamples collected from the vault of the San Panfilo Church in Tornimparte (AQ). The aim was to detect the composition of the pigments and protective/varnishes, and to investigate the executive technique, the conservation state, and the evidence of the restoration works carried out in the past. Six microsamples were analyzed by optical microscopy, scanning electron microscopy coupled with energy-dispersive spectroscopy (EDS), X-ray fluorescence (XRF), and infrared and Raman spectroscopy. The investigations were carried out within the framework of the Tornimparte project “Archeometric investigation of the pictorial cycle of Saturnino Gatti in Tornimparte (AQ, Italy)” sponsored in 2021 by the Italian Association of Archeometry (AIAr).

Materials and Technique: The First Look at Saturnino Gatti

As part of the study project of the pictorial cycle, attributed to Saturnino Gatti, in the church of San Panfilo at Villagrande di Tornimparte (AQ), image analyses were performed in order to document the general conservation conditions of the surfaces, and to map the different painting materials to be subsequently examined using spectroscopic techniques. To acquire the images, radiation sources, ranging from ultraviolet to near infrared, were used; analyses of ultraviolet fluorescence (UVF), infrared reflectography (IRR), infrared false colors (IRFC), and optical microscopy in visible light (OM) were carried out on all the panels of the mural painting of the apsidal conch. The Hypercolorimetric Multispectral Imaging (HMI) technique was also applied in selected areas of two panels. Due to the accurate calibration system, this technique is able to obtain high-precision colorimetric and reflectance measurements, which can be repeated for proper surface monitoring. The integrated analysis of the different wavelengths’ images—in particular, the ones processed in false colors—made it possible to distinguish the portions affected by retouching or repainting and to recover the legibility of some figures that showed chromatic alterations of the original pictorial layers. The IR reflectography, in addition to highlighting the portions that lost materials and were subject to non-original interventions, emphasized the presence of the underdrawing, which was detected using the spolvero technique. UVF photography led to a preliminary mapping of the organic and inorganic materials that exhibited characteristic induced fluorescence, such as a binder in correspondence with the original azurite painting or the wide use of white zinc in the retouched areas. The collected data made it possible to form a better iconographic interpretation. Moreover, it also enabled us to accurately select the areas to be investigated using spectroscopic analyses, both in situ and on micro-samples, in order to deepen our knowledge of the techniques used by the artist to create the original painting, and to detect subsequent interventions.

Identifying Original and Restoration Materials through Spectroscopic Analyses on Saturnino Gatti Mural Paintings: How Far a Noninvasive Approach Can Go

This paper presents the results obtained for the mural paintings (XV century CE) in the church of San Panfilo in Villagrande di Tornimparte (AQ, Italy) by means of noninvasive spectroscopic techniques; this research is a part of the project on the Saturnino Gatti pictorial cycle, promoted and coordinated by the AIAr (the Italian Archaeometry Association). Digital optical microscopy (OM), X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy (XRF), fiber optics reflectance spectroscopy in the UV–Vis–NIR range (FORS), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy in the external reflection mode (ER-FTIR), and Raman spectroscopy were performed on the points selected based on the image analysis results and the few available records on previous intervention, with the aim of characterizing both the original and restoration organic and inorganic materials. The synergic application of complementary techniques allowed us to obtain a complete picture of the palette and the main alteration products and organic substances (of rather ubiquitous lipid materials and less widespread resin and proteinaceous materials in specific points). The identification of modern compounds permitted the individuation of restoration areas; this was confirmed by the comparison with multiband imaging results, as in the case of specific green and blue pigments, strictly related to the presence of high signals of zinc. This analytical protocol left only very few ambiguities and allowed to minimizing the number of samples taken to clarifying, by sample laboratory analyses, the few doubts still open.

Multi-Technique Characterization of Painting Drawings of the Pictorial Cycle at the San Panfilo Church in Tornimparte (AQ)

We present some results, obtained using a multi-scale approach, based on the employment of different and complementary techniques, i.e., Optical Microscopy (OM), Scanning Electron Microscopy-Energy Dispersive X-ray Spectroscopy (SEM-EDS), X-ray diffraction (XRD), Raman and µ-Raman spectroscopy, Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy equipped with Attenuated Total Reflectance (ATR) analyses, Inductively Coupled Plasma–Mass Spectrometry (ICP-MS), and Thermal Ionization Mass Spectrometry (TIMS), of an integrated activity focused on the characterization of micro-fragments of original and previously restored paintings of the pictorial cycle at the San Panfilo Church in Tornimparte, sampled from specific areas of interest. The study was aimed, on one hand, at the identification of the overlapping restoration materials used during previous conservation interventions (documented and not), and, on the other hand, at understanding the degradation phenomena (current or previous) of the painted surfaces and the architectural structures. The study of stratigraphy allowed us to evaluate the number of layers and the materials (pigments, minerals, and varnishes) present in each layer. As the main result, the identification of blue, black, yellow, and red pigments (both ancient and modern) was achieved. In the case of blue pigments, original (azurite and lazurite) and retouching (Prussian blue and phthalo blue) materials were recognized, together with alteration products (malachite and atacamite). Traces of yellow ochre were found in the yellow areas, and carbon black in the blue and brown areas. In the latter, hematite and red ochre pigments were also recognized. The obtained results are crucial to support the methodological choices during the restoration intervention of the site, and help to ensure the compatibility principles of the materials on which a correct conservative approach is based.

Flaminio Rota, 16th Century Anatomist at the University of Bologna: A Biography on the Walls

Flaminio Rota was a 16th century anatomist and medical figure at the University of Bologna. He was highly praised, despite his poor scientific production. As a matter of fact, Rota competed with scientific activities in different anatomical arguments, but he did not publish any important research. Nevertheless, we know the principal results of his scientific activity because indirect information can be found in other publications, where some of his studies were emphasized by his contemporary colleagues. Henning Witte even mentioned Rota as a very famous Italian medical figure, together with Galilei and Santorio. On the other hand, Rota was a highly esteemed teacher. The best evidence of his recognition is well-documented in the Palace of Archiginnasio in Bologna, where Rota’s teaching activity was praised with six memorial epigraphs. In the south-eastern outskirts of Bologna, there is an 18th century villa, including a more ancient annex, that belonged to Rota. At this location, the upper parts of the walls and the ceiling are decorated with a pictorial cycle illustrating medical scenes. In this paper, we theorize regarding his scientific thinking by analyzing the pictorial cycle he commissioned.

Rediscovering the Fishing Cycle of Umberto Coromaldi

The paper reports on the discovery and restoration of the pictorial cycle made by Umberto Coromaldi (Rome, 1870-1948) for the external decoration of the Fishing Pavilion at the International Exposition in Rome of 1911, composed by large oil on canvas depicting fishing scenes and nudes of fishermen. After the event, with the demolition of the pavilion, the whole cycle was eventually forgotten: the largest canvases were rolled and for decades left in a series of deposits. Rediscovered in 2004, the paintings were in extremely poor condition. For their recovery, the Istituto Centrale per il Restauro (ICR) undertook a complex conservation program and a parallel research project to clarify the Coromaldi painting technique, the exhibition context, the history of the paintings and the figure of the artist himself, an artist soon forgotten after his death but whose value can now finally be recognised.

Hortus conclusus. La Sacra Famiglia lauretana di Lorenzo Lotto

"Hortus conclusus. The Holy Family of Loreto by Lorenzo Lotto. The contribution is an excerpt from Dalla parte di Lorenzo Lotto. Il ciclo lauretano (On the Side of Lorenzo Lotto: The Loreto Cycle), an essay to be completed soon on the pictorial cycle which Lorenzo Lotto (Venice, 1480-Loreto, 1556) ordered in 1555 in the chapter chapel of the church of Santa Maria di Loreto. This is the painter’s last work for a public destination; due to the difficulties in providing a unitary and coherent interpretation, the cycle risks being expunged from Lotto’s catalogue despite the indication made both by Giorgio Vasari in the 1568 edition of the Vite (Lives) and by Carlo Ridolfi in 1648 in Le Meraviglie dell’arte: ovvero Le vite degl’illustri pittori veneti (The Wonders of Art: The Lives of the Illustrious Venetian Painters). Of the seven works making up the cycle, the Holy Family is one of the five painted before 1550, some of which had to be adapted to harmonize their format. The painter intervened on the Holy Family in order to adapt the content of the painting, originally intended for domestic devotion, and make it suitable for the new destination. Keywords: Lorenzo Lotto, Santa Maria di Loreto, Giorgio Vasari, the Holy Family "

Documenting Cultural Heritage in very hostile fruition contexts: the synoptic visualization of Giottesque frescoes by Multispectral and 3D Close-range Imaging

Abstract The paper reports the results obtained from the digital survey of Giottesque frescoes in the Archiepiscopal Palace of Milan. Multispectral Imaging and Image Based Modelling techniques have allowed the study, the high-resolution documentation and the virtual reassembly of the fragmented frescoes: the integration of spectral data with RGB ortho-images and 3D models has supported the interpretation of the pictorial cycle by virtually relocating the fresco fragments and evaluating their consistency from a technical, iconographic and art-historical point of view. The experimental results show that the proposed approach has great potential for the documentation of wall paintings preserved in highly hostile contexts of fruition. Due to its versatility and portability in the field, its sub-millimetric accuracy, and the different outputs that can be generated, Close-Range Digital Photogrammetry has proven to be the ideal tool in case of scattered and difficult-to-access data.

Das Alte Testament und seine bildliche Repräsentanz in byzantinischen Kirchen: Einige grundlegende Überlegungen

In Early Christian and Byzantine pictorial cycles there is nothing like the typological order found in Western churches of Medieval times. Instead the context of OT settings in Byzantine art shows a different relation between OT and NT. It is caracterized by a continuum which makes the OT tradition a very important part that is not surpassed by the NT. Furthermore OT and NT are part of a history that has its telos in the future. This thesis and its implications for Byzantine art is laid out in this paper and has to be validated by further research.

Imago humilis: Humor, Irony, and the Rhetorical Wit of the Sacred in the Arena Chapel, Padua

In 1986, Andrew Ladis identified the extensive visual humor in the Arena Chapel’s pictorial cycle as a testament to the master painter Giotto di Bondone’s legendary wit. Yet scholarship on fourteenth-century devotional and ecclesiastical art still tends to cast “low,” “secular” humor as the antithesis to “high” veneration and theology. This essay challenges this notion by reassessing humor’s purpose in the Arena Chapel. Rather than serving as an indicator of Giotto’s personality alone—a product of nascent Renaissance humanism colored by comic literature—humor played a role in the cycle’s scheme of paradoxical contrasts (oppositio), its presence likely motivated in part by ties to rhetorical traditions favored particularly by Franciscans. Humor and wit were intimately tied to the dynamic of oppositio in the sermo humilis (sermon in a plain or humble style), a genre preached daily and considered most appropriate for conveying the irony of the Christian God’s Incarnation, the focus of Giotto’s pictorial program.

The Principle of Typological Parallelism of Testaments in Christian Iconography: on the Problem of Terminology

The object of research in this article is the terminological apparatus that is being formed in the foreign and russian historiographical tradition, describing concepts related to the principle of typological parallelism of Covenants in Christian iconography. This principle is based on the doctrine of "Reconciliation of Testaments" (considering Old Testament events as prototypes of New Testament history) and underlies the organization of plots already in a number of monuments of early Christian art. In the era of the High Middle Ages, this principle became one of the fundamental in the iconography of monuments of painting, sculpture and decorative and applied art. The subject of the study was the process of adding up the generally accepted terminology in studies devoted to the iconographic technique in question. The article also raises the problem of correlation between terms used in foreign and domestic historiography. Based on the analysis of the addition of the terminological apparatus in research on Christian iconography, the article concludes that there is no unified system of terms in modern science, especially in the domestic one, to describe the extremely important and widespread phenomenon of Christian iconography – the reflection in the pictorial cycles of the principle of "Reconciliation of Covenants". Tracing the etymology of the concepts used, the author of the article clearly demonstrates the existing contradictions in the terms "type", "antithype" and "antithype", and also analyzes the difficulties that arise when translating these concepts into Russian. Based on this research, it becomes possible to offer the most correct and unambiguously interpreted terms. The relevance of the study is explained by the absence in the Russian research literature of a system of terms for the iconographic principle under consideration, as well as individual Old Testament subjects-prototypes and their New Testament analogies.

A Video Mapping Performance as an Innovative Tool to Bring to Life and Narrate a Pictorial Cycle

Video mapping is defined as a particular form of augmented reality capable of transforming any surface, flat or irregular, into a dynamic surface capable of enriching human sensory perception. Video mapping projections can become a medium to link the historical facts and the location by means of the valorisation of the monument and narration of its story through images and sounds. This paper aims to show how video mapping, beyond its purely technological aspect, can be linked to cultural heritage and represents a tool capable of becoming a mediator of culture, tradition, and legends. It is used to pass on and tell the legend of the foundation of the present Cathedral of Maria Santissima della Madia in Monopoli through the animation of the pictorial cycle by Nicolò Maria Signorile preserved in the church.

The “Sant’Angelo in Criptis” Cave Church in Santeramo in Colle (Apulia, South Italy): A Multidisciplinary Study for the Evaluation of Conservation State and Stability Assessment

Sant’Angelo in Criptis (Santeramo in Puglia, South Italy) is a karst cave located in the Alta Murgia National Park (aspiring geopark), presently degraded, but with signs of intense past visiting activity for worship, as testified by the beautiful wall paintings and the large number of inscriptions and engravings on the cave walls. With the aim to permit the desirable restoration and the following fruition of this ancient geo-cultural heritage, a multidisciplinary investigation of the cave was carried out in this study. The 3D cave model permitted a detailed map of the area and highlighted that the cave vault, although very regular, somewhere presents chimneys that develop upwards, indicating areas where the rock thickness is now very small. The stability analysis indicates that presently, the cave does not show remarkable signs of instability, but block failures, toppling and roof collapse are possible. Archaeometry investigations confirmed the past importance of this holy site, as testified by the overlapping in the paintings of three different pictorial cycles and the use of precious pigments, thus confirming the necessity of preservation through a conservation management strategy for a full future fruition of the cave.

“HISTORIE DIPINTE” E “IMMAGINI PARLATE” SAN CARLO BORROMEO NEGLI AFFRESCHI DI BIASCA

The ancient church of Saint Peter in Biasca, in Canton of Ticino, preserves a pictorial cycle on the Life of St. Charles Borromeo, commissioned in 1620 by the parish priest Giovanni Basso to the painter Alessandro Gorla from Bellinzona. The twelve panels, complete with captions, which depict in an ideal order and with a lively language some episodes in the life of the Saint, can be considered an unicum, a direct reference to the presence of St. Charles in the Three Ambrosian Valleys, and a testimony of his reforming pastoral action, implemented according to the resolutions of the Council of Trent also thanks to the charismatic figure of Basso.

Le tavole dipinte di casa Romei: alcune note per una possibile interpretazione iconografica

The present paper examines Giovanni Romei’s mansion in the Ferrara of the XIV century and sets out to express some hypotheses about the interpretation of the pictorial cycle which decorated the wooden partitions walls of the so-called Studiolo di Casa Romei, where allegorical representations drawn from the geographical area appear. This iconography isn’t proper to the rooms dedicated to studies and the archive research carried out so far haven’t provided certain answers on the function of the aforementioned room, giving rise to further research.

Narrative strategies at the crossroads of Byzantine and western visual traditions. The pictorial cycle of St. Catherine of Alexandria in Darlos, Transylvania

Made by Byzantine painters for Catholic patrons, the fresco cycle of St. Catherine of Alexandria in Darlos stands apart from other late-medieval cycles. In terms of patronage, style, and iconography, this pictorial cycle raises questions of cultural exchange between Byzantium and the West, illustrating how female holiness was differently articulated in these areas. While Catherine?s Western cycles emphasize her wisdom and eloquence, the imagery in Darlos honors instead her constancy in suffering and ability to recover after multiple tortures. Retaining the most essential elements of background and figures, the Darlos cycle relies on the concise yet dynamic iconography of painted menologia.

A new aesthetic proposal for “Men at arms” by Donato Bramante

During the refurbishing of the “Lombard Art of the XV-XVI century” department at the Pinacoteca di Brera (Milan), concluded in 2018, the Conservation and Restoration Center “La Venaria Reale” had the opportunity to study and restore the famous pictorial cycle of Men at Arms by Donato Bramante (1488-89). The paper aims to present the methodological approach and the results obtained with the last conservation treatment, aimed at a new and updated aesthetic proposal for the pictorial cycle. The main objective was to re-establish the unity of the images, compromised by the numerous lacunae left visible by previous treatments, respecting at the same time the material features of the paintings and the evidence of their particular conservative history.The interdisciplinary work group* has reconstructed the complex conservative history of the detached wall paintings, thanks to the technical observation of the surfaces and the scientific characterization of the constituent materials. The results were compared with the available historical documentation, in particular with historical photographs. The project allowed us to retrace the profound changes that the concept of pictorial integration has encountered over time, from the beginning of the twentieth century to the present day. The conservation treatment also originated from the need of the Pinacoteca di Brera to update the aesthetic presentation of the works, facilitating the reading of the fragmented images due to numerous lacunae. d images due to numerous lacunae.