The Pigments of British Illuminators: A Scientific and Cultural Investigation

英国中世纪时期的彩绘手稿是无价的手工艺品，是非凡的艺术，文学和学术的历史资源。这些手稿如此迷人的特质之一——它们的色彩——也是宝贵的知识来源。从7世纪到15世纪，手稿是英国学习、文化、信仰和艺术的核心。它们的制作方式——首先是在修道院，然后由城市中心的专业人员付费制作——既反映了它们所扮演的角色，也反映了当时和当地可用的材料和技术。由于墨水和颜料是书写和照明的基础，它们有助于确定书籍文化的形式，并在绘画艺术的演变中发挥了形成作用。颜料的种类（有机的、矿物的、炼金术的）和可得性（一些由当地材料制成，另一些依靠长途贸易）不同，其成本差异很大，对如何使用和感知它们具有实际和象征意义。然而，关于它们的可靠信息目前非常有限：在九个世纪里，文士和照明师使用的颜料的起源、性质和使用是英国文化史、书目史、科学史和艺术史上不成文的章节。由于一系列实际困难，对这些颜料有持久价值的工作很少。手稿散布在全国各地的博物馆、大学和大教堂图书馆。暂停从中世纪和文艺复兴时期的手稿中提取样本（这是正确的）：它们很脆弱，而且太珍贵了。任何调查必须以非侵入性、非破坏性的方式进行。完成这项任务的技术早在20世纪80年代就已经存在了，但迄今为止的工作都是零零碎碎的，而且极其有限，因为设备的费用和尺寸，以及保护的限制和高昂的保险费用，这些都阻碍了将珍贵的手稿转移到实验室。然而，新的保护技术和现代的移动仪器标志着设备移动性和结果准确性的逐步变化。目前的设备，大部分是由团队定制的专用工具，在安全性、灵敏度和空间分辨率方面设定了新的基准。目前团队的高性能、可移动资源、联合手稿-化学-物理专业知识，以及在达勒姆大学和剑桥大学资助的试点研究中检查手稿的集体经验，意味着这个迄今为止不切实际的项目现在变得可行了。该项目结合了独特的历史、策展和科学技能，在不损坏中世纪手稿的情况下识别它们的颜料。该团队将在大约200份手稿中广泛而精心挑选的颜料中进行鉴定。这些作品的年代从七世纪到十五世纪不等；它们代表了主要生产中心的横截面；它们包括有一个已知的起源和出处的书，因此，它们可以作为一个时间和地点的基点。从这些信息中，团队（和其他学者）将能够分析：地区和抄写中心之间的文化、社会和经济互动模式；当地材料的使用和贸易的流动；色素变化的原因；照明商创新，克服技术限制；成本，技术和艺术实践的相互作用。主要成果将是对英国彩绘手稿颜料的第一个科学解释，这将是该领域未来研究的基础参考工作；在培训和向博物馆、档案馆、管理员及其观众提供可靠信息方面也有额外的好处。

British illuminated manuscripts from the medieval period are priceless artefacts and are remarkable artistic, literary, and historical sources for scholarship. One of the qualities that makes these manuscripts so captivating - their coloration - is also a precious source of knowledge. Manuscripts were central to learning, culture, belief, and art in Britain from the seventh century to the fifteenth. The ways in which they were made - first in monasteries, then by paid professionals in urban centres - reflect both the roles that they fulfilled, and the materials and technologies that were available at that time and place. As inks and pigments were fundamental to writing and illuminating, they helped to determine the forms of book culture and played a formative role in the evolution of pictorial art. Differing in type (organic, mineral, alchemical) and availability (some made from local materials, others relying on long-distance trade), pigments varied considerably in cost, with practical and symbolic implications for how they were used and perceived. Nevertheless, reliable information about them is currently very limited: the origin, nature, and deployment of the pigments used by scribes and illuminators during the nine centuries in question are unwritten chapters of British cultural, bibliographical, scientific, and artistic history.There is very little work of enduring value on these pigments, owing to a series of practical difficulties. Manuscripts are dispersed around museums and university and cathedral libraries across the country. There is (rightly) a moratorium on taking samples from medieval and renaissance manuscripts: they are fragile, and too valuable. Any investigation must be undertaken by non-invasive, non-destructive means. The technology to accomplish this task has existed since the 1980s, but work to date has been piecemeal and extremely limited because of the expense and size of the equipment, and because of conservation restrictions and high insurance costs that debar the moving of precious manuscripts to laboratories. However, new conservation approved techniques, and modern, mobile instrumentation mark a step-change in equipment mobility, and in accuracy of results. The current equipment, much of which has been developed as bespoke, dedicated tools by the team, has set new benchmarks in security, sensitivity, and spatial resolution. The proven high performance, mobile resources at the disposal of the present team, its joint manuscript-chemistry-physics expertise, and its collective experience in examining manuscripts in pilot studies funded by Durham and Cambridge Universities, mean that this hitherto impracticable project has now become feasible. This project combines unique historical, curatorial, and scientific skillsets to identify the pigments of medieval manuscripts without damaging them.The team will identify the pigments in a broad, carefully chosen selection of ca. 200 manuscripts. These range in date from the seventh to the fifteenth centuries; they represent a cross-section of the major centres of production; and they include books that have a known origin and provenance and that can, therefore, act as a fiducial point for a time and place. From this information, the team (and other scholars) will be able to analyse: patterns of cultural, social, and economic interaction between regions and scribal centres; the use of local materials and the movement of trade; reasons for changes in pigments; innovations by illuminators to overcome technological limitations; the interplay of cost, technology, and artistic practice.The principal outcome will be the first scientific account of the pigments of British illuminated manuscripts as a whole, which will be the fundamental work of reference for future research in the field; with additional benefits in training and providing reliable information to museums, archives, conservators, and their audiences.