Pieta from Lienz, Eastern Tyrol

The tradition of polychrome stone sculpture goes back to the cycladic idols, but it is only since the Middle Ages that we are able to work out parallels between the polychromy of stone and wooden statues 2. The form and technique of polychromy of wooden statues of the International Style are usually much more substantial than those on stone figures, basically, however, we are dealing with the same materials and intentions. Technical differences can be found, in the first place, in the differing preparation of the support. Wooden statues are in places covered with canvas and a thick white ground. On stone statues only the carnation is underlaid, otherwise the absorbtive capacity of the stone is often regulated by impregnation of the stone surface with a bonding agent so that the sculptural finesse (textile structure, hair) should be visible to a maximum extent. We can, unfortunately, compare the typical construction of the polychromy of stone sculpture – natural or cast – only by colour analyses on a microscopic scale, for only now did it become possible to uncover and conserve some well-preserved first and second layers of polychromy on stone figures (the Beautiful Madonnas of Altenmarkt and Krumlov, the Pieta s of Lienz and Leoben-Goss). The Beautiful Madonnas of the Franciscan church in Salzburg, Grossgmain, Radstadt and the Piea s of Altenmarkt, all of artificial stone, show only little parts or fragments left of the first and second layer of the polychromy. The Madonnas of Radstadt and Bad Aussee have only mixed layers of recent origin covering the damaged original polychromy of artificial stone. The Madonna of Judenburghas new paint »in the style around 1400«.

In other words, is there such a thing as a »style of polychromy around 1400«? A number of objects under investigation almost seem to prove this, for in comparison with 14th century polychromy 3 a new common type arose: light pink carnations of the Madonna and Child, pallid paleness of Christ's body, in modelling new finesse in the lively depiction of expressive details (eyes, mouth, fingers). Thus we can find Mary with eyes red from weeping (the Pieta of Wopfing), three painted tears at the lower edge of the eyelid (the Pieta s of Leoben-Goss, Lienz and Garsten), the pupils visibly turned in the direction of the Child (the Pieta of Lienz, the Madonna of the Hofburg chapel in Vienna) sensually full dark-red lips (the Madonna of Grossgmain). On the carnation painted ends of the locks of golden hair and nails with a light-coloured crescent and dark »mourning edges« (the Madonnas of Altenmarkt and Krumlov).

Traces of blood on the Pieta s run across Christ's dead body in expressively stylized streams while they form large regular drops on the Mother's veil. The relationships between suffering and sympathy is thus brought closer. The drops on Mary's veil show that they oozed earlier onto her head when sitting below the Cross, before He was taken down. The original assumed relationship of placing group pieta s in front of an empty Cross in the background can be found only on a few, unfortunately, renovated (Kirchberg am Wechsel) or unresearched (Klosterneuburg, St. Martin's) examples.

Madonna, Slasburg – Franciscan church, ca. 1410, detail

Mary's white robe belongs to the canon of polychromy of the Beautiful Madonnas, the Pietas and the Sitting Mary with a Group of children and is in visible contrast to the golden, purple and blue colour scheme of the preceding century. On a thin ground (mostly of light red minium in the case of figures of artificial stone) there lies lead white as the purest white colour of the period. It is bonded with tempera and less frequently consisting only of chalk, whose use as intentional surface is difficult to define. After that time white became the dominant manner of polychromy by the new use of polished white in the Late Renaissance and the Baroque period 4. On the Madonna of Seitenstetten the white outer side of the cloak has a stylized pattern (»jewels«), the same is true of figures on the Wiener Neustadt altarpiece of 1447 in St. Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna. The cloak lining optically important in view of the rich play of folds, is always dull blue on a grey or reddish undercoat. Analytically, azure blue is dominant, only one example shows lapis lazuli (Lienz) and one has a lower layer of smalt (Grossgmain), while smalt appears generally only as the second layer of polychromy (roughly from the end of the 16th century) 5.

Madonna of Český Krumlov, ca. 1400

Remnants of stylized gold or red patterns are found on the blue linings of the Madonna of Altenmarkt and the Pieta of Leoben-Goss. A substantial element of the style of polychromy on the robes of the Beautiful Madonnas, whereby the sumptuous play of the edges of the material is additionally stressed, is the broad golden hem and its red and white painted lines as a link between the outside and the lining. Since the hems are often broken off, it is possible to show the composition of these polychromy motives only on paper reconstructions (e.g. the Maddona of Krumlov, the Altenmarkt Madonna).

Almost everywhere the buckles and crowns are lost, which are bearers of basic significance on the Beautiful Madonnas. Only the Altenmarkt Madonna is still adorned with a stone agraffe of milky green stone, whose determination has, unfortunately, so far been overlooked 6. Nine slits on the Madonna of Seitenstetten and seven symmetrically placed holes on the Krumlov Madonna point to the one-time fitting of a stone crown. On the Seitenstetten figure alone the attachments for the points of the crown have survived. The tall, entirely gilded crowns have survived complete on the carved Wiener Neustadt altarpiece in St. Stephen's. A number of Pietas show openings and remnants of attached wooden thorns from Christ's Crown of Thorns.

The type of Christ on the Cross (e.g. Klosterneuburg Weidling), the Man of Sorrows (e.g. St. Michael's in Vienna) and Christ Resurrected (e.g. St. Peter's am Wechsel) still, as in the 14th century, have in pastiglia technique expressively stylized traces of blood laid out as on the Pietas. Mention should be made of a technique of polychromy on reliefs and wooden statues of the early 15th century, where a  monochrome ground and black underpaint of gilding give a cold, greenish shade of gold (e.g. the Beautiful Madonna of Altenmarkt). The homogenous grey stage may also represent the end of the sculpor's work, at which stage the painter of the polychromy laid down a thin white coat (cp. the grisaille of the 15th century and the »dead-colour« stage of the 16th century) 7.

The Significance and Cultural Function of Polychromy c. 1400
The role of polychromy as an artistic medium for heightening the emotional effect and identifying cult and votive statues must be assessed very highly. The expression of pain and suffering is worked in the polychromy of 14th century pictures of the Cross, and the Pieta s (colour of the corpse, plastic traces and streams of blood, the application of real material such as rope and thorns). Parallel to this expressive trend of polychromy and contemporary with the development of mysticism in the first half of the 14th century there ran an ideal current with differentiated golden, blue or purple garments with rich patterns and decorative hems in painted form with applique tin foil, pastiglia and stamped ornaments or the application of precious stones. Important for polychromy around 1400 is a far-reaching harmonization of media of style and expression, which is valid for all types of figures. The mutual harmony of all finesse of form and polychromy is so balanced on major works that it cannot be excelled. It plays a role in artistic effect (e.g. the ground layer is omitted when it is a matter of fine chasing of hair or engraving of the veil). »Beauty« as perfection and undisturbed harmony is achieved also in the concrete execution.

The ideal character of this beauty rests basically, as J. Neuhardt showed, in the Virgin's devoutness of »devotio moderna« 8. Attention should be drawn to the stress on the clasps of the cloak of the Beautiful Madonnas as special jewels of the Bride of Christ with their precious stones, whose symbolism needs to be explained in the case of the Altenmarkt Madonna 9. In time the closest and most explicit source for the white cloak of the Mother of God and her serene beauty free of pain even in motherhood is provided in the vision of Brigitta of Sweden, who was proclaimed a saint in 1391. In her vision of the Birth of Christ in Bethlehem the pregnant Mary is »garbed in a white cloak and thin dress« and her »golden hair falls on her shoulders«. She looks with divine rapture at her son, »from whom an indescribable wreath of rays arose that cannot be compared even to the Sun 10«. The brilliance of this golden gloriola and Mary's white dress can be seen on the left wing of the predella of the altar from Wiener Neustadt of the year 1447 in Vienna Cathedral, while on other scenes, ranging from the Annunciation to the Crucifixion, Mary is dressed in blue.

  CATALOGUE OF SCULPTURES EXAMINED
Altenmarkt, Salzburg, parish church

a) BEAUTIFUL MADONNA 11

Calcareous limestone, 88.5 x 35 x 30 cm. According to a report of 1605 the statue was broken into 40 pieces. The crown is missing, the hem is partly reworked. The stone is very finely worked to walls to 2 mm in thickness, the surface is smooth apart from the veil (transverse grooves with twelve to thirteen incisions per cm). During the last restoration in 1977 – 1978 26 fragments were newly glued and the polychromy was for the first time methodically uncovered to the best preserved layer. Now carnations are all original (apart from the second layer on the head of the Child), so is the golden hem with accompanying white lines on the front and blue lines on the reverse and the lining of the cloak (mat azurite blue with scattered motive of an eagle in gold), further a gilded clasp, hair and also a green plinth. The second layer of polychromy (assumed to have been carried out in 1605) was left in view of the unclear condition of preservation of the lower layers on the veil and red dress and its painted pattern, on the head of the Child and the mat white (also original) cloak. A thin chalk ground lies only below the gilding of the clasp, die hem of the cloak and below the remnants of the gilding of the crown. The gilded clasps are underlaid with black pigment. The gilded metal (pewter?) and the round, milky green precious stone of the clasp have not been determined.

b) PIETA
Reddish artificial stone, 80 x 90 x 30 cm. Gypsum with traces of strontium sulphate from the deposit and 0.02 – 0.05 mm grains of quartz, dolomite, mica and iron oxide. The group statue is hollow on the reverse. Small fragments of the original polychromy were uncovered in 1978 under nine to ten layers of crude overpainting: a unified chalk base of two layers (the upper layer richer in bonding agent, which simultaneously served as polychromy of the right side of the cloak, further azurite blue on the lining of the cloak, gold foil on the hem.

  Bad Aussee, Styrie, parish church – BEAUTIFUL MADONNA
Reddish artificial stone, 119 x 49 x 29 cm. The material is gypsum, dyed with red ochre. The reverse side is worked at a later stage. Seven to eight demonstrable layers of polychromy are mutually interpenetrated. The surface is scratched (e.g. the grooving of the veil is almost lost) so that no historical phase can be uncovered. No fewer than four layers of azurite on the back of the cloak give an idea that the polychromy was renewed in the 15th and 16th century. The now prevailing blue of cobalt smalt on the outer side of the cloak is, in any case, usual only from the 17th century (e.g. as a second layer of polychromy on the Madonna of Altenmarkt after it was broken in 1605). It was possible to determine as original polychromy the pink flesh colours of fine oil white and vermilion on a brownish insulation layer of bonding (but widiout ground) and also the hair j widi oil gilding on a red minium base, which appears also under the red dress. A few weak traces permit the conclusion that the right side of the cloak was white (with a gold pattern?).

  Formerly Berlin, Altes Museum, inv. no. 2743 – THE PIETA OF BADEN, Lower Austria
Fine calcareous limestone with micro-fossils (grain 0.05 mm) and siliceous sand (0.01 – 0.05 mm grain) with silicate bonding agent, trace elements of iron, titanium and rare phosphate earth. In grain and structure of material the stone is very similar to the Madonna of Altenmarkt and the Pieta of Garsten.

  Bruck an der Mur, Styria, town parish church – PIETA
Sample from the hollow reverse side: pure, very fine limestone with microfossils, poured into a lime bonding agent. The present polychromy is a conglomerate of a later period, more precise research has not yet been possible.

  Enns, Upper Austria, parish church of St. Lawrence – PIETA
Grey fired terracotta, 83 x 90 x 40 cm. The analysis of the material showed some two thirds earthy clay, one third silicates, with the grey colouring probably attributable to reduced firing. The group is hollow inside, including the heads, modelled with clear marks of the spatulal, the matter contains numerous bubbles. Basically it is possible to describe the making as freely modelled terracotta. Smaller loss of form was left, only the missing edges of the plinth were added. Below six thick oil overpaintings are only traces of the original polychromy (pale pink carnation, light brown beard, green crown of thorns, white veil widh a golden edge, white loin cloth, blue inside of the cloak). The best parts of surviving later polychromy with a blue cloak and red lining were left.

  Garsten, Upper Austria, former Benedic tine Church – PIETA in the Losensteiner chapel
Sample of the material from the reverse side of the plinth: fine lime fossils with silicate grain (quartz, mica) penetrated widi a silicate bonding agent (also cavities of fossils). The composition of the stone has the same structure and same traces of rare earths as the Madonna of Altenmarkt and the Pieta of Baden.

  Grossgmain, Salzburg, parish church – BEAUTIFUL MADONNA
Reddish artificial stone, 150 x 50 x 45 cm. Of the original polychromy the carnation is well preserved (eyes of the Madonna, parts of the eyes of the Child are retouched) as is the gilding of the hair and crown. The brownish-green lower layer of the plinth has remnants of dating »1 X«. The polychromy of the cloak is lost. On the right side there are only remnants of smalt blue, which is darkened as a result of oil overpainting. Additional micro-analysis of traces of the polychromy was not possible to a sufficient extent during the restoration in 1964/1965. The finding of a layer of gilding on the right side of the cloak and a layer of smalt on the inside concurs historically with the inclusion in a Baroque altar in 1739. In no case can this find of a golden cloak be explained as a certain exception from the canon of white colour of the Beautiful Madonnas, for Baroque gilding could make use of the original chalk polychromy as a ground. The same problem applies to the Madonna of Třeboň, restored by Věra Frömlová in 1974 – 1976, when a golden cloak with added enrichment of lustrous colour ornamentation on the veil and hems was uncovered.

  Kreuzenstein, Lower Austria, castle – PIETA
Calcareous limestone, 64 x 70 x 35 cm. The statue is fully plastic, only the throne is hollow on the lower part. The remnants of the original polychromy on the unified chalk ground show in Mary's flesh colour, painted tears, a veil with painted traces of blood, a white outer side of the cloak, and mat blue inside with a golden hem some two centimetres wide, the tracery of the throne with remnants of red and grey.

Madonna from Altenmarkt (ca. 1393) after restoration

  Leoben, Styria, Hackl Collection – PIETA from the former Benedictine Convent of Goess
Limestone, 81 x 76 x 30 cm. The figure is fully plastic, made of pure limestone which contains a maximum of one per cent of a silicate admixture and is relatively porous (density 2.34 g.cm 3). Christ shows first, the Virgin second (Late Gothic) polychromy.

  Lienz, Eastern Tyrol, town parish church of St. Andrew – PIETA
Limestone, 84 x 95 x 36 cm. Pure calcite. The group was broken into three pieces, some part are therefore added. Complete original polychromy on a white chalk ground with cold pink carnation of lead white and vermilion with a  white veil with traces of blood made of red lake. The outside of the cloak is made only (?) of the white chalk ground, the inside of coarse lapis lazuli (natural ultramarine) on an underpainting of red ochre. The gold foil of the hems is placed on yellow bole.

  Matrei in Eastern Tyrol, church of St. Nicholas
– ST. ALBAN on the organ empora, c. 1430 – 1440
Artificial stone, height c. 80 cm. The statue is composed of gypsum with silicates (grain 0.1 mm) and an admixture of charcoal and reddish oxide of iron. (The admixture may be intentional of an impurity?) The original polychromy rests on a light orange layer of minium and lead white, the dress is vermilion red.

  Radstadt, Salzburg, Capuchin church
–BEAUTIFUL MADONNA
Artificial stone, 135 x 45 x 34. Earlier additions to crown, chin, nose of the Madonna and right arm, right leg and big toe of the left foot of the Child were improved during the last restoration and the posture of the head was corrected. After the removal of up to seven oil overpaintings remnants of paint were discovered and conserved: pale pink carnation, outside of cloak mat white, inside mat blue, red dress. Analysis of the material was not possible.

  Salzburg, Franciscan church
– BEAUTIFUL MADONNA
Artificial stone, 109 x 44 x 30 cm. Gypsum (with strontium sulphate) and red quartz grain 0.04 – 0.12 mm (Fe, Si, K, Ca). After the removal of at least five layers of overpainting during a radical restoration around 1940 only fragments of the original carnation with an orange minium underpainting remained. The pupils are greatly retouched but the oil gilding of the hair and hems is more fully preserved. The outer side of the cloak originally had a thin layer of lead white bonded with dull tempera on a chalk base and as a second layer of polychromy dark red lake, faded fragments of which penetrated into the original white polychromy to such an extent that from a distance a mistaken impression of the original red polychromy arises. The lining of the cloak was originally mat azurite blue on an underpainting of caput mortuum with a later layer of blue smalt above it. The golden hems of the original polychromy are decorated as usual with white lines on the outside, blue ones on the inside. The shoes were originally black, the dress, white. The border between the dress and the blue cloak lining is not carved but indicated in colour.

  Seitenstetten, Lower Austria, Benedictine monastery church – BEAUTIFUL MADONNA, c. 1440, now in the Lady (Knights) chapel
The little known statue shows so many characteristic features of the Beautiful Madonnas since its most recent restoration that its inclusion in this group should be suggested.

Veškeré snímky ke studii M. Kollera / all photos for this study: Bundesdenkmalamt, Wien

Grey-green quartz sandstone, 104 x 40 x 36 cm. Carved in the round. The remnants of the original polychromy, which after the last systematic uncovering amount to roughly twenty to thirty per cent, show this composition: a thin chalk ground coloured with lead white and orange minium, cold pink carnations of lead white and vermilion, a pure lead white outside of the cloak, azurite blue on ferric red (?) on the inside. The white cloak was adorned at a distance of seven to twelve centimetres with a pattern resembling jewels, some five centimetres in size: A gilded inner square lies in a purple or green frame and is surrounded on all sides by rays of the same colour. Nine cavities are set symmetrically horizontally in the ring of the crown, each five to two millimetres in diameter, decreasing towards the back. Like the holes in the clasp they are filled with sticky black material (pitch?), which held the lost jewels. They might have lain, to »beautify« them, on foil of precious metal, as was customary in the work of goldsmiths.

  Vienna, Kusthistorisches Museum, Kunstkammer – THE BEAUTIFUL MADONNA OF KRUMLOV
Jemný hlinitý pískovec, vázaný vápnem, 110 x 45 x 35 cm, plná plastika. Na postavě jsou patrné ztráty formy, avšak žádné doplňky.

Fine clayey sandstone bonded with lime, 110 x 45 x 35 cm, carved in the round. Certain parts are missing on the figure, no later additions. The mineral content of the stone varies from 55 to 60 % quartz, 15 to 20 % calcite, 5 % kaolinite and 10 to 15 % gypsum. Since inside the stone are no pyrite admixtures and no gypsum the changes of the surface by the transformation of calcite to gypsum must be attributed to the pollution of the air with sulphuric acid. This process is concentrated in in the upper millimetre of the surface. The original polychromy on the very fine and smooth surface of the stone is underlaid with minium red only on the area of the carnation, otherwise the surface is only lightly impregnated. The pale pink flesh paint with a light gloss is composed mainly of lead white with pink modelling applied in the second layer which has only survived in parts. The remnants of the polychromy of the outside of the cloak are composed of a fine grained mixture of silicate and chalk bonded with reduced tempera (weak fluorescence, grain 0.03 – 0.05 mm). The golden hem is made with gold leaf in oil technique and is 2 cm in width with a 5 mm white stripe. The mat blue inside of the cloak is composed of azurite without any underpainting and has a similar golden edge of lesser width (0.5 cm) with an accompanying blue stripe. The gilding of the hair is placed directly on the stone with the aid of a siccative oil (with lead white and a little minium). The veil, by contrast to the outside of the cloak, is made of lead white (greasier tempera as in the carnation), of which only traces remain. A metal comb one centimetre in width was used as tool for grooving at the density, of one millimetre, as proved by marks where it was applied at the reverse side. White polychromy was observed on the dress but was not analyzed. There are no traces of polychromy on the plinth left.

On the theme see also:
Věra Frömlová: Polychromy in Stone Statues at the Beautiful Style period. Circle of the Master of the Krumlov Madonna, in: TECHNOLOGIA ARTIS 1/1990, pp. 85 – 88.

  St Georgenberg-Fiecht, Tyrol, Benedictine – church BEAUTIFUL PIETA, limewood 86 x 64 x 30 cm, reverse hollowed
A written document indicates that this group was made by a local sculptor and hung up in the church without polychromy on »laetare« Sunday (December) of the year 1415. It was given only some years later to the painter Ulrich Seltsam from Hall in Tyrol for painting and gilding.
From the recent examination and difficult restoration of this first, now well-presented polychromy, the following elements may be noted here. Chalk-glue priming with glossy fleshpaint of leadwhite with ochre and vermilion, mat gilding of the Virgin's hair, dark-brown hair, beard, eyebrows and lashes for Christ, mat white cloak of lead white on chalk ground with gilded edge and mat blue reverse made with azurite. Also white head-cloth with fine horizontal scrapings to imitate fabric structure and dark red dots of blood on the Mother's head and black shoes, greenish plinth and brown painted wood-imitation of the throne complete the chromatic composition.

all photos for this study: Bundesdenkmalamt, Wien

1. Revised edition, based on:
M. Koller: Fassungstechniken und -stile um 1400 (Bildhauer und Maler – Technologische Beobachtungen zur Werkstattpraxis um 1400 anhand aktueller Restaurierungen), in: Kunsthistorisches Jahrbuch Graz XXIV (1990) – Sonderdruck »Internationale Gotik in Mitteleuropa«, p. 140.

2. T. Brachert – F. Kobler: Fassung voň Bildwerken, in: Reallexikon zur deutschen Kunstgeschichte, Bd 7, Stuttgart 1984, p. 745 M. Koller: Zurhistorischen Steinpolychromie, in: Restauratorenblätter Bd 3, Wien 1979, p. 120.

3. M. Koller – Giovanna Zehetmaier: Die Madonna der Friesacher Dominikanerkirche und ihre beiden gotischen Fassungen, in: Österreichische Zeitschrift fur Kunst und Denkmalpflege 28, 1974, p. 167.

4. Brachert – Kobler, op. cit. (note 2), p. 782.
M. Koller: Polierweiss – cine Sondertechnik des Barock, in: Restauratorenblätter Bd 2, Wien 1984, p. 114–131.

5. Cp. Reclams Handbuch der kiinstlerischen Techniken, Bd 1, Stuttgart 1981, pp. 37, 320.
M. Koller – Huben Paschinger: Blaue Farben in der Barockkunst Österreichs, in: Festschrift Franz Mairinger, ed. Akademie der bildenden Kunste, Wien 1993.

6. Polished oval gemstone of milky greenish colour, 7-8 mm length (turquoise?). The agraffa is of stone and not metal application, as supposed by Brachert-Kobler, op. cit., p. 802.

7. M. Koller: Studien zur gefassten Skulptur des Mittelalters in Österreich – Der Flilgelaltar im Redemptoristenkloster in Puchheim, OÖ, in: Österreichische Zeitschrift fur Kunst und Denkmalpflege 43, 1989, p. 44.
M. Koller – Giovanna Zehetmaier: Kunsttechnologische Studien zum Znaimer Altar und anderen Werken des fruhen Realismus in Österreich, in: Österreichische Zeitschrift fur Kunst und Denkmalpflege 42, 1987, p. 42. Reclams Handbuch Bd 1 (note 5), p. 304, 362.

8. Johannes Neuhardt: Coram imagine sua. Überlegungen zum geis-tesgeschichtlichen Hintergrund der »Schönen Madonnen«, in: Imagination und Imago, Festschrift fur Kurt Rossacher, Salzburg 1983, p. 235.

9. Hellmuth Bethe: Edelsteine, in: Reallexikon zur deutschen Kunstgeschichte Bd. 4, Stuttgart 1958,
p. 714– 742.

10. Revelationes caelestes seraphicae matris S. Brigittae Suedae…, München 1680, Liber VII, Cap. XXI – Brigitta voň Schweden – Die Offenbarungen, ausgewahlt und eingeleitet von Sven Stôlpe, Frankfurt a. M. 1961, p. 104.

11. Schöne Madonnen 1350 -1450 (Catalogue of the exhibition), Salzburg 1970, No. 15.
M. Koller – G. Zehetmaier: Die Schöne Madonna aus Altenmarkt, in: Die Parler und der Schóne Stil 1350 – 1400. Europaische Kunst unter den Luxemburgem (Catalogue of the exhibition), Köln 1978, Bd 1, p. 408.

  author
doc. Dr. Manfred Koller (Vídeň), AHVT A 042 1