COLOUR. The Art and Science of Illuminated Manuscripts
- Submitting institution
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University of Cambridge
- Unit of assessment
- 32 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
- Output identifier
- 8900
- Type
- M - Exhibition
- Venue(s)
- The Fitzwilliam Museum
- Open access status
- -
- Month of first exhibition
- -
- Year of first exhibition
- 2016
- URL
-
-
- Supplementary information
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-
- Request cross-referral to
- -
- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
- -
- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- Yes
- Number of additional authors
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2
- Research group(s)
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-
- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- "The Colour exhibition is lead output in this multi-component item, which includes a catalogue and digital resource components alongside contextual information enabling the reviewer to visualise the exhibition. The exhibition celebrated the Fitzwilliam’s 2016 bicentenary with a display of 150 illuminated manuscripts. Colour showcased advanced research undertaken during the Cambridge Illuminations and Miniare research projects. Cambridge Illuminations, producing catalogues of the 4,000 illuminated Western manuscripts and incunabula preserved at the Fitzwilliam Museum and the Cambridge Colleges, provided the knowledge base for Miniare. Launched in 2012, with Ricciardi in charge of its scientific aspects, Miniare is a synergy of scientific, stylistic, textual and historical analyses, aiming to answer the following questions: what do the painting materials and techniques used by medieval and Renaissance illuminators tell us not only about the manuscript’s making and history, but also about the people who commissioned them, made them, and owned them through history – and about the cultural and economic contexts these people lived in? It does so by examining statistically significant groups of material.
Colour translated this cross-disciplinary approach into a display showcasing the painting materials, identified by Ricciardi and her team, alongside the manuscripts. The exhibition narrative evolved over four years, following dialogues between Ricciardi and the Fitzwilliam’s curators and conservators. The pigments and paint binders identified, and their methods of application, were considered alongside their aesthetic impact and the multiple meanings of colour appreciated by medieval and Renaissance viewers.
Digital displays allowed visitors to scroll through multiple pages within a manuscript; over-lay images captured with different scientific techniques; discover pigments identified through cutting-edge scientific analyses; follow trade routes that supplied artists' materials across Asia and Europe; and explore relationships between the individuals involved in the manuscripts' production and early use. This research resource (www.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/illuminated) remains one of the project’s more significant legacies."
- Author contribution statement
- -
- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
- -