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[split] VM color palette - Printable Version

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[split] VM color palette - -JKP- - 23-05-2020

The VMS has a very limited palette. The pigments are:
  • green (this has been mixed with varying amounts of amber or blue to create different shades of green, it's the one VMS color that is frequently mixed)
  • brown (this appears to be the same mix as the gall ink but in some places looks like it might have been watered slightly to create a paler color)
  • blue (one that appears difficult to work with and in places looks like it wasn't ground long enough to make it smooth).
  • amber (this is a pale, washed-out color that was sometimes mixed with green)
  • true red (this is used sparingly and was generally a more expensive and difficult pigment to obtain)
  • white (a few places look like there might be white, perhaps white lead, and a few places where it might have been mixed with other colors, but it is very sparse and hard to see)
There are numerous places with brick red (not quite a true red), and some true red. It's difficult to tell if the true red has been mixed with brown or if there is another more brownish-red (a less expensive pigment) that has been mixed with brown to create the brick-red. It would be difficult to determine this without pigment analysis. Red lead could be treated with nitric acid to produce a brick red, but you can't really tell this from digital scans. It needs to be studied directly from the manuscript.

So...

The predominant pigments are 1) brown (probably the same as the gall ink), 2) green, 3) either brick-red or brown mixed with true red, and 4) blue.
The secondary pigments are 1) amber, 2) true red, and 3) white (very rare).

This is not a broad palette. Many manuscripts have more colors available (and thus also more opportunities to mix colors).




Colors that are conspicuously absent

I haven't noticed any significant mixing of red with blue to create purple, or red with white to create pink. Natural pigments sometimes had unpleasant chemical reactions that resulted in muddy mixes. Sometimes they resisted mixing altogether. Modern paints are designed to mix readily and include a huge variety of pre-mixed colors, so it's hard to appreciate how difficult it was to work with medieval pigments (or how to combine them).


True red was expensive, a bit of a luxury, just as true saffron for cooking was a luxury.

Red lead was also used to create an orange shade that was very popular in the early medieval period (along with green), but I don't see it in the VMS.

RE: More about VMs hats - -JKP- - 23-05-2020

I looked through my files to see if I could find a clear example of a palette that differs substantially from the VMS but is NOT from a luxury manuscript (I tried to avoid the ones with very fine pigments and many colors because the VMS is obviously not a luxury manuscript).

This one illustrates liberal use of some of colors we don't see in the VMS, like purple, pink, orange (not quite a true orange, more of a red-orange), and gold. There is also much more white than is seen in the VMS:

   

RE: More about VMs hats - Koen G - 23-05-2020

JKP, where do you see true red? In the large plants section, most I was able to find was some reddish rusty brown.

RE: More about VMs hats - -JKP- - 23-05-2020

(23-05-2020, 08:35 AM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
JKP, where do you see true red? In the large plants section, most I was able to find was some reddish rusty brown.


Well this turned out to be harder than I expected. Assuming the color fidelity from scan to scan is true (which it might not be), there's almost no true red. When you zoom out, it tends to look redder if it's a small area of red.

Also, now that I've really looked at it, I'm almost certain that it is a continuum (that the red and brown have been mixed or that the reddish-brown is from different mixtures and some are redder than others but were CHOSEN for their shades). I tend to think they have been mixed in much the same way as the greens have been (obviously) mixed.

I did this very quickly... there might be mistakes, and there is much less red than I expected. Some folios, especially the small-plant folios, have numerous shades of brick.

This looks like it breaks into categories, but it really is a continuum of shades (many shades). About a third of them could easily have fit into categories in between these:

red-brick, but closer to true red You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. f21v (?) You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (in between brick and true red) You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. f53v (?) You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. f81r (?) You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (?) You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (?) You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (?) You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. f89r You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (?)

brick red and some brick red that is closer to true red  f3r [font=Arial][font=Arial]f4r   [/font]f6r You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. f10r You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (stem/roots) You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. f14v (brick red) You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. f16r You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (closer to true red than most of the brick shades) You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. f18r You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. f20r You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (dark brick red) You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (flowers) f28r  You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. f35r You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. f40v You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. f44r You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. f46v (dark) You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. f50r (stalk, upper root) You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. f53r You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. f55r You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. f67r You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. f71r You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. f72r   You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. f73v You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. f73v You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. f75v You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. f78r You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. f79r You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. f80r You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. f81v You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. f82v You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. f83v You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. f88r You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. f89r f95v1 You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. f99r You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. f100v f101r2 f102r1 f102r2 f101v2 f102v1 You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. f103v You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. f104v to 116r[/font]

orangy red? or faded red? or red wash?  f7r  You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. f17r You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (stalk) You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. f47v You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. f78r You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. f88v f89r2 You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. f99v f101r

brick red that leans more toward brown than red You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (roots) You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. f22r You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. f23v You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. f34r You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. f52r You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. f65r You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. f88v f89r2 f89v2 f95v2 You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. f99v You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. 102r1 102r2 f101v2 f102v1 f102v2

The only one that comes close to true red is You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. but maybe it only looks that way because the scan is a little brighter.


The painters may have had some red pigment to create the redder mixtures of reddish-brick shades or perhaps they had a batch of ochre that was particularly red and added in some vermillion.


Interestingly... there are no reddish shades anywhere in Quire 14 (rosettes section).

RE: [split] VM color palette - Koen G - 23-05-2020

I did a large scale study of the different colors used in the herbal section a few years ago: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

I quickly noticed that our eyes and brains are bad at really seeing colors. We will automatically adjust for context. Think of those optical illusions where two squares that appear different are actually the same color. And we will also adjust for expectations. If a berry has been colored a rusty brown, we might remember it as true red.

So what I did was sample all colors in photoshop, averaging an as large as possible sample area.

In the spreadsheet, the color I called "rust" (using an automatic color naming tool) is closest to true red. It is almost exclusive to herbal A (35 occurrences) with only one attestation in herbal B.

If you isolate the colors, you see that they are all browns, even f5v:

   

One possibility is that they actually had no way of making red, so tried to approach it by thinly applying rusty brown. In You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. you can see that the color is much more brown where the paint is thicker (i.e. more saturated).

RE: [split] VM color palette - -JKP- - 23-05-2020

Color is extremely perception dependent. Just putting a different color beside a swatch can fool the brain into thinking its something else. Completely interpretive.

Doing it the way you did it is a good idea.


The main thing I learned from going through the manuscript is that there are a lot of shades of brick red (and a bit of orangy red).

Also, if it was watered down it looked quite a bit different unless it was zoomed in really close and then it looked less so.

RE: [split] VM color palette - -JKP- - 23-05-2020

I got curious about the difference between the Beinecke site and the Voyager site (using the same sample points in the same tab in the same browser window). Even here there is a difference:

   

RE: [split] VM color palette - R. Sale - 23-05-2020

What about red painted lips on various nymphs? Where does that fit into the spectrum?

RE: [split] VM color palette - -JKP- - 23-05-2020

(23-05-2020, 04:22 PM)R. Sale Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.What about red painted lips on various nymphs? Where does that fit into the spectrum?

I've always assumed those were a true red but last night when I zoomed in close, I discovered this is an illusion. The smaller areas tend to look redder for perceptual reasons. So in my summation in Post #4, I ended up with no true red, only a few of the brick reds that were closer to true red than the others.

It also depends which colors are nearby. The brick red with a lot of light color around it appears redder, and faces are lighter than pools and plants.


There is, however, a huge variety of brick colors, all the way from almost-red to brown. What I can't tell is if this is a natural variation in the pigment or if it has been very carefully mixed into many shades. The green has obviously been mixed, but the brick color is perhaps selected from natural variations. I'm more familiar with modern pigments, I haven't studied the chemistry of medieval pigments, so I can't make any technical guesses about how they got so many shades of brick. It's possible it's a pigment that's easily varied by adding solvents but that is only a guess and only one out of several possibillities.

RE: [split] VM color palette - Koen G - 23-05-2020

That's also what I thought, as far as we can see on the scans, there is no true red. 
As you showed already, illumination does play a role. But I assume/hope that the more modern Beinecke scans are more true to color?
Although people have noted that the colors of the MS look more vibrant in person, I still think the pigment used always had a brownish component.