Medieval Murals in the Church Attics of Östergötland Technical Art History, Reception History, Value

Medieval Murals in the Church Attics of Östergötland Medieval Murals in the Church Attics of Östergötland

Technical arT hisTory recepTion hisTory Value

ProCeedings of A syMPosiuM held on the 8-9th sePteMber 2015 At norrkÖPing Art MuseuM orgAnised by iCoMos sweden’s sCientifiC working grouP for MurAl PAintings

Medieval Murals in the Church Attics of Östergötland Technical Art History Reception History Value Proceedings of a symposium held on the 8-9th September 2015 at Norrköping Art Museum Organised by ICOMOS Sweden’s Scientific Working Group for Mural Paintings Edited by: Anna Henningsson, Charlotta Hanner Nordstrand, Thomas Warscheid

Medieval Murals in the Church Attics of Östergötland Technical Art History, Reception History, Value Proceedings of a symposium held on the 8-9th September 2015 at Norrköping Art Museum.

Organised by ICOMOS Sweden’s Scientific Working Group for Mural Paintings.

ICOMOS SWEDEN is the Swedish National Committee of the International Council on Monuments and Sites, a worldwide non-governmental organisation for cultural heritage professionals, and the advisory body to UNESCO for the cultural heritage and the World Heritage Convention. National Committees are organisations at the diffrent national level in the countries. The organisation functions as an international network of experts that defines, improves and promotes conservation/preservation principles and standards, as well as education/training, research and practice. An important part is elaborating charters and other international documents. ICOMOS work is based on interdisciplinary cooperation and exchange between many categories and disciplines concerned with cultural heritage.

ICOMOS SWEDEN brings together individual and institutional members and offers a framework for discussion and an exchange of various themes and issues related to the cultural heritage. More information: www.icomos.org and www.icomos.se.

Contact: muralpainting@icomos.se

©2016 Individual contributors All rights reserved the authors. No part of this publication may be transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, or stored in a retrieval system, without prior written consent of the authors.

ISBN 978-91-7739-004-9 PUBLICATION EDITORS: Anna Henningsson, Charlotta Hanner Nordstrand, Thomas Warscheid LANGUAGE EDITOR: Anna Stow GRAPHIC DESIGN: Daniel Åberg FRONT COVER: View of the Skönberga Wall Painting in the Attic of Skönberga Church by Söderköping.

Photographer: Karin Hermerén BACK COVER: Part of Wall Painting in the Attic of Kaga Chuch near Linköping.

Photographer: fokus GmbH Leipzig Full page photos: Page 6: Part of Skönberga Wall Painting (Photographer: fokus GmbH Leipzig).

Page 8: Detail of Fornåsa Wall Painting (Photographer: Anna Henningsson). Page 112: In the Attic of Skönberga Church (Photographer: Henrik Lindblad). Page 117: The Lillkyrka Church (Photographer: Henrik Lindblad).

Content

Foreword................................................................................................... 7 Introduction .............................................................................................9 Historic Church Interiors – Professional and Public Perception....... 12 W. (Bill) Wei

Reflections on Technical Art History for Sacred Art in Swedish Churches..............................................................................22 Anna Henningsson

Accessing the Past in the Present: A Search for Meaning in Polychrome Medieval Art ..................................................................... 34 Kaja Kollandsrud

Depiction of the Last Judgement on the Romanesque Wall Painting in Skönberga: Iconographic Idea, Questions, Explanations. 48 Külli Erikson

Hidden Dimensions of the Medieval Mural Painting in the Attic of Lillkyrka Church ...................................................................... 58 Anna Henningsson

Conservation: Increasing or Decreasing Value...................................76 Karin Hermerén

Iconography, Narrative and Meaning – Situating the Romanesque Mural Paintings in Östergötland .........................................................84 Johan Eriksson

Aron Borelius and the Romanesque Mural Paintings in Churches in Östergötland .....................................................................98 Ann-Charlotte Hertz

Observations and Thoughts on the Symposium...............................108 Henrik Lindblad, Johan Eriksson, Thomas Warscheid

Presentation of Contributors.............................................................. 112

Foreword

The title of this publication was the topic for a symposium in September 2015. The mural painting ensemble, situated in the attics of eight churches in Östergötland, Sweden is since 2007 a topic for art-technological investigations. Investigations are undertaken on pro bono basis and are not part of any assignment from cultural heritage authorities or a part of a research project connected to an institution. This makes the funding that has been granted crucial to enable investigations and sharing of findings. I am incredibly indebted to the Berit Wallenberg Foundation and I would like to emphasise my gratitude to the foundation for being the main contributor to the scientific analyses and orthophotographing as well as the symposium and this publication. I am also very grateful to Claes och Greta Lagerfelt’s Foundation for enabling a printed version of the publication. The financial support from ICOMOS Sweden as well as the encouragement from ICOMOS colleagues was essential for the symposium arrangement.

This symposium connects to a 60 year old project, related to Norrköping Art Museum, its first director Aron Borelius and his research on the mural paintings. I wish to express my appreciation to Norrköping Art Museum for generously hosting of this symposium. The venue of the museum with its interesting art collection created an inspiring atmosphere during the day where over 50 participants met.

This publication of the proceedings would not have been possible without a great generosity in sharing knowledge and thoughts related to the symposium topics. I would like to express my thanks to the authors and editors for their contributions and very nice collaboration.

In addition, individuals, companies and institutions abroad as well as in Sweden have contributed to the ongoing investigation of these mural paintings. I would like to send my deepest thanks to all of you concerned.

Norrköping, August 2016 Anna Henningsson Initiator of the Technical Art History investigations ICOMOS Sweden´s international representative for the Committee on Wall Paintings

8 Introduction

Introduction

“Seeing the world is not about how we see but what we make of what we see.

We put together an understanding of the world that makes sense from what we already know or think we know.”

Nicoholas Mirzoeff, How to See the World (2015)

These are the proceedings of an international symposium, which took place on the 8-9th of September 2015, hosted at Norrköping Art Museum and organised by ICOMOS Sweden’s Scientific Working group for Mural Paintings. The aim of the symposium Medieval Murals in the Church Attics of Östergötland was to share new perspectives of the medieval mural paintings in the church attics of Östergötland. These mural paintings are being investigated through an art-technological approach and international collaborations. During the symposium the retrieved results were discussed in relation to Technical Art History, Reception History and Value.

In the attics of eight different churches in the county of Östergötland in south-east Sweden, an ensemble of medieval mural paintings are present, spanning the time period 1180 to 1330. The wall paintings became hidden at their current location, on the attic walls, during the 15th century when the churches flat wooden ceilings were replaced with brick vaults. The paintings remained hidden in the attics of the churches for centuries and were rediscovered in connection with roof repairs in the beginning of the 20th century. Some of these mural paintings have never been treated by conservation products. The lack of modern conservation products in the medieval materials provides a very rare and exclusive opportunity for art-technological investigations in a Swedish as well as an international context. The absence of a complex conservation history makes them rare sources for retrieving new knowledge about the character and origin of contexts related to medieval art-making. Furthermore, this can give us, in present society insights into cultural transfer through material and medieval workshop practice. Through retrieving these aspects, visual messages and meanings that present-day viewers of this art do not perceive, may again become accessible.

The execution processes of these medieval mural paintings have remained unexplored until 2003 when the first investigation was undertaken on one of these murals. This investigation revealed interesting findings as well as highlighted possible methods for improved documentation and communication of these hidden and not easily accessible wall paintings. Since this initial examination, investigation of the other murals is on-going based on a pro bono project.

Art historical investigation of these paintings was undertaken already in the early of 1950s by Professor Aron Borelius, the first director of Norrköping Art Museum. He initiated, alongside

Introduction 9

this a documentation of the medieval murals in the church attics. Aron Borelius’ art historical research was accompanied by extensive photographing and drawings. The result was published in the 400-page opus Romanesque Mural Paintings in Östergötland and placed the medieval paintings in a stylistic context and as common for the discipline of history of art that time, seeking for international influences as well as the origin of the paintings. The publication introduced the artworks to a broader audience, outside the community of art history scholars. A testimony to this is the names of almost 160 citizens, enterprises and associations who financially supported the publishing of the opus described above in 1956. This fundraising for sharing knowledge of art 60 years ago is significant in the discussion of the value of this art today.

It is a pleasure for us today to have the opportunity to continue sharing new aspects of this ensemble of medieval paintings with the symposium and this publication of the proceedings.

Norrköping, August 2016 Editors Anna Henningsson, Charlotta Hanner Nordstrand, Thomas Warscheid

10 Introduction

Introduction 11

Historic Church Interiors – Professional and Public Perception W. (Bill) Wei

Keywords authenticity, conservation ethics, economic value, history, meaning, originality, perception, value

A b s t r ac t If a decision is made to preserve an historic building, it has apparently been considered valuable enough to save for future generations. When conducting restoration work, special care is then taken to preserve the architectural form and original materials. But the question is, why is one taking such special care to preserve the building, and what is it that makes that building worth preserving and another not? During the symposium, “Medieval murals in the church attics of Östergötland”, interactive lectures and the Socratic method were used to help the participants investigate their own definitions and perceptions of value, and consider how other non-professionals perceive the value of historic buildings and other objects of cultural heritage.

It was shown, using examples of historic churches and religious buildings in Sweden and elsewhere in the world, that the value of cultural heritage is more than just the external physical structures of the buildings. The objects within the buildings, the interiors, the neighborhood and surroundings, the context and history of the use of the building, and the lives of the people who

used them, all play a role in determining the value of historic buildings to the cultures within which they are found.

Introduction For most people, it goes without saying that historical buildings should be preserved for future generations. However, there are often disagreements about what should be saved, and how it should be done. Why should one building be preserved and another not? What is important, the building structures themselves, or also the interior with all of its furnishings and free-standing objects? How does one restore or even reuse/repurpose an historic building in a “responsible” way? Are we even allowed to renovate and thus change an historic building or some of its parts in order to make it environmentally efficient according to modern standards? What do we do with the interiors and objects? The ultimate question is then, who decides?

The answers to these questions are complex, and the subject of constant debate. They are based on the interaction of many concepts and terms related to value and what people perceive as valuable. These include terms such as • authenticity • context • economic value

12 W. (Bill) Wei – Historic Church Interiors – Professional and Public Perception

• history (including art history) • meaning • originality, and • significance.

Cultural heritage professionals define these terms and set priorities in different ways, depending on their background, training, and experience. This is the basis of the so-called “authorized heritage discourse” described by Laurajane Smith in her book, Uses of Heritage [1]. However, the viewer, viz., the general public, may or may not agree, and has his/her own perception of what is valuable. This public opinion may be based on what they learned through the authorized heritage discourse, but it can also be strongly influenced by their own context and personal history. The subtitle of this contribution to the conference was originally “Professional Values and Public Perception”, but it could easily have been “Professional Perception and Public Values”.

Other discourses are not accepted, and the public has been seen as a passive audience, which needs to be “educated” about its cultural heritage. However, this is slowly changing, and it is slowly being recognized that both professional and public perception and values count.

The subject of this conference is a case in point.

The invited expert speakers have been asked to discuss why the medieval murals in church attics of Östergötland are important and worth conserving. However, the audience is also challenged to think about their own personal perceptions and opinions on these murals, and about their reasons for valuing them or not.

In order to start the discussion, the author was invited to give an introductory lecture on the basic concepts of value entitled “What is ‘valuable’“.

This paper is based on the lecture, and will not go into a long rigorous dissertation on the meanings of terms related to value, and how to decide what to preserve and why. This is the subject of value

assessment guidelines such as those developed for museum collections by the Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands [2]. Instead, the lecture and this paper present the reader with a number of examples of historical structures in various states of preservation. The reader is then asked to reflect on them. What do they mean to the reader in terms of how he or she perceives and determines value? There is no wrong or right answer. The paper then looks at the complexity of determining value for these examples, and finishes with a summary of the symposium participants’ thoughts on the Östergötland murals.

E x am p l e s o f h i s to r ic structures An anecdote A grandfather wanders with his two grandchildren through the city where he was born.

He points with his cane to an old, worn-out building, the city hall, which used to be the heart of the region. A large, discolored fleck on the outside wall with the form of what looks like a butterfly betrays the position where the city coat-of-arms once hung. Inside, three rows of plastic folding chairs are lined up across a large, otherwise empty hall with high ceilings. Bits and pieces of old yellow tiles can be seen on the walls, but mostly what one sees is just the remains of tile adhesive. While the old man revels in the history of the region and tells his grandchildren how proud they should be about it, the children stand around bored, looking at a few empty, dusty showcases whose doors hang loosely from their hinges.

W. (Bill) Wei – Historic Church Interiors – Professional and Public Perception 13

Fig. 1: Inside the ruins of Iglesia del Convento de los Agustinos, Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Extremadura, Spain. (Photographer: W. Wei).

Once they are outside again, they see an old building a few streets further on, which looks different than the buildings around it. Although the tower appears to have been cut off, one can see, based on the form of the windows, that this used to be a church. The gold cross that used to be on the tip of the tower has long since disappeared. While the old man looks sadly upwards, he can only vaguely remember what the bell sounded like. A few people still come here for services, held in front of an old table where the altar used to stand with a beautiful triptych. When one’s eyes drop to the crumbled floor one sees the remains of mortar which lay between historic gravestones, which have long since disappeared. Again outside, archaeologists have recently discovered the remains of a buried

Roman site next to the church. It is clear that someone was there long before they were.

What impressions does this story call to the mind of the reader?

Xanten, Germany South of Cologne, Germany, one finds the town of Xanten, which lies along the Rhine River. An archaeological park is located nearby, which is a very popular location for family outings in the summer. This area is almost entirely a reconstruction of the Roman Colonia Ulpia Traiana from around 110 A.D, using mostly modern materials based on archaeological evidence found there. Children love to run around and play soldier there with plastic swords and

14 W. (Bill) Wei – Historic Church Interiors – Professional and Public Perception

helmets. The adults can wander around, enjoy the open air, getting a sense of the surroundings, the amphitheater, and the fortress walls, and learning about the history of the town and the Roman presence in the region.

reproduction was made and mounted to the wall in the original location at the end of the refectory.

This replica is more than just a high-resolution digital image. Materials were used to add texture to the reproduction in order to make it look as “real”

Fig. 2: Reconstructed amphitheater in the archaeological park in Xanten, Germany. (Photographer: Andy1982 [3]).

What does the reader think about such a reconstructed archaeological site?

Church refec tory of San Giorgio Maggiore, Venice, Italy When one visits the “Mona Lisa” at the Louvre in Paris, one notes the crowds of people trying to get a good photograph or selfie of this painting.

Facing it on a far wall is a much larger painting, “Les Noces de Cana” (“The Wedding at Cana”) by Paolo Caliari. This painting was originally mounted around 1563 on the wall at the end of the refectory of the San Giorgio Maggiore in Venice [4-6]. It was looted and taken to Paris by Napoleon during his conquest in 1797 and never returned.

Eventually, in 2007, a high-resolution digital

as possible. It is reported that the many locals became emotional when “their painting” returned.

Bernard Latour [7] uses this case in his theoretical discussion of the terms “authenticity” and “original”. What is “original”? Is the original the material original, which now hangs in the Louvre, ignored by tourists swarming around the “Mona Lisa”, or is it the realistic facsimile, which evokes the emotions of Venetians as it perhaps originally was intended to do for the monks who ate there?

What does the reader think?

The museum collec tion In typical museums of art or history around the world one can find collections and exhibitions of religious objects from many major world reli-

W. (Bill) Wei – Historic Church Interiors – Professional and Public Perception 15

Accessing the Past in the Present: A Search for Meaning in Polychrome Medieval Art Kaja Kollandsrud

Keywords medieval sculpture, materiality, colour, polychrome, conservation, restoration

A b s t r ac t This research is part of the author’s PhD. The hypothesis is that there is a deliberate visual vocabulary embedded in the polychrome expression of Christian medieval sculpture from the period 1100–1350 in Norway.1 The article examines the attitude to colour on polychrome medieval art, its impact on the understanding of medieval polychrome, the consequences for its preservation, and where the investigation of this material stands today. The reading of the materiality of medieval art in their own time was based in a worldview that is essentially different than that of today. The interpretation based on modern terms has led to a failure to recognise original intent, which in turn has resulted in harmful treatments. To avoid modern bias, a search for meaning must therefore be based on an understanding of the society that produced them. Fundamental components of the medieval worldview shaped the perception of matter, light and colour. How they conditioned the making of church art into visual references to the Divine are examined.

Fig. 1: Detail from the frontal from Dale II, Sogn og Fjordane, Norway c. 1300. Now in Bergen: MA 9. Photo © University Museum of Bergen, the Cultural History Collections.

Introduction The aim of my research is to add to our knowledge of how polychrome medieval art communicated meaning in its original context at a time when philosophical ideas, emerging

34 Kaja Kollandsrud – Accessing the Past in the Present: A search for Meaning in Polychrome Medieval Art

sciences and alchemical theory were part of theology. A multidisciplinary approach is required in order to adequately examine this hypothesis.

The main sources are the objects themselves, which are extra ordinary well preserved in Norway.

Examination of period texts of a proto-scientific and theological-philosophical nature are used to construct an understanding of the meaning embedded in the materiality. The findings are compared against analysis of both original and recreated objects with the tools of modern science.

These secondary sources reveals shared ways of thinking that formed the cultural matrix, in which these objects were produced and towards which they were experienced.

Hi s to r y o f r e s e a r c h i n to t h i s mat e r ia l Since the 1950’s a more scholarly and scientific approach to the examination and treatment of medieval painting and sculpture have developed in Norway in line with the development in Europe and USA. Conservation as a developing profession has been a central part of this. A first step of any professional conservation treatment process is a detailed examination of the physical object to gain a deeper understanding of materials, construction, preservations state and original intent. The conservation documentation that follows the object normally presents the information collected from this work, often coupled with scientific analysis together with an interpretation of the findings. As a result there are numerous publications and sizeable unpublished resources within these archives.2 Systematic analysis and physical reconstruction of the painterly techniques, often conducted as part of this investigation, has produced a great deal of knowledge about the pigments, fillers and binders available to the medieval gilder and painter. Taken a step further such detailed investigations provide an insight into the technology and knowledge that underlie the production of functional paints. Based

in the examination of a broad group of objects, clear tendencies are identified in the way the differently coloured paints were applied to the form (Plahter, 2004 and 2014). This seminal work is the foundation on which more overarching questions related to how these physical objects communicated the divine through their materiality.

Despite good intentions for interdisciplinary work in Norway, the different research carried out by historians and within conservation has been conducted mostly in parallel, with little true collaboration. Literature searches suggest that although historians have attempted to address the topic of colour for more than a century, colour as visual expression, its role, significance and meaning, has not been a central focus. Colour is still rarely considered in discussions of artistic style or in stylistic analysis. There has however been a positive development from the 1970’s when, together with broader investigations of materiality and the wider sensorial context of these works, scholars such as Patrik Reuterswärd, Johannes Taubert, John Gage and Michel Pastoreau brought light and colour to the forefront of their research (For example Reuterswärd 1969; Taubert 1978; Gage 1978, 1990, 1993, 1999; Pastoreau 2001, 2009, 2014). Other researchers, for example Liz James, Heather Pulliam, and Spike Bucklow, focussing on Byzantine mosaics, insular illuminated manuscripts and medieval art and in the UK, have demonstrated how the wider aspects of colour can be more fully understood by combining studies of materials with their metaphoric significance (For example James 1991, 1996, 2003; Pulliam 2011, 2012; Bucklow 2009, 2014).

M i s co n c e p t i o n s a n d n e gat iv e vi e w s w i t h s e r i o u s co n s e q u e n c e f o r t h e p o lyc h r o m y The lack of precise understanding of the construction of medieval polychrome, its materials

Kaja Kollandsrud – Accessing the Past in the Present: A search for Meaning in Polychrome Medieval Art 35

These are the proceedings of the symposium Medieval Murals in the Church Attics of Östergötland, held in September 2015, at Norrköping Art Museum, organised by ICOMOS Sweden’s Scientific Working Group for Mural Paintings.

The purpose of the symposium was to bring different disciplines together to shed light on diverse aspects of an ensemble of medieval wall paintings, located in the attics of eight churches in the county of Östergötland in south-east Sweden.

This ensemble of medieval art, hidden in the attics of the churches, offers a rare opportunity for gaining new insights into sacred art. The absence of a complex conservation history makes this medieval wall painting ensemble unique.

The paintings are thus an extraordinary historical source of information about medieval art and the messages embedded in the materials.

An art-technological approach was applied in recent investigations of these mural paintings.

Interesting results were obtained by exploring the material composition and its effects on the visual appearance. Through a collaborative effort, the messages and significance of the paintings, which present-day viewers cannot perceive, may again become accessible.

The contributors to the proceedings share their experience, insights, and opportunities related to art-technology, value and the reception history of this type of sacred art in historic churches.

ISBN 978-91-7739-004-9

118 Presentation of contributors

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