Animals, both real and fantastic, occupied an important place in medieval art and thought. Artists readily employed animal motifs, along with foliate designs, as part of their decorative vocabulary.

Lamb - sacrificial animal in Near Eastern religious rites - Christians adopted the lamb as a symbol of Christ.

Griffin - attendant of Apollo and a keeper of light - guardian for the dead.

Dove - peace

Books:

Before the printing press - books were handmade - works of art and symbols of enduring knowledge.

Required intensive labor, sometimes involving the collaboration of entire workshops.

Many bookmakers were monks and monasteries kept libraries filled with all types of books sacred and secular.

Emergence of universities throughout Europe created demand for single-volume Bibles, books of law and other texts with margins for notes, commentary and art.

High Medieval

Duccio di Buoninsegna http://employees.oneonta.edu/farberas/arth/Arth213/Duccio.html

                                    http://www.abcgallery.com/D/duccio/duccio.html

Cimabue  (1250 - 1310) http://www.abcgallery.com/C/cimabue/cimabue.html  may have been Giotto's teacher

Giotto di Bondone (1266 - 1336) http://www.abcgallery.com/G/giotto/giotto.html

    Panel Paintings

        Madonna and Child         http://gallery.euroweb.hu/support/viewer/z.html

        Ognissanti Madonna  http://gallery.euroweb.hu/support/viewer/z.html

tempera

from the verb temper—that is, “to bring to a desired consistency”; dry pigments are made usable by “tempering” them with a binding and adhesive vehicle. Such painting was distinguished from fresco painting, the colors for which contained no binder. Eventually, after the rise of oil painting, the word gained its present meaning.

The standard tempera vehicle is a natural emulsion, egg yolk, thinned with water. Variants of this vehicle have been developed to widen its use. Among the man-made emulsions are those prepared with whole egg and linseed oil, with gum, and with wax.

The special ground for tempera painting is a rigid wood or wallboard panel coated with several thin layers of gesso, a white, smooth, fully absorbent preparation made of burnt gypsum (or chalk, plaster of Paris, or whiting) and hide (or parchment) glue. A few minutes after application, tempera paint is sufficiently resistant to water to allow overpainting with more colour. Thin, transparent layers of paint produce a clear, luminous effect, and the color tones of successive brushstrokes blend optically.