Greatest Renaissance artists including Botticelli, Ghirlandaio, Fra Angelico and many others used gilding and gold leaf embellishment techniques with mastery and ingenuity.
In fact, Old Master painting collectors, often call Italian Tre- and Quattrocento (14th and 15th centuries) paintings “golden grounds” because of the rich and elaborate gold leaf decorations of both the background and other elements of the composition.
In this artwork you can see a variety of gilding techniques: pastiglia, water gilding, oil gilding, burnishing, incision, punching & granulation, sgraffito and glazing
Gold Leaf
All gilding techniques except shell gold and mecca gilding required the usage of gold leaf: a very thin gold foil produced by hammering gold thin gold ingots between layers of parchment. During the Renaissance, the gold leaf was about 3/4 times thicker than the modern, mechanically produced, leaf.
§ 93. Methods of Gilding.
Giorgio Vasari (1511-1574), Vasari on technique; being the introduction to the three arts of design, architecture, sculpture and painting, prefixed to the Lives of the most excellent painters, sculptors, and architects
It was truly a most beautiful secret and an ingenious investigation—that discovery of the method of beating gold into such thin leaves, that for every thousand pieces beaten to the size of the eighth of a braccio in every direction, the cost, counting the labour and the gold, was not more than the value of six scudi. Nor was it in any way less ingenious to discover the method of spreading the gold over the gesso in such a manner that the wood and other material hidden beneath it should appear a mass of gold.
WHAT GOLD IS GOOD FOR BURNISH AND FOR MORDANT GILDING, AND WHAT THICKNESS. CHAPTER CXXXVIIII
The craftsman’s handbook by Cennini, Cennino, active 15th century; translated by Thompson, Daniel Varney, 1902- ed
Let me tell you that for the gold which is laid on flats they ought not to get more than a hundred leaves out of a ducat, whereas they do get a hundred and forty-five; because the gold for the flat wants to be rather dull. If you want to be sure of the gold, when you buy it, get it from someone who is a good goldbeater; and examine the gold; and if you find it rippling and mat, like goat parchment, then consider it good. On moldings or foliage ornaments you will make out better with thinner gold; but for the delicate ornaments of the embellishment with mordants it ought to be very thin gold, and cobweb-like.
Gilding Methods
Artists of the early Renaissance had a whole arsenal of gilding methods including:
Water Gilding
Water gilding is the oldest, the most beautiful but also the longest and most complex gold leafing method. Gold leaf is laid on a layer of bole (a red clay for gilding also called bolus) applied to a very smooth gesso ground.
Illustration: Domenico Ghirlandaio, Madonna and Child, c. 1470/1475, National Gallery of Art
Learn more about Water Gilding process
Oil Gilding
Oil gilding (also known as mordant or mission gilding) is laying of a gold leaf over an adhesive that can be applied with a brush over gesso or tempera paint. This technique was often used for gilded linear patterns on draperies. A mordant (also called mission) consists usually of pigment in an oil-resin medium. Mordant gilding is not burnished.
Illustration: The Coronation of the Virgin, Lorenzo Monaco, The National Gallery
Shell Gold
Shell gold – powdered gold, bound with gum arabic or other medium painted with a brush.
Illustration: The Virgin and Child with Saint John and an Angel Workshop of Sandro Botticelli, The National Gallery
Silver and Tin Foil, Meccatura
Meccatura or Mecca Gilding is a type of historical gilding technique, which consists in the application of a colored varnish on burnished silver or tin foil with the aim to both imitate the golden surface and to protect the metal from tarnishing. Sometimes, artists used silver or tin foil intentionally rather than to imitate gold.
Illustration: The Battle of San Romano Paolo Uccello, The National Gallery
Water gilding (or silvering) was executed with the underdrawing ready, but prior to the egg tempera painting. On the contrary, oil gilding and shell gold were mostly used on top of egg tempera.
To make sure that drawing doesn’t disappear under the golden leaf, prior to do water gilding, outlines of figures and embellishments to be tooled (punched, granulated etc.) had to be engraved with a metallic point or needle:
HOW YOU SHOULD MARK OUT THE OUTLINES OF THE FIGURES FOR GILDING THE GROUNDS. CHAPTER CXXIII
The craftsman’s handbook by Cennini, Cennino, active 15th century; translated by Thompson, Daniel Varney, 1902- ed
When you have got your whole ancona drawn in, take a needle mounted in a little stick; and scratch over the outlines of the figure against the grounds which you have to gild, and the ornaments which are to be made for the figures, and any special draperies which are to be made of cloth of gold.
Gold Leaf Decoration Techniques
Renaissance artists created intricate geometric and vegetative motifs and lettering with a variety of sophisticated decorative techniques:
Pastiglia
Pastiglia – creation of a raised ornament by applying the warm and liquid gesso with a brush prior to gilding. Flat gesso ground and pastiglia relief were gilded and burnished simultaneously and in the same way (water gilding).
Illustration: Saint Michael, Carlo Crivelli, The National Gallery
Burnishing
Burnishing is polishing of a gold leaf, now usually done with agate stone tools, while in the past artist were using a hard stone like hematite or an animal’s tooth. To be burnished, the metal leaf has to be laid by water gilding, i.e. on bole mixed with size or glair, not on an oil mordant.
Illustration: Saint Luke, early 1330s ?, Simone Martini (Italian (Sienese), about 1284 – 1344), Getty Museum
Incision & Indent
Incision – engraving in the gesso ground of outlines, geometric motifs or patterns. Incision is done prior to gilding and painting and will remain visible through burnished gold leaf.
Indent – creation of linear freehand patterns on an already gilt and burnished surface with a pointed stone or stylus. The process involves compression of matter (gesso ground and bole), not removal, as implied by the term “engraving/incision”.
Illustration: Coronation of the Virgin Fra Angelico 1434 – 1435, Uffizi Gallery
Punching & Granulation
Punching – tooling of the gold by the impression or stamping of patterns by means of a punch, the tip of which is shaped with a figure or motif.
Granulation – stamping of a gilt surface by numerous tiny points, into a texture to achieve contrast between the shiny surface of burnished gold and opaquer and “sparkling” surface of granulated gold.
Illustration: Coronation of the Virgin, about 1420, Gentile da Fabriano (Italian, about 1370 – 1427), Getty Museum
Sgraffito
Sgraffito – creation of patterns by overpainting gold, silver or tin leaf with egg tempera and then scratching away the color to uncover the metallic foil.
Illustration: Madonna and Child with Saints Jerome, John the Baptist, Bernardino and Bartholomew, Sano di Pietro1450-1481, Art Gallery of New South Wales
Glazing
Glazing – coloring and modeling (chiaro-scuro) of a gold leaf to achieve depth and volume of the golden draperies and clothes.
Illustration: Madonna of Humility, Fra Angelico, c. 1440, Rijksmuseum
In this artwork a variety of gilding techniques can be seen: water gilding, burnishing, incision, punching & granulation, glazing