Binders in Paintings
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world history. In many cases, a variety of natural binders were available, and additional factors influenced the choice of binder by a culture. Different media have highly variable properties that affect how they are used in painting. Among these properties are solubility, the transparency or depth of color that is obtainable with a given pigment, and handling properties—how the paint flows, how quickly it dries, whether it can be applied in very thick and very thin layers, etc. Knowledge of the media utilized in paintings can help us understand the intentions of artists. Medieval European painting can be used as an example.
Documents suggest that early medieval European manuscript illuminators tended to utilize glue and egg white, which produced matte, opaque paint layers. Later illuminators came to favor plant gums, which produce shiny, more transparent colors. These effects perhaps were sought in an attempt to emulate oil painting—at that time a comparatively new easel painting technique in Europe. Gums were certainly well-known in earlier periods, but the increasing use of them in illuminations could well have been because of the optical effects that were possible with them that were not possible with glue or egg white. The early history of oil-paint use is being unraveled by analysis. In the 14th and 15th centuries, some painters used egg—the medium that oils eventually came to replace, other painters used oils, and still others used mixtures of the two or even mixtures of oils and other binders. These centuries were a period of experimentaion when artists tried to manipulate the relatively new medium of drying oils in different ways. Since documentary
Table I: Natural Artists' Binders. Analyzable Components"
Source(s): Specific Examples
General Class
Drying oils
Seeds or nuts: linseed, walnut, poppy seed
Lipid
Usually saturated fatty acids and dicarboxylic acids. Glycerol can also be analyzed.
Animal or fish glue
Connective tissues or skins of animals; certain fish
Protein
Amino acids. Traces of lipids, usually present in older glues, can also be analyzed.
Egg white
Eggs of various birds, usually chickens
Protein
Amino acids. Possibly ovalbumin and avidin (specific proteins characteristic of egg white) may be analyzed.
Egg yolk
Eggs of various birds, usually chickens
Protein + lipid
Amino acids. Saturated fatty acids, dicarboxylic acids. Cholesterol can sometimes be analyzed.
Casein
Milk
Protein; lipid + carbohydrate may also be present
Amino acids. Depending on how the casein was prepared, saturated fatty acids from the lipid component and monosaccharides from the carbohydrate components may also be analyzed.
Plant gums
Plants: gum arabic, gum tragacanth, cherry, apricot, peach, almond
Carbohydrate
Monosaccharides, uronic acid(s).
Binder
Diterpene resins
Trees: pine, larch, sandarac, copal
Diterpenes
Diterpenes or oxidation products of diterpenes.
Triterpene resins
Trees: mastic, dammar
Triterpenes
Triterpenes or oxidation products of triterpenes.
Waxes
Bees (beeswax);
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