Camaïeu Enamelling: An explanation of the method of the decorative Venetian enamelling process

by Lucio Malvezzo

The main categories of enamelling styles include cloisonne, champleve, basse taille, plique a jour and en resille which all have the characteristics of having been applied with a brush or in fine detail. Several of these were initially developed and practiced in the French town of Limoges.

The Italian enamel styles used this century fall into two categories. The purely decorative ones, produced in Venice, adhere strictly to a technique of painting in camaïeu on a gros bleu background and pointing up the painting in gold, which is of Dutch and Burgundian derivation. The others, originating in northern Italy, are associated with liturgical objects that are commissioned of goldsmiths. They are executed in a mixed technique wherewith care is taken to let the silver background shine through the translucent enamels, while the enamels are rendered partly opaque by being highlighted and modelled with the brush, in a method of impasto akin to the same sort of brushwork in painting.

In the plaques enamelled in Limoges by the 'Monvaerni' Master the corrugated surface of the apprêt - the preparatory layers of black and white enamels underlying the colored ones - retains, and indeed it exaggerates, the undulation which in the previous translucent enamels of the basse-taille technique, from 1270 and on, was impaired by the shallow relief of the silver ground to the film of enamels covering it.

The revival of the art of enamelling in Limoges in the second half of the last century was a phenomenon only tenuously connected with the first manifestations of the spirit of our Renaissance. It was however, the renascence of a 'craft traditionnel' in Limoges since the twelfth century. This occurred three generations after the ultimate decay of the craft of champleve enamelling during the first phase of the war between France and England and through the havoc wrought in the workshops of Limoges by the soldiers of the Black Prince in 1371. This renaissance was manifested in the size of the plaques, which rendered the enamels comparable with small easel paintings, and in the appropriation of certain methods of the engravers in laying out and delineating the composition. The time-honored tradition that had linked the crafts of the goldsmith and of the enameller during the Middle Ages is repeated in the new fashion of painting in enamel. Witness the enduring confusion in documents between the professions of goldsmith and enameller, the 'jewels' that enrich the enamels in the last twenty five years, and the appearance of foils which are inserted in the painted enamels brilliant islets of transparency, executed in a mock recipe of the earlier basse taille enamels.

The apprêt, or preparation, which is used for laying out the painted enamels is basically a layer of wet white enamel applied on a previously fired layer of black enamel. Through the white one the design is delineated in black by scraping with the spatula handle or the needle, and it can be retouched with black hatchings applied with the brush after the firing of the white layer. In the grisailles, the needle is commonly used according to a pattern of circumscribing and modelling enlevages and the effect resulting from the baring of the black layer by hatchings is combined with variegating the tones of the white enamel through manipulations of the spatula or the brush.

The terms used above, although self evident, still might seem somewhat confusing without the advantage of specific pieces to study. It is my opinion that the term 'painted' should be taken to mean the generalized technique unless it is otherwise distinguished as Grisaille, white on a dark ground; or Camaïeu, white on a non-dark, or transparent ground. Both these terms mean monochromatic, however the term gris means gray and relates to a specific black, while Camaïeu refers to the monochromat of all the other colors, to translucent enamels being rendered partly opaque by being highlighted and modelled with a brush.

The term 'impasto' as defined by the quotation above may or may not produce fine results, dependent on the fit of the enamels and/or metal expansion. It was for this reason that I consider impasto to be a separate technique to be used directly on the metal rather than as an application of enamel on a previously fired enamel surface.

Fine modelling work with a brush usually requires a very fine ground size of enamel for controllability. When a fine grind of enamel has been modelled with areas of thickness in the application, the heavy areas can show strain lines from the thermal expansion of the base metal or enamel. The general idea is that the finer the grind the thinner the application must be to reduce or remove this occurrence which may disrupt the design or image of the piece. This occurrence is not true when the expansions are sufficiently close; the base enamel is thin, and the firing cycle includes a slow up and an annealing down time periods. Historical pieces in comparison to today's work had a longer firing and cooling cycle, was worked on thinner copper with thin undercoatings of enamel.

Camaïeu on a dark background traditionally is considered to be Grisaille. The shades of grey produced monochromatic tones of white on the black, blue or brown opaque background.

The apprêt, finely ground white is soaked, not mixed with water. Soaking is used in order to reduce the possibilities of adding air bubbles. If oil is used as the holding agent the preparation can be mixed with a spatula on a plate of glass into a paste then thinned with oil if necessary. Oil of Lavender is used for thickness and control and Oil of Clove is used for thinness and spread. If oils are used a longer drying time is required before firing. The longer drying time has the advantage of longer workability in specific areas. The artist needs to determine which is the best medium for their design in relationship to the surface and specifics of size, shape and detail.

How a specific area will look after firing can only be determined while the area is still wet. After a specific area is dry the quality of the application is very hard to determine due to its dry crusty appearance. However, the way the area appears while wet will be close to the way it will appear after being fired. It is only after an area is dry that one should use the enlevege technique. If the areas are worked while wet the enamel tends to clump or tear as it is being cut through. It is also easier to remove the scraped away enamel if that area is dry.

It is important to note that the enamel surface which is to receive the application be clean and devoid of oil and grease which would act as a resist to the wet preparation.

A single piece will receive several additions of enamel each one needing to be carefully fired and annealed before the surface is reworked and the next layer added.