Admirabiles mixturae: compresenza e combinazione di più materiali nella scultura medievale

Sculpture in the Middle ages inherited from antiquity a “free and easy” use of different media (or mixed media) in various combinations which we will define here as polimateric (or polymateric) technique. These categories can add a necessary clarification to the field of artistic production in the Middle ages which, because of its very heterogeneous nature, has never been studied by scholars in all its complex media. These categories reflect an important aspect of the medieval approach to art: the use of materials chosen to create a sculpture was never accidental, but was determined by specific and conscious purposes. These include a wish to decorate the work of art (in the name of varietas) and to accentuate the polychromy, to heighten the realism of the figure, to ennoble the figure, to reuse materials from antiquity, to convey symbolic meaning, and more. The fragility that is inherent in some kinds of work produced by the polimateric technique can mean that relatively few examples of those kinds have survived, but those which have should be analyzed in terms of types. Therefore, this essay will explore the different kinds of polimateric techniques found in sculpture from the Middle ages. These include polimateric sculpture by superimposition, polimateric sculpture by insertion, polimateric sculpture by juxtaposition, and perhaps a fourth category which combines previous categories. These typologies of sculpture, ordered according to the ways in which the materials were combined, coexist over the course of centuries and often appear in the same work. each category will be defined and discussed, suggesting that art historians become more aware of the kinds of mixed-media sculpture used in the medieval period.