‘Carved in Stone, Captured on Canvas’: On the Medial Transformation of Epigraphic Elements in 15th-Century Painting

Abstract

The painting of the 15^th-century shows a significant increase in mimetic stone representations, appearing without inscription (Rath, 2019) and with epigraphic elements such as artists’ signatures and dates on stone-imitating frames or architectural elements (Burg, 2007). Prayers or information about saints also appear as stone-carved inscriptions, logically integrated into the pictorial composition. These epigraphic elements, rendered in various types of stone, predominantly evoke the Capitalis Monumentalis, an ancient Roman lapidary script, thereby referencing a specific European memorial culture (Rehm, 2019).

A refinement of this pictorial tradition is evident in the epigraphic motifs of Jan van Eyck and Andrea Mantegna. Their works display not only a variation in the materials serving as text carriers but also an intricate diversity in the simulated techniques of textual inscription – ranging from meticulously chiselled capital letters to delicately scratched or carved minuscules to mural dipinti. The strategic topographical placement and deliberate language selection of these inscriptions fundamentally transform the semantic nuances they convey within the paintings' overall compositional schemes.

The aim of this paper is to analyse the medial transformation of epigraphic elements within the image and thereby to decode the polyvalent functions of painted stone inscriptions: as authenticating devices verifying pictorial narration through their materiality; as memory carriers contributing to collective remembrance; as communicative interfaces directly addressing the viewer; as references legitimizing the pictorial statement; as temporal markers; or as theological emphases. Painted inscriptions in 15^th-century art that imitate stone thus emerge as complex media for articulating knowledge, faith, and identity.