Medieval painters built up a tremendous range of technical resources for obtaining brilliance and permanence. …
We have no appetite for robust, rich excess. The spirit of pageantry leaves us when we look at pictures. We fear the sun, we choose the gentle shade, we like our gilding rubbed and dulled and worn, and our silver oxidized; and cowering under the topis of our sensitive aesthetic consciousness, we prefer not to believe in the stark brilliance, the garish, gaudy sunshine that the Middle Ages revelled in. We care more for subtle harmony than for triumphant, gorgeous brightness; but we forget that there are harmonies of midday as well as harmonies of dawn and dusk.
— The Materials and Techniques of Medieval Painting by Daniel V. Thompson (Page 100)
This ranks in my all-time impassioned rants and easily places Thompson on my dead-or-alive dinner party invite list.
