Basse-taille is a method for enamelling the graves or low-reliefs on a metal surface, typically gold or silver, and then covering it with translucent glazed enamel. (French: ‘low-cut’) This technique dramatises the play of light and shadow over the low-cut design and also gives the item a tone of brilliance. Base-taille enamelwork, produced in Italy in the 13th century, was particularly common during Europe’s Gothic and Renaissance periods.
Technique
The method of making basse-tail enamel started by marking the pattern’s outline and the gold’s main internal outlines with a tool called a “tracer”. The interior was then worked with chasing tools, hammering and punching instead of cutting or with chisels to create a shallow recess to retain the enamel. The more important parts of the design were modelled by changing the depth of the surface to produce different colour intensities when translucent enamel was added. For example, gold under drapery folds in the Royal Gold Cup frequently rises close to the surface to create paler highlights.
In many recessed areas, more decoration has been applied either through engraving, punching through a transparent enamel, or facing the background so that the reflections change subtly as the viewing angle changes. Most of the background areas of the enamelled scenes were painted in the same wayThe surfaces were eventually smoothed, done well and polished, maybe including scratching bumps on the back of the metal.
The enamel lay flush with the gold surfaces; it was a preparation of finely ground glass paste applied with great care to the recessed areas and then fired. When various enamel colours meet each other with a neat border, this was done by firing one colour with a gum tragacanth retaining edge before adding the next. The difficulty was also increased by adding tints of a different colour to the base hue of the enamel before firing so that the added colour gradually blends into the background colour around the edges of the tinted patch. This is mainly used in in-ground areas, rocks and trees on “flux” or colourless enamel. Flux was also used for flesh areas in the Royal Gold Cup as it darkens slightly on a gold backdrop as it is challenging to get a suitable skin colour. The rouge clair or “ruby glass” red, used so effectively here, was produced by adding tiny particles of copper, silver and gold to the glass. After firing, the enamel was polished with the metal around it, possibly the last to be decorated.
Source
Basse-taille – HiSoUR – Hi So You Are. https://www.hisour.com/basse-taille-51726/
Encyclopædia Britannica, inc. Basse-taille. Encyclopædia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/art/basse-taille.
Wikipedia contributors. (2020, December 7). Basse-taille. In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 21:47, December 19, 2020, from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Basse-taille&oldid=992777032
More Design Terms
-
Dada Art Movement – Making Mischief
As a designer, I am passionate about the history of art and their influence on ‘visual design.’ In art history, Dada is the artistic movement that preceded Surrealism, it began in Zurich, Switzerland, in 1916 by a group of mostly painters and painters. Dada artworks challenged the preconceived notions of what art meant. Many Dadaists felt…
-
Dovetail – design term
Dovetail is the name for a shape that looks like a dove’s tail and is used in woodworking. Joints are made up of tabs in the shape of a dovetail that fit into holes in the other part. Dovetails are often used to join the corners of cabinet drawers and box shapes.Read More →
-
Cassone – the marriage chest
A cassone is a big decorated chest that was made in Italy between the 14th and 16th centuries. In 1472, a Florentine merchant married a young noblewoman named Vaggia Nerli. Cassoni were put on display in the most important and well-furnished room in the palace.Read More →
-
Capitalisation rules – the basics
If you have ever read an old newspaper (early nineteenth century) and you look carefully at the old broadsheets. You will notice that words are capitalised here and there and that the rules of capitalisation, some of which you will learn shortly, seem nonexistent.Read More →
-
Dutch Design – what is it?
The phrase “Dutch Design” refers to an informal artistic school of design in the Netherlands, particularly in product design. More specifically, the word refers to the design aesthetic used by Dutch designers. Read More →
-
Ottoman simplicity of sitting
A low seat with a cushion that became popular in the late 1700s. They simplified sitting. READ MORERead More →
-
Agitprop – Design and Art Term
Agitprop art (or the art of agitation) was used to manipulate ideological beliefs, specifically to spread the ideals of Communism in Russia in the period immediately following the 1917 revolution. The term ‘agitprop’ (an abbreviation for agitation propaganda: ‘agitational propaganda’) was first used shortly after the Revolution, and the Communist Party established the Department of…
-
Maiolica tin-glazed earthenware, a product of the Renaissance
Maiolica is a tin-glazed earthenware that was produced during the Renaissance in Italy. The name comes from Majorca, the island from which, in the 15th century, a lot of Hispano-Moresque tin-glazed pottery was brought into Italy. The technique of covering with a tin glaze earthenware was similar to that used elsewhere in Europe for delftware…
-
Basse-taille – Design Term
Basse-taille is a method for enamelling the graves or low-reliefs on a metal surface, typicallyRead More →
-
Mission Furniture – Design Dictionary Term
The term mission furniture was first popularized by Joseph P. McHugh of New York, a furniture manufacturer and retailer. The word mission references the Spanish missions throughout colonial California. The style became increasingly popular following the 1901 Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo.Read More →
-
Moquette – fabric for public transport
Moquette is a tough woollen fabric used for upholstery on public transportation all over the world. The fabric is typically composed of 85% wool and 15% nylon and is created using the weaving method known as jacquard. It has excellent thermal characteristics, keeping you warm in the winter and cool in the summer.Read More →
-
Typography Glossary – Design Terms
It helps to have an appropriate language to talk about typography. The following is a glossary of some of the words and their definitions that are used to described typography.Read More →
-
Shagreen – Design Term
Shagreen is fish skin used as a veneer to cover furniture and accessories. Also knownRead More →
-
What is Wrought Iron?
The term “wrought iron” refers to the material rather than the products made of iron. Modern mild steel has supplanted wrought iron, a forgeable ferrous material used up until about the middle of the twentieth century. Because of the extensive forming required during its production—under power hammers and through rollers—it was originally referred to as…
-
Guilloche two banded decorative motif
The guilloche is a decorative element that encircles a line of bosses with two bands or ribbons intertwined. In the British Regency style, it was particularly well-liked and adopted by furniture designers from Renaissance to the Twenties and Fifties.Read More →
-
Brandewijnskom – brandy bowls for birth ceremonies
Brandewijnskom. Brandy bowls were made in Holland and Friesland in the 17th and 18th centuries.Read More →
-
Affichiste French for Poster Designer
Affichiste. Name (literally ‘poster designer’) taken by the French artists and photographers Raymond Hains (1926-) and Jacques de la Villeglé (1926-), who met in 1949 and created a technique to create collages from pieces of torn-down posters during the early 1950s. These works, which they displayed for the first time in 1957, were called affiches…
-
Minimalism – Less is More
Minimalism is an art historical and critical term. The purest forms of minimalism include cubes and spheres, plain, unadorned surfaces, and solid colours. Adolf Loos’ famous quote, “Ornament is a Crime,” has become catchphrases for the minimalist design movement.Read More →
-
‘Moderne’ Style of Art Deco Popular in the 20s & 30s
Moderne was a decorative style that was mostly about how things looked on the outside. Moderne architecture was most noticeable in public buildings like skyscrapers and movie theatres. Postmodernism later brought back a lot of the styles that were part of the moderne movement.Read More →
You may also be interested in
Synthetic cubism – art & design term – Encyclopedia of Design
Synthetic cubism is the later phase of cubism, generally considered to have run from about 1912 to 1914, characterised by simpler shapes and brighter colours. To classify revolutionary experiments made by Georges Braque, Pablo Picasso, and Juan Gris, historians tend to divide cubism into two stages, analytical and synthetic.
Rococo – art | design term – Encyclopedia of Design
Rococo is a term used in the visual arts to characterise the light, elegant, and sensuous style that emerged in France in the early 18th century reached its apogee in the 1730s and was gradually replaced in the 1760s by the strict, moralising characteristics of Neoclassicism.