Paint made with eggs?
The other thing that is as unfamiliar to us nowadays as some of these saints, is the type of paint used for this triptych. Oil paints or watercolours we're all familiar with, but this triptych is painted with egg tempera (oil paint wasn't invented at this point).
Egg tempera is a mixture of coloured pigments, egg yolk and some form of mixing agent that stops the paint drying so quickly, like water, wine or vinegar.
This medium gives paintings of this era a sort of opaque, matt finish – as if they are illustrations in a book or a manuscript - rather than the glossy appearance of later oil paintings.
Luckily for us, egg tempera paint is also extremely long-lasting and so the vibrant colours of this wonderful triptych are as fresh as the day they were painted in the early fourteenth century.
Author or no author? That is the question.
So coming back to my original question, what do we think? Do we need to know exactly who painted a picture in order to fully appreciate its meaning? Or does it suffice to say that this painting is 'of the Italo-Byzantine school'?
I personally don't think there's a clear-cut answer either way, but what I do think is important is that we don't underestimate the depth of meaning in medieval art, simply because we don't know enough about it to draw neat and tidy conclusions.
Art is, after all, subjective and this painting is another example of the perfectly incomplete mysteries in every work of art.