Cilician manuscripts

The general results of the analyses according to hue and manuscript are presented in Table II. The overall palette of Cilician manuscripts of the 12th-13th centuries as gleaned from these data is presented in Table III. 

No true green pigment has been found in these Cilician manuscripts (nor for that matter, in the vast majority of the manuscripts studied in this project) the green hue was... 

Table II. Identity by Hue of the Pigments Used in Four Cilician Manuscripts of the I2th-I3th Centuries...

On the other hand, the style of painting in Cilicia had a strong normative effect on subsequent Armenian painting. Cilician manuscripts were treasured and frequently copied in later periods. Our examination of manuscripts from the vicinity of Lake Van in the I5th and I6th centuries showed that the palette was also copied here. Although the Lake Van manuscripts indicate less interest in the subtleties of mixed colors... 

Table IV. Comparison of the Palette of the Cilician Manuscripts with Other Armenian Manuscripts...

Over 150 pigment samples covering the spectrum of hues used in Cilician art were taken from the four manuscripts described above. The hues were differentiated both by visual assessment and by comparison with color chips from the Munsell Book of Colors (14). In addition, because both MS Freer 32.18 and MS W. 539 were painted by workshops, pigment samples were taken from all of the miniatures of recognizably different styles in these two manuscripts. 

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