55 The Holy Cross retable Only the cartouche and the pediment can be separated from the retable by simple intervention. All other parts are in connection to each other and are fixed by subsequent nailing, the nail heads in most cases hidden by the polychrome layers. The decorated surface is like a skin over an entangled and composite (“organically grown”) inner structure. It is necessary to note that this construction differs fundamentally from the retable of the “Annunciation” in the Brautić chapel, where the maker had planned the retable in several separately constructed modules, put together in a reversible systematic manner of stacking the elements on top of each other. Polychromy The polychromy can be divided into three major elements: the gilded surfaces, blue monochrome smalt areas (semi-columns, architrave), and the glue-distemper decoration covering the surfaces of the predella, nicheboards, entablature and gable. Preparation Some areas of the wooden construction, especially joints and areas with changes in wood direction were prepared by covering them with pieces of canvas. Fig. 83: Detail of the gilding; condition before treatment. The loss in the gilding shows the nail heads, which had been covered by preparation and gilding
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