. . c l e r i c u s . .

making art technological sources accessible


clericus = Mark Clarke

Dr Mark Clarke is an internationally recognised researcher in art technology, specialising in artists' paint, the materials of medieval painters and illuminators, and especially in artists' recipe books.

He is an interdisciplinary researcher into historic artists' materials, especially paint, and in particular mediaeval paint. With a background in conservation and conservation science, he specialises in works of art as physical objects, or 'technical art history'. A particular interest is the materials and techniques of mediaeval European and Islamic manuscripts.

Working with the International Council of Museums (Conservation Committee) he co-founded the international working group on Art Technological Source Research, studying historical technical texts. He is currently an Invited Associate Professor in Technical Art History at Universidade Nova de Lisboa.

He is based in Belgium.


Reconstructions, palaeolithic walls, Ardèche

Dr Mark Clarke trained in England as a paper conservator (Camberwell) and a conservation scientist (De Montfort), with a PhD on "Anglo-Saxon Manuscript Pigments" (Cambridge). His research is interdisciplinary, involving recipe research, chemical analysis, historically accurate reconstruction and ethnoarchaeology. He has recently been Invited Fellow of the VLAC - Flemish Academic Centre, the Belgian Institute for Advanced Study in Brussels, hosted by the by the Koninklijke Vlaamse Academie van België / Royal Flemish Academy (2011-2), and an invited researcher at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin (2012).

LinkedIn profile


Publications by Mark Clarke


Recipe research, DV Thompson archive, Washington


Technical exam, Islamic manuscripts, USA


Analysis of pigments on manuscripts


Ethnoarchaeology, Ethiopia


[mark@clericus.org] [clericus home page]
Last updated 6 November 2021       Mark Clarke       http://www.clericus.org/who.htm