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Unforgotten Classics
Lessons in the Art of Illuminating A Series of Examples selected from Works in the British Museum, Lambeth Palace Library, and the South Kensington Museum (Illustrated)
Lessons in the Art of Illuminating A Series of Examples selected from Works in the British Museum, Lambeth Palace Library, and the South Kensington Museum (Illustrated)
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• Includes original illustrations
• The book has been proof-read and corrected for spelling and grammatical errors
• A table of contents with working links to chapters is included
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PERHAPS the art of Illumination, although it is closely connected with that of Writing, may be entitled to a separate history. Men could write long before it occurred to them to ornament their writings: and the modern student will find that what he looks upon as genuine illumination is not to be traced back many centuries. True, one or two Roman manuscripts are in existence which may be dated soon after a.d. 200, and which are illustrated rather than illuminated with pictures. But the medieval art, and especially that branch of it which flourished in our own country, has a different origin, and sprang from the system, not of illustration, but of pure ornamentation, which prevailed in Ireland before the eighth century, but which reached its highest development among the Oriental Moslems. The works of the Irish school were for long and are sometimes still called "Anglo-Saxon," and there can be no doubt that the Irish missionaries brought with them to Iona and to Lindisfarne the traditions and practice of the art, which they taught, with Christianity, to the heathens of England. I will therefore refer the reader who desires to know more of palæography in general, and of the principal foreign schools of the art of writing, to the great works of M. Sylvestre, of Messieurs Wyatt and Tymms, of Henry Shaw, and Miss Stokes, and to various isolated papers in the Transactions of the Antiquarian Societies; and I will begin with the earliest practice of the art in our own country and by our own ancestors.
During the eighth century rivalry to Irish art sprung up in the south; and the immediate followers of St. Augustine of Canterbury founded a scriptorium which produced many fine specimens. In less than two centuries a very high standard had been reached, and many of my readers will remember the Utrecht Psalter, as it is called, which, though it is one of the oldest Anglo-Saxon MSS. now preserved, is full of spirited drawings of figures and of illuminated capital letters. The volume formerly belonged to England, but was lost, and subsequently turned up in Holland. By the tenth century the art had reached such a pitch of perfection that we find a charter of King Edgar wholly written in letters of gold. The Duke of Devonshire possesses a volume written and illuminated for Ethelwold, bishop of Winchester from 963 to 984, by a "scriptor" named Godemann, afterwards Abbot of Thorney, the first English artist with whose name we are acquainted, if we except his more famous contemporary, Archbishop Dunstan, whose skill in metal work is better remembered than his powers as an illuminator. The wonderful Irish MSS. the Book of Kells, which is in the library of Trinity College, Dublin, the Book of Durham, and others more curious than beautiful, belong to a slightly earlier period, perhaps to the ninth century, as Miss Stokes has suggested.
• The book has been proof-read and corrected for spelling and grammatical errors
• A table of contents with working links to chapters is included
• Quality formatting
PERHAPS the art of Illumination, although it is closely connected with that of Writing, may be entitled to a separate history. Men could write long before it occurred to them to ornament their writings: and the modern student will find that what he looks upon as genuine illumination is not to be traced back many centuries. True, one or two Roman manuscripts are in existence which may be dated soon after a.d. 200, and which are illustrated rather than illuminated with pictures. But the medieval art, and especially that branch of it which flourished in our own country, has a different origin, and sprang from the system, not of illustration, but of pure ornamentation, which prevailed in Ireland before the eighth century, but which reached its highest development among the Oriental Moslems. The works of the Irish school were for long and are sometimes still called "Anglo-Saxon," and there can be no doubt that the Irish missionaries brought with them to Iona and to Lindisfarne the traditions and practice of the art, which they taught, with Christianity, to the heathens of England. I will therefore refer the reader who desires to know more of palæography in general, and of the principal foreign schools of the art of writing, to the great works of M. Sylvestre, of Messieurs Wyatt and Tymms, of Henry Shaw, and Miss Stokes, and to various isolated papers in the Transactions of the Antiquarian Societies; and I will begin with the earliest practice of the art in our own country and by our own ancestors.
During the eighth century rivalry to Irish art sprung up in the south; and the immediate followers of St. Augustine of Canterbury founded a scriptorium which produced many fine specimens. In less than two centuries a very high standard had been reached, and many of my readers will remember the Utrecht Psalter, as it is called, which, though it is one of the oldest Anglo-Saxon MSS. now preserved, is full of spirited drawings of figures and of illuminated capital letters. The volume formerly belonged to England, but was lost, and subsequently turned up in Holland. By the tenth century the art had reached such a pitch of perfection that we find a charter of King Edgar wholly written in letters of gold. The Duke of Devonshire possesses a volume written and illuminated for Ethelwold, bishop of Winchester from 963 to 984, by a "scriptor" named Godemann, afterwards Abbot of Thorney, the first English artist with whose name we are acquainted, if we except his more famous contemporary, Archbishop Dunstan, whose skill in metal work is better remembered than his powers as an illuminator. The wonderful Irish MSS. the Book of Kells, which is in the library of Trinity College, Dublin, the Book of Durham, and others more curious than beautiful, belong to a slightly earlier period, perhaps to the ninth century, as Miss Stokes has suggested.
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