Museographs: Illuminated Manuscripts

Caron Caswell Lazar

Description

Before the printing press introduced the notion of mass production to the Renaissance world, the written word was one of spiritual significance and unfathomable mystique. Sacred texts predominated and books were acceptable means of procuring religious thought. As harbinger of the book, the Illuminated Manuscript maintains a well-respected place in literary and artistic history, as well as in the record of human progress and creativity.

Museograph's Illuminated Manuscripts gives rare scholarly attention to these Judeo-Christian, Islamic, and secular masterpieces. From the Byzantine Period to the Renaissance, it outlines the evolution of this textual art form. Religious themes that were common to illuminated texts for over one thousand years became progressively outnumbered as literacy spread beyond the religious community. Books were slowly evolving from status symbols to learning tools. The decorative content of illuminations also advanced through history's course. Virtually without border in the Byzantine Period, manuscripts resonated and simplicity befitting religious ceremonies and houses of worship. By the Romanesque Period, the appearance of the Bestiary indicated that a shift was on the horizon. The Winchester border, with its heavy frame and ornate gold bars, was wild with foliage and whimsical in its combination of human and bestial figures. Illuminated design gone organic!

Illuminated Manuscripts is a sensory treasure of image and word. Subjects within this monograph embody a rich interdisciplinary history and continue to grow alongside man as his understanding of what is beautiful deepens and his ability to express it is actualized.

Sujets

• Arts visuels
• Histoire des Arts
• Histoire des Arts
• Histoire des arts visuels
• History
• Art

Informations

• Publié par: eBookIt.com
• Date de parution: 02 février 2017
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781456609870
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 3 Mo

Extrait

MUSEOGRAPHS
Illuminated Manuscripts
 
 
by
Carôn Caswell Lazar
 


Copyright 2012 Carôn Caswell Lazar,
All rights reserved.
 
Published in eBook format by eBookIt.com
http://www.eBookIt.com
 
ISBN-13: 978-1-4566-0987-0
 
 
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.
 
The Museographs monographs are publications of The Lazar Group, Incorporated
 
Museographs Illuminated Manuscripts , Copyright 1993 Carôn Caswell Lazar
All rights reserved
No reproductions of this newsletter, or its attending materials, in whole or in part or in any form may be made without written authorization of the copyright owner.
 
Museographs Titles:
 
Japanese Satsuma Pottery
Contemporary African-American Folk Art
Shaker Design
Mexican Painting of the 19th & 20th Centuries
American Indians I: The Sioux
Appalachian Handicrafts
American Indians II: The Cherokee
The Art of Islam: A Survey
The Old City of Jerusalem
Mexican Folk Art
American Indians III: Kanien’kehaka
Art, Myth, Legend and Story
The Art of the Celts
 
Illuminated Manuscripts
A man who knows not how to write may think this is no feat. But only try to do it yourself and you will learn how arduous is the writer’s task. It dims your eyes, makes your back ache, and knits your chest and belly together — it is a terrible ordeal for the whole body. So, gentle reader, turn these pages carefully and keep your finger far from the text. For just as hail plays havoc with the fruits of spring, so a careless reader is a bane to books and writing.
— Prior Petrus, Scribe and Illuminator ca. 1091-1109
 

 
Annunciation , Jean Poyet, from Book of Hours, 10 1/16 x 7 1/16 inches,
France, Tours, ca. 1500.
Collection of The Pierpont Morgan Library, New York. H.B, f.3Ov.
Copyright, 1993 The Pierpont Morgan Library.
A Brief History
Illuminated manuscripts have a three-fold place in history: in the history of books, the history of art, and the history of ideas. These sumptuous books antedate and overlap mechanical printing and so provide an essential means of understanding the recording and disseminating of knowledge — an effort that resulted in ushering in the modern world.
 
In art history these manuscripts are important for two reasons. First, they constitute a record of the history of design and ornament that goes all the way back to the ancient world; second, as the largest category of painting that has come down to us from the Middle Ages, they are a pictorial reference less affected by physical change or the restorer’s hand than any other from the same period; and finally, as documents in the history of ideas, these books illustrate the evolution of human knowledge, reflecting in their constantly changing forms and decoration the movements and reorientations of thought that underlie the cartography of the continuing generations of cultural evolution — and revolution.
 
The very term illuminated manuscript heralds this medium as high art. Webster defines illumination in part as the rendering illustrious or the causing to be resplendent , while the word manuscript literally means written by hand. These definitions endow the spirit of the illuminated manuscript as inherently different in nature from modern book illustration or decoration. For just as the written word is the direct expression of mankind’s unique ability in all of earthly creation to record and transmit thought, so the inspiration to decorate, to make more beautiful, the word is the expression of the awe of the supernatural — that which evoked divine power. Illumination, or the causing of words to be resplendent, only existed as a creative process while the written word was held in such high spiritual regard — whether the cause of this regard was because it [the word] exists or because it was thought to be divinely inspired.
 
Although illustrious manuscripts did exist to some extent in classical antiquity, they flowered and were much more prevalent in the Middle Ages, when the uniqueness of every book gave it a value that is inconceivable today. And although there were certainly undecorated books produced throughout this period the very idea of the embellished word, as an ongoing tradition, existed only when the word itself had more than a literal meaning and significance.
 
In the ancient world there were two distinctive types of books — the rotulus or scroll, and the codex or flat-leafed book — all evidence suggests that the rotulus was in use before the codex. Illuminated manuscript implies a picture tied to a text and, that being the case, the ancient Egyptian papyrus rolls (rotuli) are regarded as the first examples of book illustration.
 
One Egyptian rotulus particularly suited for illustration was the Book of the Dead (or more accurately, Going Forth by Day). This ancient book is a collection of spells, incantations and rituals intended to ease the departed soul’s passage from earth through the netherworld. It was the custom to bury a copy of this book as well as everyday objects along with the departed as a reminder of the present life and to provide all the necessities of the future life. Copies of the Book of the Dead are known to date to as early as the fourth millennium B.C. produced on papyrus, a material made from the stems of marsh plants or reeds that grew along the Nile. Though papyrus shares some of the characteristics of paper it was especially suited to the scroll because it is comparatively fragile and has little resistance to folding — it could however be rolled on spindles which were turned hand to hand in substantial lengths of up to 150 feet, though the average length seems to be thirty feet.
Although the rotuli were only sparingly used after the fourth century A.D., a number of familiar terms derived from it remain in use today. Since it was turned on spindles while it was being read, it was known as a volumen , from the Latin word meaning to turn , whence volume as a synonym for book. A scroll was usually labeled on a strip of material attached to one of the spindles and this strip was called a titlulus or title; brief statement of its contents might also appear; this was called the index .
 

 
Weighing of the Heart, Book of the Dead , Amherst Egyptian Papyrus 35.3, 18 3/32 x 23 5/8 inches,
Egypt probably Thebes, Third century B.C.
Collection of The Pierpont Morgan Library New York, New York. Amherst Papyri Egyptian, xxxv.
Copyright 1993, The Pierpont Morgan Library
 
 
The codex was made up of flat leaves on pieces made of vellum or parchment — produced from animal skins — that were gathered together, secured between two boards or clay tablets and bound together on the spine, and thus is the model of the modern book. The adoption of the codex form in the fourth century affected book production just as radically as the invention of printing did eleven hundred years later. In the codex the space for writing and illustration was greatly increased and was more concentrated. For example, where it has been calculated that the complete text of Virgil’s Aenid would require twelve papyrus rolls, each thirty to thirty-five feet long, a single codex is sufficient to contain it in entirety. Where in a papyrus roll the illustrations had been added haphazardly — without frames, sometimes in strips and often interrupting the text — within the codex a more stringent discipline was imposed. The most important innovation was the full-page, framed illustration, which occupied the entire available space to the exclusion of all text — though later such an illustration often faced a page of text.
 
The decoration or the embellishment of the text pages in a manuscript is generally called illumination. At their simplest they may only be an enlarged capital letter at the beginning of a chapter or section of text. Many times the heading of the initial line of such a textual unit was written in red in order to distinguish it from the body of the text that was most often produced in black or brown ink. This red line is called a rubric , from the Latin rubrica meaning sanguine or red chalk from which red ink or paint was made. This term is also used to connote the marginal indications of the responses in liturgical manuscripts that were also frequently penned in red.