DAZZLING ART

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXVII, Issue 19750, 17 March 1934, Page 3

DAZZLING ART

OLD ILLUMINATORS THEIR WORK IN EN r " ND The art of illumination dates far back to a primitive form of design executed on papyrus leaves by the ancient Egyptians. Its practice fitted aptly into the art of the Byzantines, and probably found a first expression in Britain in the Celtic work of the monks of lona, under the Irish saint and scribe Columba, and in that of the Anglo-Saxon branch of the brotherhood at Lindisfarne under his friend St. Aidan, says a writer in the Melbourne “Age.” Celtic ornament and design were fostered in England by St. Cuthbert, Bishop of Lindisfarne, who died A.D. 698, and whose memory was perpetuated by his successor, Bishop Godfrith, in a noble volume known as "Durham Book.” now in the British Museum. The Latin text by St. Jerome was 950 added to by a Saxon version penned by a priest named Aldred, the whole production being a work of great labour and fine artistry, which speaks equally for the devout spirit and the aesthetic culture of the churchman of that time. There were cavillers, of course, in those times as in these, and we read of a contemporary Philistine who objected that “some possess the sacred books and have them as if they had them not in their book chests. They pay attention only to the thinness of the skin and the elegance of the letter. They use them less for reading than for show.” An honest but restricted point of view expressed by one in whom the finer intelligence was obviously undeveloped, but who saw in the exclusive work of the monks a danger of the true uses and significance of the gospels being overlooked. One of the earliest patrons of the art in England was King Alfred in the ninth century; an enlightened monarch whose celebrity, popularly speaking would seem to rest more on a single culinary failure than on his achievements as King of England. Anyhow, he gave his royal countenance to the fine arts as practised by the monks at Winchester and in other parts of the country, and it is to the protected quiet of these monasteries that we owe the preservation of so many specimens of their work. A Social Mirror The Missals, Books of the Hours, and other forms taken by the art of the illuminators reflected not only the spiritual, but also, in a measure the social, aspects of the times, the delicately wrought small figures of saints, apostles, and prophets being in many cases clad in the normal dress of the period. In these so-called “dark ages” literature cannot be said to have flourished. The outside world, was largely given up to operations of war and their concordant miseries, and the ecclesiastics who represented learning naturally devoted their gifts to the perpetration and embellishment of the Holy Scriptures. Those who undertook such work were acknowledged specialists, men of genius, who did not take part in the ordinary labours of their order, and who had special accommodation provided in a studio room known as a scriptorium, ensuring conditions necessary for the carrying out of work which demanded not only the aptitude of the skilled craftsman, but the thought and inventiveness of the creative artist. In the first place, they were masters of lettering executed with the perfect proportion and alignment of a beautifully printed and clear-cut type, but the instinct of the script writer to seek embellishment for the literal words led to a division of the necessarily slow work of Hour Book and Missal producing, the writer and the iluminator each taking his part with a devout and loving care, in which there was no place for individual gain or glory. So impersonal was the existence of the monastic artist that we know very little about him. In later years he would have been subjected to the crucial regard of the interviewer with doubtedless interesting results, for it is hard to believe that, even allowing for the seclusion of his life, there was not lurking in the back of the mind of the old illuminator some latent pride of craft, humbled though it might be to the uses of spiritual service, and its approval limited to the narrow confines of his monastery. Its Own Quality His art bloomed like a glorious flower springing up in a desert, and had a peculiar and precious quality of its own, which did not pertain to the pomp and circumstances of the religious art of the Renaissance. In conjunction with the script, the decoration naturally took a marginal form, in which the initial letter was the leading feature, generally enclosing a miniature or small picture painted' with great elaboration. The colouring was in nearly every case bright, and even gay, in character, its charm heightened by the judicious use of gold, either dull or burnished, an inclusion which marked the survival of the Byzantine tradition. This art was practised in its perfection in England, France, Italy, and Flanders. A noted English specimen of the early twelfth century is the Latin and Saxon Psalter, with miniatures and histories, the work of Edwin, monk of Canterbury, illustrated in gold and colour, and now in the Trinity College library, Cambridge. There is a somewhat pathetic note in the collection of illustrated tracts of the same period, by John Lacy, anchorite of the Order of Preaching Friars, of Neweastle-on-Tyne. At the end of one is the following addenda in golden letters: —“Freyeth for the Saule of frere Jon Lacy, anchor and reclused in the New Castel upon Tyne; the wicht that wrooth this book and lymned hit to his own use and aftur to othur in exitynge hem to devotion and preyrs to God.” A work of unique historical as well as artistic interest is the illuminated MSS., once the property of Queen Mary Tudor, and known as Queen Mary’s Psalter, but which did not come into the royal possession till two centuries after its completion. In the year 1553, being about to be sent abroad, it was stopped by a Custom’s officer, whose name deserved to have a place in history, and was presented to the Queen. Splendid Work It is bound in crimson velvet, embroidered on each corner with a large pomegranate. The golden clasps are gone, but the plates remain riveted to the corners. The MSS contains 320 large octavo leaves, the first fifty being illuminated with illustrations of Biblical history from creation till the death of Solomon. The drawing is finely executed and the colour laid in in light washes. After these follows the Psalter, with miniatures of New Testament scenes, the initials and other decorations being works of special beauty. This volume dedicated to the teaching of the Christian faith saw much use before it became the property of the Queen. It was thumbed when her first victim, Canon Rogers, of Staint Paul’s, and translator of the Bible, was burned at the stake, and its beautiful pages turned to the long list of church notables that followed—Hooker, Bishop of Gloucester; Farran, Bishop of St. David's, and later Ridley,

Latimer, and Cranmer, with scores of lesser victims. It is possible that Queen Elizabeth troubled it but little. During the ninth century intercourse with the Frankish Empire did much to increase the appreciations and knowledge of art as applied to English churches and religious houses, but the English illuminator succeeded in establishing a style of his own, which, however it may have varied internally was nationally distinctive though possibly less opulent in the application of gold and colour than the Frankish MSS. In our National Gallery collection we have, in the Stawell Gallery, two very beautiful French books of the fifteenth century exquisitely illustrated and decorated in rich gold and colour. These books might easily be overlooked by the visitor, hidden as they are behind shutters in their glass case; but anyone interested enough to want to know what the work of the old illuminator really meant—its marvellous technical skill, its perfect realisation of the unity of rhythm, colour, and proportion in design, should not miss them. Still Practised In the present day the art is still practised, chiefly in the matter of addresses for presentation, but there is seldom to be found any attempt at originality, though frequently the adaptation from past traditions is skilful, and in good taste. The advent of the printing machine, as invented by Gutenberg, who produced the Gutenberg Bible in type in 1455, and the operations of the Englishmen, William Caslon and William Caxton, marked the beginning of the end of the art of the illuminator. The early type printers emulated in their process the perfect form of the monkish caligraphers, who were most probably employed as type cutters in the new regime; but as the popular demand for printed books increased the fine quality of the work automatically dropped to an accepted trade standard; with regard to which, however, it is fair to state that, conditions compelling, the printer of to-day is quite capable of turning out work equal to that of the old craftsmen, whose mediaeval outlook could not forsee the overflowing universality of the modern press.