ILLUMINATED, OR VELLUM-PAINTING.
AS it is the duty of a faithful journalist not only to "hit the follies of the day," but to study the tastes of the times, we have now ventured to make a few remarks on an art which has of late been revived, and which is now not only much practised as an accomplishment, but widely diffused as a means of general ornamentation. A slight sketch of its history will perhaps form a not unacceptable introduction to our subject.
It would appear that the metallic portions, and the general idea of illuminated painting, have been familiar to Oriental nations for ages; numberless traces of it, as applied to decorative purposes, having been discovered among those memorials now existing of the early Persian, Arabian, and Moorish races. The Egyptians, too, appear to have possessed the art of adding burnished gold or silver to their paintings; but whether they ever thus ornamented manuscripts is not known to us—in all probability they did not. Neither do the more ancient inhabitants of Italy appear to have applied it to manuscripts, for none of those discovered amid the ruins of the buried cities of Herculaneum and Pompeii are illuminated.
Many writers have surmised that manuscripts were not thus decorated until they began to assume something of the folio form; certainly, we are not aware of any traces of illuminating having been found in those rolled manuscripts which have descended to us. "The Dioscorides" in the Library of Vienna, and the celebrated copy of "Virgil" in the Vatican at Rome—both of which are supposed to date back so far as the fourth century—are believed to be the oldest examples of illuminated MSS. extant; and these can scarcely claim to be termed illuminated, for they only differ from ordinary manuscripts in having colored capitals. It is not until the seventh century that we find this art practised in any part of Great Britain; and then, in its earliest form, it simply consisted in staining the vellum purple or rose color, or inscribing the characters in gold. In the British Museum is a splendid MS., termed the "Golden Gospels," supposed to date from about the eighth century; its text is entirely of gold. There are some beautiful decorations in this valuable and curious relic of the patience, industry, and artistic powers of our Anglo-Saxon ancestors. There is another illuminated manuscript copy of the Gospels in the Archiepiscopal Library at Lambeth Palace, supposed to be nine hundred years old, and to have been painted by Moelbrigid Mac Durnan, Abbot of Derry, for Athelstan, who presented it to the city of Canterbury.
In those early ages, illuminating was applied only to religious and devotional MSS.; and it was chiefly done by members of the religious orders, for a very good reason—that they appear to have been almost the sole depositories of what learning and fine arts then existed. The celebrated St. Dunstan is said to have been a skilful illuminator, and is represented, in one of the pictures of an old manuscript, as busily at work decorating a missal.
The earlier specimens of illuminating which have descended to us are mostly crude and simple, consisting chiefly of colored capitals, stained ground, and metallic letters. For several ages the art does not appear to have made much progress, except that the capital letters increase in size, in ornament and beauty; and about the twelfth century we find them assuming a gigantic height, abounding in florid development, gorgeous in hues, and often exquisite in execution. In the early part of the fourteenth century an alteration is perceptible—the MS. pages assume an illuminated border, which at first only passes down one side, but gradually extends along the top and the bottom of the page; and, after a lapse of years, constitutes a complete frame to the text.
These borders at first consist simply of foliage or scrolls; but, as the art improves, and doubtless is more fostered and patronized, arabesques are introduced, in which forms of marvellous grace and beauty, linked in inextricable twinings, shine forth in all the gorgeous hues of a brilliant sunset; and these are, at a later period, gemmed with medallions or miniature paintings, illustrative of portfolios of the text. Indeed, several of the most celebrated painters of those days did not disdain to enrich MSS. for some high personage with specimens of their artistic skill. This continued until the middle of the sixteenth century.
Subsequently, a progressive decline in the excellence and artistic beauty of illuminated painting becomes very evident. It is true that, in the middle of the seventeenth century, it was florid, gorgeous, and, to a certain degree, admirable, but it was not the beauty of art; the rococo taste was beginning to dawn—that strange exuberance of fancy which heaped in one mass the most incongruous details, and was often more cumbrous and grotesque than graceful and harmonious. Nor was it probably only to this cause that the decline in the art may be attributed—the introduction of printing, and its gradual diffusion, had made manuscripts less valuable. The Reformation also, doubtless, had its share in depreciating illuminated painting, which soon ceased to be practised to any extent—excepting in Catholic countries—for the decoration of missals.
Then comes a period of some hundred or hundred and fifty years, during which the art may almost be said to be extinct; nor is it until within the last ten or twenty years that it has received much attention. Then, when lithographic printing, and various similar improvements, facilitated the reproduction of an indefinite number of copies of any given subject, and the still further invention of color-printing and chromo-lithography came into exercise, the value of a study of illuminated painting was perceived, and its applicability to all purposes of literary ornamentation developed. The title-pages of albums, of music, and of annuals; the covers of magazines and books; the initial letters of articles in periodicals; the decorations on circulars, cards, labels, and numberless other similar productions, whether printed, colored, gilded, or stamped—all will be found more or less derivable from the old style of illuminated manuscripts; indeed, a person who has not studied it can form little idea how largely its principles enter into all this kind of decorations.
It has been said that this branch of the art of painting is so mechanical as to be easily taught in a few lessons to those who have no previous knowledge of drawing. This we cannot fully admit. It is true such persons may acquire a smattering of the art—a crude, inartistic style of working it; but, unless they have a correct eye, good taste, and some judgment, they cannot achieve anything that will not betray the amateur.
It is by no means an easy matter to give practical written instructions for illuminated painting on vellum; for it is not merely directions as to what materials shall be used, and the mode of employing them, that are required, but principles for general guidance which have to be inculcated. The desired effects cannot be produced by a heterogeneous assemblage of forms and colors, but only by careful and artistic combinations of the appropriate and the harmonious.
In the matter of letters, allegorical letters, suitable to the subject they are to commence, may be obtained by arranging animals, fishes, reptiles, &c. &c., into the requisite forms.
Fig. 1.
Fig. 1 represents an L adapted for a paper on botany.
For those who may wish to paint from these cuts, we state that the leaves are of sap-green, shaded with Prussian green, and just touched at the tips with gold; the small ones are more delicately tinted than the others.
Fig. 2.
Fig. 2 is a T adapted for a paper on woods or forest trees. It is painted in Vandyke brown, and shaded with black, and the leaves and ground are green.
In an old MS. at the British Museum, the human form is most oddly contorted into grotesque semblances of capital letters. An initial for a paper on war may be composed of armor, weapons, &c.
Fig. 3, an S, is suitable for a heroic poem, or romantic tale of chivalry. For agriculture, we form our initial of corn, or the implements of husbandry, and such like; for music, of musical instruments and characteristic ornaments.
The S in the annexed cut is of silver, burnished and wrought (terms which we shall presently explain); the flag is painted in ultramarine, and striped and bordered with silver the spear-headed staff is shaded with Vandyke brown, and its decorations put in with silver.
Fig. 3.
Fig. 4.
Fig. 4 is not an allegorical letter, but simply decorative, and adapted for a title-page, rather than an initial. The darker and central parts of the letter are of vermilion, shaded with carmine; and the ornamentation of gold burnished and wrought. The letter in Fig. 5 belongs to the same class, and is only a modification of style; the white ground is merely shaded up with soft touches of carmine. The varieties of letters which can be formed are endless, and may be as quaint and as ideal as fancy can devise, provided they are also appropriate, and do not depart from the gracefully-curved line of beauty.
Fig. 5.
For illuminated painting we use water-colors; ultramarine, carmine, burnt carmine, burnt sienna, gamboge, deep chrome, vermilion, red-lead, emerald-green, sap-green, Vandyke-brown, lamp-black, and Chinese-white, are those most necessary. Persons who are not already provided with colors will do well to purchase those which are prepared expressly for illuminating, as they are more brilliant. Pure gold, green gold, and silver shells; fine sable hair-pencils, some gum-water, a lead-pencil, H. H. H; some tracing and some transferring paper; and an agate burnisher, which consists of a piece of polished agate, in the shape of a cut pencil, set in a handle; a flat ruler and a tracing pen, are the materials requisite; all of which should be obtained at one of the first-rate artists' color repositories.
Illuminated paintings may be made either on vellum or fine Bristol-board; the vellum is prepared expressly for the purpose, and not that commonly sold; it must be mounted on, or affixed to, a drawing-board (which has previously been covered with cartridge-paper) with artists' glue, before it can be painted on. Great care is requisite in sketching or transferring the outlines to its surface, for it is by no means easy to efface any marks once made; bread is usually more efficacious for this purpose than India-rubber; but, as it must be stale, it can only be used with caution, being likely to scratch or roughen the surface.
Fig. 6.
In all illuminated drawings the background is more or less ornamented; and this may be done according to the fancy of the artist himself; the leading characteristics of these fundamental ornamentations are delicacy, simplicity, and grace. In the different compartments of Fig. 6, four of the most common patterns are given. They are either put in with a darker shade of the grounding tint, or wrought in gold or silver, or painted in white or black. The straight lines must be firm and even, and equidistant; the curved lines flowing and graceful; the dots or spots all equal in size, and at even distances from the lines and from each other. The upper and lower compartments of this cut are pure gold and green gold, on a black and an ultramarine ground; the right-hand side is grounded with a light tint of emerald-green, and worked over with ornamentation in sap-green; the left-hand compartment is silver, on a delicate blue ground.
Fig. 7.
This damask pattern (see Fig. 7), which may be enlarged or diminished, is worked in carmine, on a ground of red-lead, or a light tint of vermilion. It is as well to observe that these groundwork patterns are almost always very minute and delicate; and, therefore, should never be traced with a pencil, or the line will show; but must be worked in with a fine sable-hair brush, and the requisite tint, or with a very fine pen, charged with diluted color; but the brush is preferable.
Fig. 8. Fig. 9.
Such ornamentations as those in Figs. 8 and 9 may be worked in on the outer or metallic borders, which frequently surround the chief border. Our readers must not suppose that we profess to give all, or half the forms of decoration used for groundwork in illuminated drawings. We only attempt to sketch those most frequently met with, and which may serve as models of style. Various threefold ornaments—originating, doubtless, in the spirit of that class of men who at first chiefly used this decoration for MSS., and symbolical of the triune nature of the Deity—are frequently observed. In Fig. 10 are two of the most common specimens; the third is a spider-like ornament, also often introduced. Fig. 11 is another simple and common decoration.
Fig. 10. Fig. 11.
