Popular Pastimes for Field and Fireside, or Amusements for young and old

by Caroline L. Smith

Now advance to the subordinate ornamental detail and gradually fill that in, dividing your work into small portions and taking the greatest care to have all correct. Do not rest till you have a literal fac-simile of the original.

Now proceed to color; but first mix a little liquid ox-gall with your colors, which will enable you to paint with ease and certainty. The initial letter can be first finished, using the appropriate colors. Next begin to color the border, applying one tint wherever it is wanted all through it, then finishing the next, and so on until you have all the colors laid on their proper places. These you will proceed to shade and ornament in solid Chinese white or gold; any little figures also or grotesques should now be completed, including of course the terminal line, generally of gold and color, which encloses the type. When all these are finished and really accurate, both in shape and color, if there be a picture, that comes next in order; if not, you will put in any dots of color or flat gold which may happen to adorn the background. This will conclude the operation of copying, and any marks or spots which have occurred in the course of your drawing can now be erased with bread.

DESIGN.

If you have any enthusiasm for this art, and have studied manuscript of the best period of illumination, as has been advised, you will not be content simply to copy the designs of others, but will desire yourself to try and compose them. Is it not our duty to try and develop to the extent of our power, any art we cherish? Therefore let us consider the subject of design and try to form some rules for our future guidance.

The first thing necessary to do, is to fix upon some existing style of illumination to serve as a basis for any intended developments. Of course this style must naturally be the best and purest, and that is, as I have often said before, and as I firmly believe, that which prevailed from the middle of the thirteenth to the end of the fourteenth century. But you will ask of what nature ornament is to be, and this leads to a rule, that ornamentation must consist of conventionalized representation of natural objects. All true beauty consists in the representation of, or is derived from, natural objects. To this rule there is no exception. But nature may be represented in two ways, either by realizing her, as far as our means will possibly allow, or by conventionalism. In realism, we endeavor to obtain a literal copy of the object to be represented and set no bounds to our pursuit of this.

In conventionalism, we beforehand arrange certain limits at which to stop, and then get as much of nature as we can within those limits.

Now in conventionalism it is to a great extent optional how far you will realize your flowers or leaves. You may do it more or less as you feel the occasion requires.

The principle appears to be to seize upon the leading characteristics of the flower or form you wish to represent, and then to add as much of the rest as you can consistently with your subject. Thus, you may either represent a rose as an arrangement of five leaves of a certain shape and color round a yellow or gold central spot—as was the general mediæval type—or you may go somewhat nearer the reality and add a few more petals, &c., so as to bring it to a closer resemblance. You must arrange this with yourself, but as a rule observe that the more you realize any flower the more you must proportionably increase the quantity of conventional ornament around it, so as to make it evident that you had voluntarily set yourself limits which you did not choose to pass. While I am on this subject, I will take the opportunity to advise you to make great use of leaves in your designs. Wonderful and perfect as all nature’s work is, yet it seems as if the stamp of perfection and divine beauty were more strongly impressed on leaves than on any other of her productions. The thousand changing forms of beauty with which she clothes the woods, the banks, and the very ground we tread on, ought to be to all, but especially to lovers of beauty and truth, objects of the purest joy and delight. Make very frequent use of them in designing, for they ever have been and ever will be sources of the best and most heavenly beauty. Remember always that in painting them it is far more important to have the form and outline quite right and true, than to imitate or approach their color, which may be left arbitrary. Remember also that their power will be better felt by a somewhat sparing use of them, I mean as regards not over-crowding your page, so that though you may employ many leaves, you will have but few of each.

The last rule of design is, that there should be a general purpose and meaning running throughout the ornamental detail. You should endeavor to carry out some idea in each border, and to this end should reflect well, first what idea you wish to give, next how, and by what means you may best convey it. I will not say that your meaning will at once be plain to every one, nor indeed is it likely to be so to more than a few, but still the working with a deliberate idea in your mind will give a unity and completeness to your design, which will be entirely wanting to one worked out at random, or with a view only to prettiness—the most noxious idea it is possible to conceive, and the rock upon which nearly all modern illuminators make shipwreck. Accustom yourself to ask not, “is this pretty?” but, “is it right?” and this habit will, I think, be a safeguard to you.