[CHAPTER XIII “DESIGN” IN ILLUMINATION ] “Design” — Elementary Patterns in Decoration — Scale & Scope of Decoration — Of “Designing” Manuscripts, Generally.
“DESIGN”
Perhaps the nearest right definition of “design” is “contrivance”—applied to the actual doing of the work, rather than to the work when done: “decoration” (when that is the sense intended) is a safer word,[47] because it implies “of something.” And generally that “something” lies at the root of the matter. For example: “illuminated initials” and “illuminated borders,” so called, are really illuminating: they are properly a decoration of manuscript or print.
To consider a “piece-of-decoration” as a thing existing apart from that which it decorates, as something drawn or copied, and, so to speak, stuck on to the finished work, is as unnatural as it would be to contemplate the flame-of-a-candle as a thing apart from the candle. [p215]
The finest decoration is really part of the work itself, and may be described as the finishing touches given directly to the work by the tools which are properly employed on it.
The illuminator has, as a rule, to decorate a given manuscript with pen or brush work—it may be with the simplest pen flourishes, or with the most elaborate figure “design.” How to make that illumination part of the work, he can learn only by patient practice and by careful handling of his tools.
ELEMENTARY PATTERNS IN DECORATION
Nearly all simple Decoration consists of a comparatively limited number of elements—simple forms and pure colours—which are built up into more complex forms to occupy an allotted space. A primitive type of such built-up decoration is seen in the dotted patterns, which are found in every age—in the remains of the most ancient art, and in the shell decorations which children make on the sands at the present day. Examples of dotted “backgrounds” in the “Durham Book” are shown in fig. [130] (a and b). Chequers and Diapers—in which two or more elements are employed—are related patterns.[48] (See also Addenda, p. [25] & fig. [191a].)
A simple way of filling a band (or long narrow [p216] space) is to run a zigzag line along it (c). This may be treated either as a line or wavy stem, which may send out buds, leaves, or flowers into the spaces (g), or as two series of triangles which may be “countercharged” (f).[49] A second zigzag, cutting the first, would produce two series of triangles and a central row of lozenges (d). And it is not a very great step from this to the “twist” where the two lines pass over and under, the lines being made “solid” in white or gold on a coloured background (e, fig. [130]). The main difference appears to be that while the one is of the nature of an abstract form, the other suggests a concrete form, such as might be made with twisted cords or rods.
