Of the character employed in executing the text of an illuminated piece of work, it may suffice to point out—first, that it should agree chronologically with the style of illumination adopted; next, that it should harmonize with it in an artistic point of view; and thirdly, that simple styles of character are preferable.[10]
The object of this introductory sketch being rather to lay down general principles, leaving the student to work them out than to follow him through the whole study, for which, indeed, there is no space, it may be as well, in the first instance, to point out the two leading errors into which modern illuminators are apt to fall. The one is a slavish imitation of mediæval models; the other, the unrestrained indulgence of the illuminator’s own fancy. Both are vicious, though the latter far more so than the former—for the mediæval illuminators had real taste and artistic feeling; and the modern copyist, by his slavish reproduction, unconsciously appropriates to himself what they possessed; while the other, wandering about in the uncultivated wilderness of his own ideas, picks up and piles together a mass of incongruous materials—of which, when he has completed the extraordinary jumble, he cannot in the least comprehend why the result is so unsatisfactory. But the fact is, illumination (like every other art) has its grammar, and that grammar lies in the mediæval books; but when the grammar is mastered, there is no reason why modern intelligence should not be emancipated from the trammels of everything but its fundamental principles.
The principle of the construction of a border, in the style of the celebrated Hours of Anne of Brittany, may be strictly adhered to, for instance; but the details and their treatment may be quite new. Nor because the figures introduced into an Anglo-Saxon illuminated bible are generally dislocated about the hips, and display a tendency to postures of the feet, impossible even to the most flexible dancer, is it necessary to reproduce in a modern illumination of the same style the same unnatural distortions.
And these remarks lead naturally to another, namely, that some study of the principles of the harmonies of outline, of form, and above all of colour, is essential to the successful study of the art of illumination.
Nor will anything more materially promote this study than a careful consideration of the harmonies enumerated, as they are exhibited in nature, both animal and vegetable, but particularly the latter, as something of a bower seems the fundamental idea of all the better styles of the art. All sorts of creeping plants, whether in the garden or the hedgerow; all sorts of flowers, exotic, native, or wild—nay, fruits and many vegetables—as parsley, notably—may be pressed with advantage into the service of the art: whilst the graceful forms and beautiful plumage of the bird tribe, especially of the inhabitants of the Tropics; the equally brilliant though more delicate plumage of butterflies and moths; the symmetrical contour and tasteful combinations of colour in many quadrupeds; and even the homelier insects which crawl about our fruit trees, may be all studied with advantage. The old illuminators were frequently happy to avail themselves of a caterpillar, or a lady bird, to break the monotony of a broad, flat space, or heighten the effect of a leaf, or balance a too obtrusive colour in an opposite corner. Reptiles, too, may contribute much that is exceedingly beautiful, both in outline and colour; and in this respect again the Tropics furnish the most brilliant specimens.
Besides the book of nature itself, then, all sorts of works (with coloured illustrations) on Botany and Zoology, may with advantage be consulted; nor need Conchology be disregarded: some of the more beautiful shells forming admirable subjects of study for the illuminator. And where books are inaccessible, there is at any rate the department of Natural History, at the British Museum, open to every one.
Lastly, it will be useful to take every opportunity of marking how other arts have treated the same subjects—Architecture and Metal working particularly. Such observations will tend to shew above all how the principle and idea of the natural may be translated into the conventional, without loss of grace. The carvings in the capitals of some of the early English columns supply the best instances.