Illuminated manuscripts in classical and mediaeval times, their art and their technique

by J. H. Middleton

Fig. [35] shows a very elaborate and graceful initial Y, from another manuscript of the same date, decorated by a vine-plant from which a youth is gathering grapes, while a monkey, sitting in the branches, is eating some of the fruit. The whole design is a masterpiece of decorative beauty, elaborately worked out in gold and colours.

Mural paintings.

Mural paintings.The fine mural paintings of this date are frequently identical in style and design with pages from illuminated manuscripts. This is most remarkably the case with the late twelfth century paintings on the walls and vault of the church of St Michael at Hildesheim; in which the figures, the conventional foliage and the general arrangement of the whole have evidently been copied from manuscript illuminations[^[165]].

Vault of St Michael's.

Vault of St Michael's.Fig. [36] shows a striking example of this, painted about 1186 on the vault of Saint Michael's. The whole treatment of this grandly decorative painting is precisely like that of the page of an illuminated book.

Fig. 35. Initial Y from a German manuscript of the beginning of the thirteenth century, with a most graceful and fanciful combination of figures and foliage.

The Fall of Man.

The Fall of Man.In the centre is the Fall of Man in a medallion frame with a conventionally treated tree on each side; all round are smaller paintings, including the great Rivers of Paradise and the Jordan, two Evangelists and their Symbols, with a series of medallion busts of Old Testament Saints linked together by scroll-work of foliage exactly like that in illuminations of contemporary date.