| Illuminations in printed books. |
Illuminations in printed books.This beautiful pen-work reached its highest point of perfection in the first half of the fifteenth century. It is frequently used for the illuminated initials in the early printed books of Germany. Books printed at Strasburg by Mentelin, about 1460 to 1468, are often decorated with very elaborate and skilfully drawn ornament of this type; in many cases probably by Mentelin's own hand, since he was a skilful manuscript illuminator before he began to practise the art of printing[[172]].
The printed books of Koburger of Nuremberg are also remarkable for the beauty of their illuminations, both in the blue and red pen-work and also with painted ornaments in gold and colour.
CHAPTER XII.
The Illuminated Manuscripts of Italy and Spain.
| Classic survival. |
Classic survival.As has been already mentioned, the old classical forms survived in the manuscript miniatures of Italy for many centuries with but little alteration.
A slow, but steady degradation in the forms of classic art began to take place about the fifth or sixth century; the fact being that no art can for long remain stationary; there must be either advance or decay, and when the habit of copying older forms has once become the established rule an artistic degradation soon becomes inevitable.
| Italian decadence. |
Italian decadence.Just as the manuscript art of the Byzantine illuminators first lost its vitality and then rapidly deteriorated, so in Italy the late surviving classical style of miniature became weaker and weaker in drawing, feebler in touch, and duller in composition, till in the eleventh and twelfth century a very low stage of degradation was reached, at the very period when the illuminator's art in more northern countries was growing into the most vigorous development of power and decorative beauty.