For delicacy of touch, for intricate beauty of ornament, and for decorative splendour in the use of gold and colour, these Oriental manuscripts are, in their own way, unsurpassed.
| Persian MSS. |
Persian MSS.In the orthodox Sunni manuscripts miniatures with figure subjects do not occur, but are lavishly used in the manuscripts of the Persians and other members of the Sufi sect. The drawing of the human form is without the dignity and grace that is to be seen in Western manuscripts, but as pieces of decoration the Oriental miniatures are of high merit. Copies of the Koran, and the works of the favourite Persian poets are among the most common kinds of Oriental manuscripts. It is the latter that are so often sumptuously decorated with figure subjects.
CHAPTER XIII.
The Writers of Illuminated Manuscripts.
| The beauty of MSS. |
The beauty of MSS.The Monastic Scribes. It may be interesting to consider what were the causes that made the illuminated manuscripts of the mediaeval period among the most perfect and beautiful works of art that the world has ever produced. No one can examine the manuscripts of any of the chief European countries down to the fourteenth century without a feeling of amazement at their almost unvarying perfection of execution, the immense fertility of fancy in their design, and the utterly unsparing labour that was lavished on their production. Moreover the manuscripts of this earlier period, before their production became a commercial art in the hand of secular scribes, are especially remarkable for their uniform excellence of workmanship, and their complete freedom from any signs of haste or weariness on the part of their scribes and illuminators.
| Conditions of life. Absence of hurry. |
Conditions of life.Now the fact is that the countless illuminated manuscripts which were produced in so many of the Benedictine and other monastic Houses of Europe were executed under very exceptionally favourable circumstances[[207]]. In the first place the monastic scribe lived in a haven of safety and rest in the middle of a tumultuous and war-harassed world. While at work in the scriptorium he was troubled with no thoughts of Absence of hurry.any necessity to complete his task within a limited time in order to earn his daily bread. Food and clothing of a simple though sufficient kind were secured to him, whether he finished his manuscript in a year or in twenty years. He worked for no payment, but for the glory of God and the honour of his monastic foundation, and last, but not least, for the intense pleasure which the varying processes of his work gave him.
| Pleasant work. |