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

by J. H. Middleton

Backgrounds of sheet gold.

Backgrounds of sheet gold.One extremely magnificent class of illumination of this date and school, specially used for Psalters, Missals and other Service-books, has the background behind the figures formed of an unbroken sheet of burnished gold of the most sumptuously decorative effect.

Chequer backgrounds.

Chequer backgrounds.In the fourteenth century the plain gold background was mostly superseded by delicate diapers of lozenge and chessboard form, with alternating squares of gold and blue or red, very rich and beautiful in effect, and sometimes of extreme minuteness of scale, so that each lozenge or square of the diaper is not larger than an ordinary pin's head. In France these diapered patterns were used with great frequency, and their use survived in some cases till the early part of the fifteenth century.

Scroll patterns.

Scroll patterns.Another form of background, used in Anglo-Norman miniatures, consists of delicate scroll patterns or outlined diapers put in with a fine brush and with fluid gold over a ground of flat opaque colour. Gold scroll-work of this kind on a pink ground is specially characteristic of miniatures painted in England during the fourteenth and first half of the fifteenth century.

Architectural backgrounds.

Architectural backgrounds.A fourth style of background, used in miniature pictures of this date, consists of architectural forms, which frequently enshrine the whole miniature, with background, frame, and canopy in one rich architectural composition. This is often painted in gold, with details in firm, dark lines, and, though conventionally treated, gives not unfrequently a representation of an exquisitely beautiful Gothic structure[^[112]].

Realistic backgrounds.

Realistic backgrounds.Last of all come the realistic backgrounds, with pictorial effects of distance and aerial perspective, often very skilful and even beautiful in effect, but not so strongly decorative or so perfectly suited to manuscript illumination as the more conventional backgrounds of an earlier date.