| Horae of the Duc de Berri. |
Horae of the Duc de Berri.The Paris library possesses (Bibl. Nat. Lat. 919) a very magnificent manuscript Horae, which was painted for the Duc de Berri at the beginning of the century by a French miniaturist named Jaquemart de Odin. At the Duke's death this Book of Hours was valued at no less than four thousand livres Tournois, equal in modern value to quite two thousand pounds. It is mentioned thus in the inventory of the Duke's personal property, item, unes tres belles heures tres richement enluminees et hystoriees de la main de Jaquemart de Odin.... Like all books of this class, specially painted for a distinguished person, the arms and badges of the owner are introduced among the foliated ornaments of the borders of many pages; as the inventory states, par les quarrefors des feuilles en plusieurs lieux faictes des armes et devises[[129]].
Fig. [25] shows part of a page from this lovely book, with a miniature of the Birth of the Virgin, painted by Jacquemart de Odin, within a beautiful architectural framing of the finest style.
Space will not allow any attempt to describe even in outline the many splendid classes of illuminated manuscripts which were produced by the French artists of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. A few notable points only can be briefly mentioned.
| Architectural framing. |
Architectural framing.One special beauty of French illumination of this date is due to the exquisite treatment of architectural frames and backgrounds which are used to enshrine the whole picture. The loveliest Gothic forms are introduced, with the most delicate detail of tracery, pinnacles, canopy-work, shafts and arches, all being frequently executed in gold with subtle transparent shading to give an effect of relief. From the technical point of view these manuscripts reach the highest pitch of perfection; the burnished gold is thick and solid in appearance, and is convex in surface so as to catch high lights, and look, not like gold leaf, but like actual plates of the purest and most polished gold[[130]]. The pigments are of the most brilliant colours, so skilfully prepared and applied that they are able to defy the power of time to change their hue or even dim their splendour.
Fig. 25. Miniature of the birth of the Virgin painted by the illuminator Jacquemart de Odin for the Duc de Berri. The border is of the characteristic French and Franco-Flemish style; see fig. [28] on page [146].
| Survival of style. |
Survival of style.Another noticeable point about the French and Franco-Flemish illumination is the manner in which certain modes of decoration survived with very little alteration for more than a century. Thus we find the blue, red and gold diapers used for backgrounds, and the ivy-leaf pattern and its varieties[[131]], which had been fully developed before the middle of the fourteenth century, still surviving in manuscripts of the second half of the fifteenth century, and continuing in use till the growing decadence of taste caused them to be superseded by borders and backgrounds painted in a naturalistic rather than a decorative manner[[132]].