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

by J. H. Middleton

Decay of the art.No illuminator working mainly for a money reward could possibly rival the marvellous productions of the earlier monastic scribes, who, labouring for the glory of God, and the credit to be won for themselves and for their monasteries, could devote years of patient toil to the illumination of one book, free from all sense of hurry, and finding in their work the chief joy and relaxation of their lives[^[141]].

In most even of the best productions of the guild-scribes of the fifteenth century one sees occasional signs of weariness and haste; and in the cheap manuscripts, which were turned out by the thousand in France and Flanders during the latter part of the fifteenth century, there is a coarseness of touch and a mechanical monotony of style, which remind one of the artistic results of the triumphant commercialism of the nineteenth century.

Cheap MSS.

Cheap MSS.It is more especially in the cheap Books of Hours of the second half of the fifteenth century that the lowest artistic level is reached in France, Flanders and Holland. Education had gradually been extended among various classes of laymen, and by the middle of the fifteenth century it appears to have been usual not only for all men above the rank of artisans to be able to read, but even women of the wealthy bourgeois class could make use of prayer-books. Hence arose a great demand for pictured Books of Hours[^[142]], which appear to have been produced in enormous quantities by the trade-scribes of towns such as Bruges, Paris and many others. These common manuscript Horae are monotonous in form and detail; they nearly always have the same set of miniatures, which are often coarse in detail and harsh in colour; and the illuminated borders, with which they are lavishly though cheaply decorated, have the same forms of foliage and fruit repeated again and again in dozens of manuscripts, which all look as if they had come out of the same workshop.

Fig. 26. Miniature executed for King René of Anjou about 1475.

It must not however be supposed that all the later French manuscripts, even of the latter half of the fifteenth century, were of this inferior class. Though the best figure painting was far inferior to the glorious miniatures in the Apocalypses of the fourteenth century, yet in their own way, as pictorial rather than decorative illustrations, the French miniatures of this date are often very remarkable for their beauty, their refinement and their interesting and very elaborate details.

King René's romance.

King René's romance.Some very fine manuscript illuminations of the highly pictorial type were executed for King René of Anjou, who died in 1480. Fig. [26] shows a good example of this, with a carefully painted landscape background, one of sixteen fine miniatures in a manuscript of the Roman de la très douce Mercy du Cueur damour épris, one of the poetical and allegorical romances which were then so popular in France. This miniature represents the meeting of the Knight Humble Requeste with the Squire Vif Désir. This manuscript is now at Vienna, in the Imperial library, No. 2597.

Beauty of fruit and flowers.