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

by J. H. Middleton

Fig. 30. Figure of King David from a stained glass window in the Cathedral of Augsburg, dating from 1065.

Gospels of the XIth century.

Gospels of the XIth century.Fig. [31] is from a magnificently decorated book of the Gospels, executed in the eleventh century for Uota, Abbess of the convent of Niedermünster, at Ratisbon, in the reign of the Emperor Henry II. The whole page is a superbly decorative composition; in the centre is a Crucifixion with figures of Life and Death at the foot of the cross. In the lower angles are minute paintings of the Rent Veil of the Temple, and the opened sepulchres; above, at the sides, are symbolical figures of the Church and the Synagogue, or Grace and Law. At the upper angles are the Sun and Moon veiling their faces before the Passion of Christ. Graceful scroll foliage, of the Oriental textile type, fills in the spandrels.

Fig. 31. Miniature from an eleventh century manuscript of the Gospels, by a German illuminator.

Revival of art.

Revival of art.In the twelfth century the revival of manuscript art in Germany progressed with great rapidity, and an immense number of magnificently illuminated manuscripts were produced, especially in the chief Benedictine Monasteries, which had always been the principal homes of learning and the chief centres of the illuminator's art in Germany as in other European countries[^[163]].

Grotesque forms.

Grotesque forms.Frederic I. (Barbarossa), b. 1121-d. 1190, imitated the example of Charles the Great in his patronage of art and especially of the art of the illuminator. The manuscripts of his time are remarkable for the richness and fancy of their twining masses of conventional foliage, mingled with dragons, monkeys, human forms and monsters of all kinds, designed with extreme beauty in their strong sweeping curves and coloured with brilliant and yet harmonious tints in a superbly decorative way. Though the figure drawing of the illuminators had not reached the perfection which was attained a century later, yet in point of decorative ornament nothing could surpass the best German manuscripts of the twelfth century[^[164]]. Figs. [32] and [33] give good examples of the illuminations of this date.