Illumination and Its Development in the Present Day

by Sidney Farnsworth

I have tried to write in as simple a manner as possible, so that the youngest student should have no difficulty in understanding the instructions that are given.

So many books have been written on the subject of Illumination that it may seem quite superfluous to add yet another to the long list. Still, I think that a work treating the matter from the present-day standpoint ought to be of some service to the student who is desirous of practising this art to-day.

I have felt for some time past that there was a need for a work that would deal with the various ways in which this art could be applied in a time like the present. I have found that most of the books that have been written on Illumination treat the subject either from the standpoint of the archæologist or merely from that of the amateur. It is simply the result of a sincere desire to supply what I feel to be a real need that this book has been written, and in the hope that it may serve as a handbook and guide for the serious worker.

It has not been written with the idea of introducing a quick and easy method of becoming expert in the art of illumination. Success, in this, as in anything else of importance, can come only through hard work.

I have endeavoured to foster interest and enthusiasm, so that the student may not look upon the hard work entailed with this subject merely as a certain amount of drudgery to be got through. To one who is keenly interested in any particular study hard work often becomes a pleasure, and it is only when such is the case that the full benefit is derived from such study.

Illumination has a value in the present day as well as it had in the past. The developments of this art are seen in many of the common-place things of to-day. In some cases the development has been carried so far as to lose almost its identity with the original craft from which it has sprung, but the connection is there all the same.

The art of the book began with the illuminated manuscript, the early printed books being based entirely on the manuscripts that preceded them; and the same thing may be said with regard to the application of decoration to printed lettering generally.

The practice of illumination in the present day should result in something more than weak imitations of illuminated borders which were produced in the mediæval period. Illumination ought to be a real living art to-day.

There are numerous ways in which it could be used as a craft at the present time, quite apart from the many ways in which it could be applied commercially.

With regard to the study of lettering, there is a great need for more serious attention to be given to it. We are so surrounded by bad lettering that it is well that an effort should be made to get better results, and, as a means to this, some study of the beautiful forms of lettering used in the past should be of the greatest service. For this reason I have tried, by giving some examples, to direct the student’s attention to at least some of the fine styles of lettering that were employed in centuries gone by.