Illuminated Manuscripts in Classical and Mediaeval Times/Chapter 11

Though in the main the eleventh century was a period of artistic decadence, mentioned above as having succeeded the brilliant Carolingian period (see page 78), yet we find that in certain places in Germany there was a very distinct beginning of artistic revival, especially in the illumination of manuscripts, about the middle of the eleventh century and even earlier. A school of magnificently decorative art began then to be developed, and though the drawing of the human figure was still weak, yet effects of the noblest decorative character were produced by manuscript illuminators, foreshadowing that marvellous climax of manuscript art which was reached in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.

Fig. 29 shows a sumptuously decorative page from an eleventh century manuscript Missal which was executed for the Emperor Henry II. (now in the Munich library). On a brilliant diapered background in gold, red and blue, a standing figure of the Emperor is crowned by Christ, who sits within a vesica aureole. The Emperor receives from two angels the great Cross Standard of the Empire and a sword. His arms are supported by a saint on each side, Saints Ulrich and Emmeram. The whole page is a superb piece of decoration, and is specially interesting because illuminations of this type were evidently used by the earliest painters of stained glass windows to supply them with designs.



Fig. 30 illustrates a stained glass figure of King David, one of five lancet-windows from the Cathedral of Augsburg, executed about 1065, when the Church was consecrated, and probably about the oldest existing example of a figure in stained glass. The manuscript-like type of the design is very evident.



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.



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.

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. Figs. 32 and 33 give good examples of the illuminations of this date.







Fig. 32 shows a fine initial S formed out of a winged dragon, and ornamented with conventional foliage of the noblest type. This initial shows the surviving Celtic or rather Northumbrian influence, which in the time of Charles the Great had been so important in the German Empire.

Fig. 33 illustrates a miniature of the Annunciation from a fine manuscript Evangeliarium or Book of the Gospels, which is now in the library at Carlsruhe. The drawing, though stiff in pose, is noble in style; and the whole miniature, with its graceful scroll-work background, is of high decorative value, a prototype of the perfect style of the French and Anglo-Norman illuminations of the second half of the thirteenth century. In this painting, as in many other manuscripts of early date, the B. V. Mary is represented as occupied in spinning with a distaff while the angel Gabriel approaches to announce the birth of the Messiah.

Fig. 34 shows a very beautifully designed page of the Kalendar at the beginning of a Psalter executed about the year 1200 for the Landgrave of Thüringen. On the left is the space in which the scribe inserted the days of the months, and on the right is a noble and gracefully drawn figure of Saint Matthew. The interlaced foliage of the initial K is of characteristic German type.

Fig. 35 shows a very elaborate and graceful initial Y, from another manuscript of the same date, decorated by a vine-plant from which a youth is gathering grapes, while a monkey, sitting in the branches, is eating some of the fruit. The whole design is a masterpiece of decorative beauty, elaborately worked out in gold and colours.

The fine mural paintings of this date are frequently identical in style and design with pages from illuminated manuscripts. This is most remarkably the case with the late twelfth century paintings on the walls and vault of the church of St Michael at Hildesheim; in which the figures, the conventional foliage and the general arrangement of the whole have evidently been copied from manuscript illuminations.

Fig. 36 shows a striking example of this, painted about 1186 on the vault of Saint Michael's. The whole treatment of this grandly decorative painting is precisely like that of the page of an illuminated book.



In the centre is the Fall of Man in a medallion frame with a conventionally treated tree on each side; all round are smaller paintings, including the great Rivers of Paradise and the Jordan, two Evangelists and their Symbols, with a series of medallion busts of Old Testament Saints linked together by scroll-work of foliage exactly like that in illuminations of contemporary date.



The German manuscripts of the thirteenth and fourteenth century are less purely national in style. The finest illuminations of this date show in some cases a marked French influence, and, especially during the fourteenth century, a strong Italian influence was prevalent.

Fig. 37 gives a good example of this from a manuscript Passionale, written in 1312 for the Abbess of the Convent of St George at Prague. The figures in this manuscript resemble those in some of the Florentine illuminated manuscripts of Dante's Divina Commedia, executed about 1360 to 1390. The subject of the miniatures shown in fig. 37 is a romantic story of a bride who was carried off by brigands and flung into a blazing furnace, from which, by the aid of the B. V. Mary, she was rescued unhurt by the knight, her husband.

In the fifteenth century an important development of Teutonic art took place under the Van Eycks and their pupils. In Flanders, especially in Bruges, Antwerp and Ghent, a very elaborate and beautiful class of illumination was produced, in some respects different in style from the Franco-Flemish school of art.

In the latter part of the century magnificent manuscripts were produced by illuminators of the Memlinc and Van der Weyden school, such as the famous Grimani Breviary in the Venetian Ducal library, so-called from its having been bought from a Sicilian dealer in 1521 for 500 gold ducats by Cardinal Grimani, a member of the Venetian Grimani family, who were liberal patrons of this class of art; this sum was quite equal to £2000 in modern value. The miniatures in this manuscript were ascribed by the dealer to Hans Memlinc, Gérard of Bruges and Lieven of Antwerp; they were probably by the two latter illuminators, not by Memlinc, who died in 1494 or 1495.



Gérard or Gheeraert of Bruges was a native of Oudewater in Holland; he was born about the middle of the fifteenth century, and settled in Bruges in the year 1483, when he became a member of the Guild of Saint John and Saint Luke, to which all painters and manuscript illuminators were obliged to belong. Gérard took the surname of David, and became a famous painter of triptychs and altar-pieces, as well as a skilful illuminator of manuscripts. Many fine panel-paintings by him still exist in Bruges and elsewhere. There are also several fine manuscripts with miniatures by his hand in addition to those in the Grimani Breviary. Among these are two Books of Hours in the collection of the late Baron Anselm Rothschild of Vienna, and another manuscript Horae, which was written and illuminated for the Cardinal Prince Albert, Elector of Brandenburg, who was consecrated Archbishop of Magdeburg in the year 1513 at the age of twenty-three. An interesting monograph, with photographic reproductions of the miniatures, was written by Mr W. H. J. Weale for Mr F. S. Ellis, the owner of the manuscript. This lovely manuscript is almost equal in beauty to the Grimani Breviary; it is rather later in date, having been illuminated between 1514 and 1523.

The miniatures in the sumptuous Grimani Breviary, which dates from the latter years of the fifteenth century, probably about 1496, are very pictorial in style, with figures which are larger than usual, proportionally to the size of the page. In some of the miniatures the figures are shown only in half length, so that the elaborately finished heads are painted to a large scale. The borders which surround the pages, enclosing both text and miniatures, are of the Franco-Flemish style, with realistic flowers, fruit, insects and the like, scattered over a flat gold ground, as is described above at page 143. The butterflies, dragon-flies, strawberries, irises and lilies are perfect marvels of naturalistic skill and beauty.

Fig. 38 illustrates one of the miniatures in the Grimani Breviary; it is one of the lovely series representing the characteristic occupations of the twelve months in the Kalendar, which commonly occur as small pictures at the tops of pages in manuscript Kalendars of the fifteenth century, but in this exceptionally magnificent book are full page miniatures. The one copied in fig. 38 represents the month of April, a time for love-making and out-door parties of pleasure; here illustrated by a most beautiful and dignified group of ladies and gentlemen, enlivened by the humour of the scene in the left-hand corner, with a little dog barking jealously at another pet dog which is being petted on a lady's lap.



The background, with trees and Cathedral spires like those of Antwerp or Malines, is specially beautiful and highly finished.

Though marvels of minute and beautiful workmanship these late Teutonic manuscripts belong to a period of decadence. As has already been remarked, neither in poetic feeling nor in decorative value do they approach the masterpieces of French art during the fourteenth century.

Fig. 39 shows a page from a Book of Hours (Paris, Bibl. Nat. Lat. 10, 532) which was illuminated for King René II. of Lorraine (1473 to 1508). The figure of the Virgin shows the influence of Italian art, which about this time, 1490, was largely modifying and adding grace to the paintings of Flanders.

The border, with lupines or vetch-plant realistically painted on a gold ground, is a good typical specimen of the style.

The famous Prayer-book of Anne of Brittany, painted about 1500, after her second marriage to Louis XII., is a work of the same magnificent style, with an immense variety of the most exquisitely painted fruits and flowers treated with the most minute realism. It is now in the Paris library.

Fig. 40 gives a page from a magnificent Book of Hours in the Imperial Library of Vienna (no. 1857); the miniatures in which are of the finest Teutonic type, in some cases suggesting the school of Van der Weyden, and in others that of Hans Memlinc. The conventional scroll-work of foliage with long serrated leaves in the border is very characteristic of the German and Dutch manuscripts of the fifteenth century.





In some cases this foliage is painted with fluid gold; the high lights being touched in with white, and the shadows with a grisaille blue. Another beautiful style of decoration in manuscripts of this class has conventional flower forms painted in transparent lake with white lights over a sheet of burnished gold. The skilful use of gold both in the pigment form, and in leaf on a raised enamel-like ground, is specially characteristic of German and Dutch manuscripts of the fifteenth century. In some manuscripts very beautiful borders are executed in delicate scroll-work with fine lines and dots, all of burnished gold, the effect of which is very magnificent.

The borders and long marginal ornaments, which grow out of the large illuminated initials, are often diversified with figures of a naturalistic or grotesque type, devised with greater fancy and variety than the similar figures of the same sort which occur in so many French manuscripts.

Fig. 41 shows a beautiful example of this, which dates from the last years of the fourteenth century, c. 1390. It is an ornament at the foot of one of the pages in a manuscript which was illuminated for the Emperor Wenzel of Bohemia. Two scenes, a prisoner in the stocks, and a man being bathed by two attendant girls, are placed in the centre of the grand sweeping lines of foliage. The backgrounds with their delicate scroll-work and diaper patterns are imitated from those in the fine French and Anglo-Norman manuscripts of the earlier part of the fourteenth century.

In some marginal illuminations, miniature figures of knights jousting are introduced charging through the scrolls of foliage; and Angels gracefully drawn are very frequently introduced into the elaborate borders, as is shown on fig. 40.

Grotesque figures were great favourites with the Teutonic illuminators; devils and monkeys, pigmies fighting cranes, or strange monsters made up (like the Roman grylli) of several animals and birds united, are of frequent occurrence in German and Dutch illuminated manuscripts, more especially in Books of Hours, where such fancies were probably a relief from the gravity of the text both to the illuminator and to the owner of the book: see below, page 208.





The finest Teutonic manuscripts of the fifteenth century show in their miniatures the influence of the Van Eycks; as is also the case with many of the manuscripts which fall rather under the head of the Franco-Flemish than the Teutonic school.

Fig. 42 gives a fine example of a miniature by an illuminator who must have been an actual pupil of the Van Eycks. It is taken from a fragment of a manuscript of the Croniques de Jherusalem, now in the Imperial library of Vienna (no. 2533). It represents Duke Baudouin (or Baldwin), who was crowned King of Jerusalem, in the guise of a fifteenth century German knight, under a graceful Gothic canopy of characteristically German style. The date of this sumptuous manuscript is about 1450.

As is remarked below with regard to Italian art, it is interesting to observe the strong influence that miniature painting in manuscripts had upon the larger pictures of Teutonic artists. In many cases the German and Flemish painters of altar-pieces were also illuminators of manuscripts, like Liberale of Verona and Girolamo dai libri, who are mentioned below, see page 197.

And even without this reason for similarity, it was not uncommon for the painter of a retable to borrow his composition and general decorative scheme from an illuminated manuscript by some skilful artist.

Fig. 43 shows a good example of this, the central panel of a retable dated 1473, in the church of St Martin at Colmar, which is almost certainly the work of Martin Schoen or Schöngauer.

In the art of the Cologne School more especially, the relationship between the panel paintings and the miniature illuminations of manuscripts is very close, both in the general decorative schemes and also in the extreme minuteness and delicacy of the larger paintings.





Fig. 44 shows a beautiful example of this, a small panel, now in the Archiepiscopal Museum at Cologne, representing the Virgin and Child seated on a flowery sward with a trellis covered with roses as a background, and lovely child-angels playing on musical instruments all round. The whole panel is a perfect gem of brilliantly decorative art of the purest and most perfect kind, quite free from the too pictorial realism which at this time, about 1460, was growing rapidly among the miniaturists of France and the Netherlands.

Half a century later, in the early part of the sixteenth century, the same tendency to paint pictures like a magnified manuscript illumination is frequently to be observed.

Fig. 45 represents one wing of an altar triptych by Hans Holbein the elder, painted about the year 1514. This beautiful figure of Saint Elizabeth of Hungary is interesting as showing the influence of Italian art, which at that time was widely spread throughout Germany and France; it also, in its minutely delicate touch and in the grotesque ornaments at the top and bottom, shows a strong tendency to use the forms and methods of the manuscript illuminator.

Manuscripts of the Teutonic school, which are known to be by the hand of a famous painter, are of rare occurrence; there is therefore special interest in the book of which one of the border-illuminations is illustrated in fig. 46. The text itself (a book of prayers) is printed on vellum, but forty-five of the pages are decorated with borders drawn by the masterly hand of Albert Dürer in red, green and violet ink, a method possibly suggested to Dürer by the sight of one of the tenth or eleventh century manuscripts which were illuminated with outline drawings in inks of these three colours. This beautiful prayer-book was decorated by Albert Dürer in 1515 for the Emperor Maximilian; it is now in the Munich Library. There is much that is grotesque and humorous introduced among the finely designed scroll-work of these borders; and their firm strong touch, united to much fanciful grace of form in the varied forms of leafage, makes the whole well worthy of its illuminator's artistic fame.

Fig. 45. Wing of a triptych, with a figure of St Elizabeth of Hungary, painted by the elder Hans Holbein; this illustrates the influence on painting of the styles of manuscript illumination at the beginning of the sixteenth century.



The border illustrated here has, at the foot, a spirited group of musicians, and a beautiful background, with a river and castle-crowned hill, such as Dürer loved to introduce into paintings and engravings of all kinds. On one of the kettledrums in the foreground are the initials of the artist and the date 1515.



In the main the manuscripts of Holland resemble those either of the other contemporary Teutonic or of the Franco-Flemish schools.

In the fifteenth century an enormous number of Books of Hours and other works for private devotion, such as "the Book of Christian Belief," Den Boeck van den Kersten Ghelove, and others of the same class, were produced in Holland. Many of these are written in the vulgar tongue.

The miniature illuminations are on the whole inferior to the exquisite paintings in Flemish manuscripts; but they are usually very decorative in treatment, of a simple, homely style, which is not without charm. The decorative initials are often very large and beautiful, in some cases occupying a large proportion of the page; and the borders, which grow gracefully out of these large capitals, are magnificently rich both in design and execution. Gold is used profusely and with remarkable taste and skill in these Dutch illuminations, which frequently have a combination of mat, fluid gold applied with the brush over a ground of brilliantly burnished gold leaf. Very beautiful initials are also formed by painting with a transparent lake red over a ground of burnished gold, which shines through the red pigment, thus producing a brilliantly decorative effect.

The miniatures of the fifteenth century Dutch manuscripts are noticeable for their realistic architectural details, with interiors of rooms full of elaborate furniture, bookshelves, sideboards covered with silver plate, or the humbler jugs and dishes of pewter, with countless other kinds of fittings and furniture.

Dutch miniatures with ecclesiastical scenes frequently have elaborately rendered interior views of churches, which are usually very interesting from their illustration of the choir and altar fittings, the retables, the "riddles" or altar-curtains, the tabernacles for the Reserved Host, and many other valuable records of mediaeval church furniture and ritual.

One very delicate and beautiful kind of illumination, which occurs in many of the best Dutch manuscripts, is by no means peculiar to Holland, but is also found in many English, French, Flemish and Italian manuscripts.

This consists of capitals, often of large size, decorated with rich ornamentation executed wholly with thin lines of blue and red drawn with a very fine pen. The firmness of touch and spirited quality of this pen illumination is often very remarkable, showing the most perfect training of hand and eye on the part of the illuminator. Though not as gorgeous as the usual initials painted with gold and colours, this line ornament is sometimes of the richest and most delicate quality that can be imagined. In some cases a purple or violet ink is used, as well as the brighter blue and red, especially in Italian manuscripts.

The form of the pen ornaments used in this class of illumination is very much the same in all the chief European classes of manuscripts; a somewhat exceptional circumstance, since, as a rule, each country has its own peculiar types of decoration.

This beautiful pen-work reached its highest point of perfection in the first half of the fifteenth century. It is frequently used for the illuminated initials in the early printed books of Germany. Books printed at Strasburg by Mentelin, about 1460 to 1468, are often decorated with very elaborate and skilfully drawn ornament of this type; in many cases probably by Mentelin's own hand, since he was a skilful manuscript illuminator before he began to practise the art of printing.

The printed books of Koburger of Nuremberg are also remarkable for the beauty of their illuminations, both in the blue and red pen-work and also with painted ornaments in gold and colour.