Illumination (Art Dictionary)

Illumination: The decoration of manuscript texts which may have started from the simple addition of minium to the script, the general part being written in black. From this grew quite extraordinary elaboration, fantastic interwoven strap patterns, decorative motifes, zoomorphic imagery, plant forms. miniature portraits of religious figures. It was one of the most important arts of the Middle Ages. Wherever there were monasteries the art seems to have been practised. The monastic scribe worked about six hours a day. After he had finished the work was proof-read. Then the sheets went to a rubricator who put in titles and headlines, then to the illuminator. The last worked miracles of miniature presentation with the materials at his command. The oldest known illumination is an Egyptian papyrus, the ‘Book of the Dead’. The Greeks and Romans produced some work, but very little survives. The Byzantine manuscripts contain some perfect examples. Fourteenth-century Persian editions of the Koran, exquisite delicate designs. Among the famed European manuscripts are the ‘Book of Hours’ of the Duc de Berry produced by the Limbourg brothers (1410-13), and ‘The Book of Kells’, 8th century, now in Trinity College Library, Dublin. The manuscripts were worked on vellum, using not only colours, but also gold-leaf and other metals, tiny fragments of precious and semi-precious stones and raising paste.