Of The Decorative Illustration Of Books Old And New Part 2

These miniatures are the work of Girolamo da Cremona, and Liberale da Verona. At least, these two are described as "the most copious and indefatigable of the artists employed on the Corali." Payments were made to them for the work in 1468, and again in 1472-3, which fixes the date.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FLEMISH SCHOOL. XVTH CENTURY.

"LIFE OF CHRIST." (ANTWERP, GHERAERT LEEU, 1487.)

(_Original, 7-3/8 in. 5-1/8 in._)]

[Sidenote: ILLUMINATED MSS.]

I am not ignoring the possibility of a certain division of labour in the illuminated MS. The work of the scribe, the illuminator, and the miniaturist are distinct enough, while equally important to the result.

Mr. J. W. Bradley, who has compiled a Dictionary of Miniaturists, speaking of calligrapher, illuminator, and miniaturist, says:--"Each of these occupations is at times conjoined with either or both of the others," and when that is so, in giving the craftsman his t.i.tle, he decides by the period of his work. For instance, from the seventh to the tenth centuries he would call him calligrapher; eleventh to fifteenth centuries, illuminator; fifteenth to sixteenth centuries, miniaturist.

Transcription he puts in another category as the work of the copyist scribe. But whatever division of labour there may or may not have been, there was no division in the harmony and unity of the effect. If in some cases the more purely ornamental parts, such as the floral borders and initials, were the work of one artist, the text of another, and the miniatures of another, all I can say is, that each worked together as brethren in unity, contributing to the beauty of a harmonious and organic whole; and if such division of labour can be ascertained to have been a fact, it goes to prove the importance of some co-operation in a work of art, and its magnificent possibilities.

The illuminated MS. books have this great distinction and advantage in respect of harmony of text and decoration, the text of the calligrapher always harmonizing with the designs of the illuminator, it being in like manner all through the Middle Ages a thing of growth and development, acquiring new characteristics and undergoing processes of transformation less obvious perhaps, but not less actual, than the changes in the style and characters of the devices and inventions which accompanied it. The mere fact that every part of the work was due to the hand, that manual skill and dexterity alone has produced the whole, gives a distinction and a character to these MS. books which no press could possibly rival.

The difficulty which besets the modern book decorator, ill.u.s.trator, or designer of printers' ornaments, of getting type which will harmonize properly with his designs, did not exist with the mediaeval illuminator, who must always have been sure of balancing his designs by a body of text not only beautiful in the form of its individual letters, but beautiful and rich in the effect of its ma.s.s on the page, which was only enhanced when the initials were relieved with colour on gold, or beautiful pen work which grew out of them like the mistletoe from the solid oak stem.

The very pitch of perfection which penmanship, or the art of the calligrapher had reached in the fifteenth century, the calculated regularity and "purgation of superfluities" in the form of the letters, the squareness of their ma.s.s in the words, and approximation in length and height, seem to suggest and naturally lead up to the idea of the movable type and the printed page.

Before, however, turning the next page of our subject, let us take one more general and rapid glance at the MS. books from the point of view of design.

[Ill.u.s.tration: GERMAN SCHOOL. XVTH CENTURY.

"CHRONICA HUNGARIae." (AUGSBURG, RATDOLT, 1488.)]

While examples of the two fields into which art may be said to be always more or less divided--the imitative and the inventive, or the ill.u.s.trative and the decorative--are not altogether absent in the books of the Middle Ages, the main tendency and prevailing spirit is decidedly on the inventive and decorative side, more especially in the work of the illuminators from the thirteenth to the fifteenth centuries, and yet this inventive and decorative spirit is often allied with a dramatic and poetic feeling, as well as a sense of humour. We see how full of life is the ornament of the illuminator, how figures, birds, animals, and insects fill his arabesques, how he is often decorator, ill.u.s.trator, and pictorial commentator in one.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FRENCH SCHOOL. XVTH CENTURY.

INITIAL FROM "LA MER DES HISTOIRES." (PARIS, PIERRE LE ROUGE, 1488.)]

[Sidenote: THE BEAUTIFUL PAGE.]

Even apart from his enrichments, it is evident that the page was regarded by the calligrapher as a s.p.a.ce to be decorated--that it should at least, regarded solely as a page of text, be a page of beautiful writing, the ma.s.s carefully placed upon the vellum, so as to afford convenient and ample margin, especially beneath. The page of a book, in fact, may be regarded as a flat panel which may be variously s.p.a.ced out. The calligrapher, the illuminator, and the miniaturist are the architects who planned out their vellum grounds and built beautiful structures of line and colour upon them for thought and fancy to dwell in. Sometimes the text is arranged in a single column, as generally in the earlier MSS.; sometimes in double, as generally in the Gothic and later MSS., and these square and oblong panels of close text are relieved by large and small initial letters sparkling in gold and colour, inclosed in their own framework, or escaping from it in free and varied branch work and foliation upon the margin, and set with miniatures like gems, as in the Bedford Hours, the larger initials increasing to such proportions as to inclose a more important miniature--a subject-picture in short--a book ill.u.s.tration in the fullest sense, yet strictly a part of a general scheme of the ornamentation of the page.

[Ill.u.s.tration: GERMAN SCHOOL. XVTH CENTURY.

"HORTUS SANITATIS." (MAINZ, JACOB MEIDENBACH, 1491.)]

[Sidenote: THE MINIATURISTS.]

Floral borders, which in some instances spread freely around the text and fill the margins, unconfined though not uninfluenced by rectangular lines or limits from a light and open, yet rich and delicate tracery of leaves and fanciful blossoms (as in the Bedford Hours); are in others framed in with firm lines (Tenison Psalter, p. 11); and in later fifteenth century MSS. with gold lines and mouldings, as the treatment of the page becomes more pictorial and solid in colour and relief. Sometimes the borders form a distinct framework, inclosing the text and dividing its columns, as in "The Book of Hours of Rene of Anjou" (Egerton MS. 1070), and the same design is sometimes repeated differently coloured. Gradually the miniaturist--the picture painter--although at first almost as formally decorative as the illuminator--a.s.serts his independence, and influences the treatment of the border, which becomes a miniature also, as in the Grimani Breviary, the Romance of the Rose, and the Choir Books of Siena, until at last the miniature or the picture is in danger of being more thought of than the book, and we get books of framed pictures instead of pictured or decorated books. In the Grimani Breviary the miniature frequently occupies the whole page with a single subject-picture; or the miniature is superimposed upon a pictured border, which, strengthened by rigid architectural lines and tabernacle work, form a rich frame.

[Ill.u.s.tration: GERMAN SCHOOL. XVTH CENTURY.

"CHRONEKEN DER Sa.s.sEN." (MAINZ, SCHoFFER, 1492.)]

All these varieties we have been examining are, however, interesting and beautiful in their own way in their results. In considering any form of art of a period which shows active traditions, real life and movement, natural growth and development, we are fascinated by its organic quality, and though we may detect the absorption or adaptation of new elements and new influences from time to time leading to changes of style and structure of design, as well as changed temper and feeling, as long as this natural evolution continues, each variety has its own charm and its own compensations; while we may have our preferences as to which approaches most nearly to the ideal of perfect adaptability, and, therefore, of decorative beauty.

In the progressive unfolding which characterizes a living style, all its stages must be interesting and possess their own significance, since all fall into their places in the great and golden record of the history of art itself.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

CHAPTER II. OF THE TRANSITION, AND OF THE SECOND PERIOD OF DECORATIVELY ILl.u.s.tRATED BOOKS, FROM THE INVENTION OF PRINTING IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY ONWARDS.

We have seen to what a pitch of perfection and magnificence the decoration and ill.u.s.tration of books attained during the Middle Ages, and the splendid results to which art in the three distinct forms--calligraphy, illumination, and miniature--contributed. We have traced a gradual progression and evolution of style through the period of MS. books, both in the development of writing and ornament. We have noted how the former became more and more regular and compact in its ma.s.s on the page, and how in the latter the ill.u.s.trative or pictorial size grew more and more important, until at the close of the fifteenth century we had large and elaborately drawn and naturalistic pictures framed in the initial letters, as in the Choir Books of Siena, or occupying the whole page with a single subject, as in the Grimani Breviary. The tree of design, springing from small and obscure germs, sends up a strong stem, branches and buds in the favourable sun, and finally breaks into a beautiful free efflorescence and fruitage. Then we mark a fresh change.

The autumn comes after the summertide, winter follows autumn, till the new life, ever ready to spring from the husk of the old, puts forth its leaves, until by almost imperceptible degrees and changes, and the silent growth of new forces, the face of the world is changed for us.

So it was with the change that came upon European art towards the end of the fifteenth century, the result of many causes working together; but as regards art as applied to books, the greatest of these was of course the invention and application of printing. Like most great movements in art or life, it had an obscure beginning. Its parentage might be sought in the woodcuts of the earlier part of the fifteenth century applied to the printing of cards. The immediate forerunners of printed books were the block books. Characteristic specimens of the quaint works may be seen displayed in the King's Library, British Museum. The art of these block books is quite rude and primitive, and, contrasted with the highly-finished work of the illuminated MS. of the same time, might almost belong to another period. These are the first tottering steps of the infant craft; the first faint utterances, soon to grow into strong, clear, and perfect speech, to rule the world of books and men.

[Ill.u.s.tration: GERMAN SCHOOL. XVTH CENTURY.

FROM THE LuBECK BIBLE. (LuBECK, STEFFEN ARNDES, 1494.)]

[Sidenote: THE EARLIEST PRINTERS.]

Germany had not taken any especial or distinguished part in the production of MSS. remarkable for artistic beauty or original treatment; but her time was to come, and now, in the use of an artistic application of the invention of printing, and the new era of book decoration and ill.u.s.tration, she at once took the lead. Seeing that the invention itself is ascribed to one of her own sons, it seems appropriate enough, and natural that printing should grow to quick perfection in the land of its birth; so that we find some of the earliest and greatest triumphs of the Press coming from German printers, such as Gutenberg, Fust, and Schoeffer, not to speak yet of the wonderful fertility of decorative invention, graphic force, and dramatic power of German designers, culminating in the supreme genius of Albrecht Durer and Hans Holbein.

The prosperous German towns, Cologne, Mainz, Frankfort, Stra.s.sburg, Augsburg, Bamberg, Halberstadt, Nuremberg, and Ulm, all became famous in the history of printing, and each had its school of designers in black and white, its distinctive style in book-decoration and printing.

Italy, France, Switzerland, and England, however, all had their share, and a glorious share, in the triumph of printing in its early days. The presses of Venice, of Florence, and of Rome and Naples, of Paris, and of Basel, and of our own William Caxton, at Westminster, must always be looked upon as in the van of the early progress of the art, and the richness of the decorative invention and beauty, in the case of the woodcut adornments used by the printers of Venice and Florence especially, gives them in the last years of the fifteenth century and the early years of the sixteenth a particular distinction.

1454 appears to be the earliest definite date that can be fixed on to mark the earliest use of printing. In that year, the Mainz "Indulgences"

were in circulation, but the following year is more important, as to it is a.s.signed the issue, from the press of Gutenberg and Fust at Mainz, of the famous Mazarin Bible, a copy of which is in the British Museum. Mr.

Bullen says, "The copy which first attracted notice in modern times was discovered in the library of Cardinal Mazarin"--hence the name.

It is noticeable as showing how transitional was the change in the treatment of the page. The scribe has been supplanted--the marshalled legions of printed letters have invaded his territory and driven him from his occupation; but the margin is still left for the illuminator to spread his coloured borders upon, and the initial letters wait for the touch of colour from his hand. The early printers evidently regarded their art as providing a subst.i.tute for the MS. book. They aimed at doing the work of the scribe and doing it better and more expeditiously. No idea of a new departure in effect seems to have been entertained at first, to judge from such specimens as these.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FRENCH SCHOOL. XVTH CENTURY.

FROM PARIS ET VIENNE. (PARIS, JEHAN TREPEREL, C. 1495.)]

[Sidenote: THE MAINZ PSALTER.]

Another early printed book is the Mainz Psalter. It is printed on vellum, and comes from the press of Fust and Schoeffer in 1457. It is remarkable not only as the first printed psalter and as the first book printed with a date, but also as being the first example of printing in colours. The initial letter B is the result of this method, and it affords a wonderful instance of true register. The blue of the letter fitted cleanly into the red of the surrounding ornament with a precision which puzzles our modern printers, and it is difficult to understand how such perfection could have been attained. Mr. Emery Walker has suggested to me that the blue letter itself might have been cut out, inked, and dropped in from the back of the red block when that was in the press, and so the two colours printed together. If this could be done with sufficient precision, it would certainly account for the exact.i.tude of the register. Apart from this interesting technical question, however, the page is a very beautiful one, and the initial, with its solid shape of figured blue, inclosed in the delicate red pen-like tracery climbing up and down the margin, is a charming piece of page decoration. The original may be seen in one of the cases in the King's Library, British Museum. We have here an instance of the printer aiming at directly imitating and supplanting by his craft the art of the calligrapher and illuminator, and with such a beauty and perfection of workmanship as must have astonished them and given them far more reason to regard the printer as a dangerous rival than had (as it is said) the early wood engravers, who were unwilling to help the printer by their art for fear his craft would injure their own, which seems somewhat extraordinary considering how closely allied both wood engraver and printer have been ever since.

The example of the Mainz Psalter does not seem to have been much followed, and as regards the application of colour, it was as a rule left as a matter of course to be added by the miniaturist, who evidently declined as an artist after he had got into the way of having his designs in outline provided for him ready-made by the printer; or, rather, perhaps the accomplished miniature printer, having carried his art as applied to books about as far as it would go, became absorbed as a painter of independent pictures, and the printing of books fell into inferior hands. There can be no doubt that the devices and decorations of the early printers were intended to be coloured in emulation of illuminated and miniatured MSS., and were regarded, in fact, as the pen outlines of the illuminator, only complete when filled in with colours and gold. It appears to have been only by degrees that the rich and vigorous lines of the woodcut, as well as the black and white effect, became admired for their own sake--so slowly moves the world!

[Sidenote: GERMAN ILl.u.s.tRATION.]

A good idea of the general character of the development of the wood (and metal) cut in book and ill.u.s.tration and decoration in Germany, from 1470 (Leiden Christi, Pfister, Bamberg, 1470) to (Virgil Solis' Bible) 1563, may be gained from a study of the series of reproductions given in this and the preceding chapter, in chronological order, with the names, dates, and places, as well as the particular characteristics of the style of the different designers and printers.

[Ill.u.s.tration: GERMAN SCHOOL. XVTH CENTURY.

"DAS BUCH UND LEBEN DES HOCHBERuHMTEN FABELDICHTERS aeSOPI." (ULM, 1498.[1])]