History of Illuminated Letters
The first part of this lesson is to show example of medieval illuminated text.
For younger students, use Marguerite Makes a Book by Bruce Robertson, which shows the medieval process of making an illuminated page. Angelicsaliwags has done an excellent project using the steps from this book as their guide.
Insular Illumination
For older students, you can go into more detail about the history of Illuminated manuscripts beginning with Insular manuscripts. These are characterized by decorative embellishment rather than narrative illustration. The ornament is composed of spiral patterns, interlace, knotwork and intertwined animals adapted from Anglo-Saxon and Celtic metalwork. An example of this style is found in the eighth-century Book of Kells, which has narrative illustrations in addition to portraits. A great book to show this type of illumination and give a background on the Book of Kells is The sailor who captured the sea: A story of the Book of Kells by Deborah Nourse Lattimore. It is written for a younger age group (so you could show this also to your elementary aged students) but shows clearly the illustrations and gives a little history on the Book of Kells. Worth the read, even for older students.
Carolingian Illumination
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Ottonian Illumination
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Emperors and powerful bishops were the principal patrons of the splendidly decorated manuscripts produced
at various monasteries in Germany in the tenth and eleventh centuries. Figures with intense glances and gestures were often set against brilliant gold grounds. Highly
burnished gold leaf was also used.
Anglo-Saxon Illumination
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Romanesque Illumination
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The expansion of monasticism in Europe in the later eleventh and twelfth centuries led to a great increase in
the production of manuscripts by and for monastic houses. The Romanesque style was characterized the preference
for big books and monumental forms; the two- dimensional rendering of figures with stylized drapery patterns
of Byzantine origin; flat backgrounds of gold-leaf or colored panels; and the emphasis on large, decorated
initials -- often composed of vine-scrolls inhabited by struggling men and beasts -- many of which contained narrative
scenes.
Gothic Illumination
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From the end of the twelfth century when Gothic illumination first appeared, the production of decorated manuscripts
increasingly shifted from monastic scriptoria to urban workshops operated by laymen. Royal patronage
and its renowned university helped make Paris the leading center of book illumination in Europe
during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. A trend toward more realistic representation developed in the early fourteenth century with the fully modeled
figures and perspective interiors and in the deeper space and landscape backgrounds of the second half of the century. The typical decorative
frame, the "bar border" consisting of a stemlike projection from the initial into the margins around the text and
illustration, yielded at the end of the fourteenth century to wide borders filled with a lacy pattern of ivy vines
and leaves. The most distinctive feature of Northern Gothic decoration are the grotesques and drolleries --
hybrid monsters,real and fantastic animals, and human figures -- that invade the borders and margins of the page.
Fifteenth Century Illumination
Books of hours created for aristocratic patrons were among the most lavishly decorated manuscripts of the fifteenth
century. Miniatures, under the influence of Renaissance panel painting, opened out into broad landscape
views full of naturalistic details or into deep, architectural spaces.
Decide the Type of Project
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| Quentin's (age 11) Beastiary page |
Once they have learned a bit about the history of illumination, they can begin their own project. take time to decide what type of project you would like your student to complete according to your student's abilities and interests and according to how much time you want to devote to the project. It can be as simple or as complex as you would like. Getting your student's input on this phase of the project will make him more invested in it.
The simplest project would be a full page illuminated letter.
A more complex project would be one in which the student would have a chosen passage, such as a portion from the Bible, and the would copy that passage like copywork as the monks did. The illuminated letter, however, would include in it symbolic elements from the passage and would require a lot of thought by the student as far as ho w accomplish this.
Another possible project would be a bestiary page in which the student includes a narration of what he has research and learned about what the people of the Medieval period thought of a mythical creature of the student's choice. My Quentin (age 11) chose the dragon.
Setting up the Page
Prepare the paper by drawing in a margin. If you are doing the full-page illuminated letter, then you just need and even border around your page, approximately a half inch to one inch from the edge of the paper. If you are doing a section of a piece of litrrature or a Beastiary page, in addition to the border, you will need to leave a space for the illustration, a space for writing and a block for the illuminated letter that will begin the passage. Have your student plan his page after seeing an ample amount of examples. Depending upon the student's age, you may have to help him execute blocking off the sections with a ruler and pencil. You may also want to lightly pencil in guide lines for writing in the copywork or narration.
Details of the Project
For the full-page illuminated letter, students must pay attention to the designs that surrounds the letter. For the other projects, your student will need to decide how he will put the pieces together, and what details he wants to add to his sketch.
The Border
The border can include geometric designs in a repeating pattern or be a part of the overall design. The border on Quentin's Beastiary page, for example, featured dragon eyes in the corner and the pattern of a dragon's tail that begins at the tail of the dragon in the main illustration and continues around the border, wrapping around the whole page.
Adding Color
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| The illustration in this project was done in colored pencil, gold and black marker and the background was done in blue tempera paint. |
Encourage students to embellish the negative space.
Lettering
Outlining
Adding Gold
Adding Details
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| James (age 15) chose the theme of wooded hill for his last name initial, B, because Bergenholtz means wooded hill. |
The square background is often a part of the illustration. You can fill it with a pattern or add a border.
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