John Hopkins Lowden (born 1 May 1953) is a British art historian who is Professor of the History of Art at the Courtauld Institute , which he joined in 1982.
100-477: Lowden is a graduate of Cambridge University and previously taught at St. Andrews. His specialism is in illuminated manuscripts . Gründler Book Prize This article about a British historian or genealogist is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Illuminated manuscripts An illuminated manuscript is a formally prepared document where the text is decorated with flourishes such as borders and miniature illustrations . Often used in
200-440: A reed pen . In the case of manuscripts that were sold commercially, the writing would "undoubtedly have been discussed initially between the patron and the scribe (or the scribe's agent, but by the time the written gathering were sent off to the illuminator, there was no longer any scope for innovation.) The sturdy Roman letters of the early Middle Ages gradually gave way to scripts such as Uncial and half-Uncial, especially in
300-486: A German one in England". The church of St George at Oberzell on Reichenau Island has the best-known surviving scheme, though much of the original work has been lost and the remaining paintings to the sides of the nave have suffered from time and restoration. The largest scenes show the miracles of Christ in a style that both shows specific Byzantine input in some elements, and a closeness to Reichenau manuscripts such as
400-412: A barometer of status with the manuscript was degraded". During this time period the price of gold had become so cheap that its inclusion in an illuminated manuscript accounted for only a tenth of the cost of production. By adding richness and depth to the manuscript, the use of gold in illuminations created pieces of art that are still valued today. The application of gold leaf or dust to an illumination
500-519: A commission. However, commercial scriptoria grew up in large cities, especially Paris , and in Italy and the Netherlands, and by the late 14th century there was a significant industry producing manuscripts, including agents who would take long-distance commissions, with details of the heraldry of the buyer and the saints of personal interest to him (for the calendar of a book of hours). By the end of
600-600: A few examples from later periods. Books that are heavily and richly illuminated are sometimes known as "display books" in church contexts, or "luxury manuscripts", especially if secular works. In the first millennium, these were most likely to be Gospel Books , such as the Lindisfarne Gospels and the Book of Kells . The Book of Kells is the most widely recognized illuminated manuscript in the Anglosphere , and
700-809: A foot in Trier , and gold altar frontals for the Palace Chapel, Aachen and Basel Cathedral (now in Paris). The Palace Chapel also has the pulpit or Ambon of Henry II . The late Carolingian upper cover of the Lindau Gospels ( Morgan Library , New York) and the Arnulf Ciborium in Munich were important forerunners of the style, from a few decades before and probably from the same workshop. Large objects in non-precious metals were also made, with
800-422: A format dominated by huge ornamented capitals that descended from uncial forms or by illustrations". To prevent such poorly made manuscripts and illuminations from occurring, a script was typically supplied first, "and blank spaces were left for the decoration. This presupposes very careful planning by the scribe even before he put pen to parchment." The following steps outline the detailed labor involved to create
900-673: A fourth cross, the Theophanu Cross came some fifty years later. The Cross of Lothair ( Aachen ) and Imperial Cross ( Vienna ) were imperial possessions; Vienna also has the Imperial Crown of the Holy Roman Empire . The book cover of the Codex Aureus of Echternach ( Germanisches Nationalmuseum , Nuremberg ) is in a very comparable style. Other major objects include a reliquary of St Andrew surmounted by
1000-569: A handle. An aspergillum was dipped in the situla to collect water with which to sprinkle the congregation or other objects. However the four Ottonian examples from the 10th century are made from a whole section of elephant tusk, and are slightly larger in girth at their tops. All are richly carved with scenes and figures on different levels: the Basilewsky Situla of 920 in the Victoria & Albert Museum , decorated with scenes from
1100-426: A miniature in a frame, a historiated initial beginning a passage of text, and a border with drolleries. Often different artists worked on the different parts of the decoration. While the use of gold is by far one of the most captivating features of illuminated manuscripts, the bold use of varying colors provided multiple layers of dimension to the illumination. From a religious perspective, "the diverse colors wherewith
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#17327979891221200-401: A number of his friends and relations had several dozen. Wealthy patrons, however, could have personal prayer books made especially for them, usually in the form of richly illuminated " books of hours ", which set down prayers appropriate for various times in the liturgical day . One of the best known examples is the extravagant Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry for a French prince. Up to
1300-405: A reformed Church, creating a period of heightened cultural and artistic fervour. It was in this atmosphere that masterpieces were created that fused the traditions from which Ottonian artists derived their inspiration: models of Late Antique, Carolingian, and Byzantine origin. Surviving Ottonian art is very largely religious, in the form of illuminated manuscripts and metalwork, and was produced in
1400-481: A shimmering void". The group introduced the background of solid gold to Western illumination. Two dedication miniatures added to the Egmond Gospels around 975 show a less accomplished Netherlandish version of Ottonian style. In Regensburg St. Emmeram's Abbey held the major Carolingian Codex Aureus of St. Emmeram , which probably influenced a style with "an incisive line and highly formal organization of
1500-541: A single hollow piece. This unusual form is decorated with twenty-four scenes from the ministry of Jesus in a continuous strip winding round the column in the manner of Trajan's Column and other Roman examples. Around 980, Archbishop Egbert of Trier seems to have established the major Ottonian workshop producing cloisonné enamel in Germany, which is thought to have fulfilled orders for other centres, and after his death in 993 possibly moved to Essen . During this period
1600-583: A small number of centres for a narrow range of patrons in the circle of the Imperial court, as well as important figures in the church. However much of it was designed for display to a wider public, especially of pilgrims. The style is generally grand and heavy, sometimes to excess, and initially less sophisticated than the Carolingian equivalents, with less direct influence from Byzantine art and less understanding of its classical models, but around 1000
1700-419: A steady stream of work for goldsmiths, ivory carving at this period was mainly for the church, and may have been centred in monasteries, although (see below) wall-paintings seems to have been usually done by laymen. Ottonian monasteries produced many magnificent medieval illuminated manuscripts. They were a major art form of the time, and monasteries received direct sponsorship from emperors and bishops, having
1800-503: A striking intensity and expressiveness emerge in many works, as "a solemn monumentality is combined with a vibrant inwardness, an unworldly, visionary quality with sharp attention to actuality, surface patterns of flowing lines and rich bright colours with passionate emotionalism". Following late Carolingian styles, " presentation portraits " of the patrons of manuscripts are very prominent in Ottonian art, and much Ottonian art reflected
1900-405: A symbolic rather than naturalistic rationale, the size of figures reflects their importance, and in them "emphasis is not so much on movement as in gesture and glance", with narrative scenes "presented as a quasi-liturgical act, dialogues of divinity". This gestural "dumb-show [was] soon to be conventionalized as a visual language throughout medieval Europe". The group were produced perhaps from
2000-518: A tiny figure in the corner." The calendar was also personalized, recording the feast days of local or family saints. By the end of the Middle Ages many manuscripts were produced for distribution through a network of agents, and blank spaces might be reserved for the appropriate heraldry to be added locally by the buyer. Related articles Ottonian art Ottonian art is a style in pre-romanesque German art , covering also some works from
2100-473: Is a record of bishop Gebhard of Constance hiring lay artists for a now vanished cycle at his newly foundation (983) of Petershausen Abbey , and laymen may have dominated the art of wall-painting, though perhaps sometimes working to designs by monastic illuminators. The artists seem to have been rather mobile: "at about the time of the Oberzell pictures there was an Italian wall-painter working in Germany, and
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#17327979891222200-489: Is a very detailed process that only the most skilled illuminators can undertake and successfully achieve. The first detail an illuminator considered when dealing with gold was whether to use gold leaf or specks of gold that could be applied with a brush. When working with gold leaf, the pieces would be hammered and thinned. The use of this type of leaf allowed for numerous areas of the text to be outlined in gold. There were several ways of applying gold to an illumination. One of
2300-571: Is clear from documentary records that many churches were decorated with extensive cycles of wall-painting, survivals are extremely rare, and more often than not fragmentary and in poor condition. Generally they lack evidence to help with dating such as donor portraits, and their date is often uncertain; many have been restored in the past, further complicating the matter. Most survivals are clustered in south Germany and around Fulda in Hesse ; though there are also important examples from north Italy. There
2400-856: Is famous for its insular designs. The Romanesque and Gothic periods saw the creation of many large illuminated complete bibles . The largest surviving example of these is The Codex Gigas in Sweden; it is so massive that it takes three librarians to lift it. Other illuminated liturgical books appeared during and after the Romanesque period. These included psalters , which usually contained all 150 canonical psalms, and small, personal devotional books made for lay people known as books of hours that would separate one's day into eight hours of devotion. These were often richly illuminated with miniatures, decorated initials and floral borders. They were costly and therefore only owned by wealthy patrons, often women. As
2500-595: Is the pair of church doors, the Bernward Doors , with biblical figure scenes in bronze relief, each cast in a single piece, where the powerfully simple compositions convey their meanings by emphatic gestures, in a way comparable to the Reichenau miniatures of the same period. There is also a bronze column, the Bernward Column , 3.79 metres (12.4 ft) high, originally the base for a crucifix, cast in
2600-431: Is the usual modern book format, although sometimes the older scroll format was used, for various reasons. A very few illuminated fragments also survive on papyrus . Books ranged in size from ones smaller than a modern paperback, such as the pocket gospel , to very large ones such as choirbooks for choirs to sing from, and "Atlantic" bibles, requiring more than one person to lift them. Paper manuscripts appeared during
2700-511: The Crucifixion of Jesus as the most common subject. These and other subjects very largely continue Carolingian iconography, but in a very different style. A group of four Ottonian ivory situlae appear to represent a new departure for ivory carving in their form, and the type is hardly found after this period. Situlae were liturgical vessels used to hold holy water , and previously were usually of wood or bronze, straight-sided and with
2800-899: The Life of Christ on two levels, the "Situla of Gotofredo" of c. 980 in Milan Cathedral , one in the Aachen Cathedral Treasury, and one in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. All came from the milieu of the Ottonian court: an inscription says that Archbishop Gotfredus presented the Milan example in anticipation of a visit by the Emperor, also referred to in the London example which
2900-690: The Maqāmāt al-Ḥarīrī , pointing to a common pictorial tradition that existed since circa 1180 in Syria and Iraq which was highly influenced by Byzantine art . Some of the illustrations of these manuscript have been characterized as "illustration byzantine traitée à la manière arabe" ("Byzantine illustration treated in the Arab style"). The Persian miniature tradition mostly began in whole books, rather than single pages for muraqqas or albums, as later became more common. The Great Mongol Shahnameh , probably from
3000-597: The Artuqids . An explosion of artistic production in Arabic manuscripts occurred in the 12th and especially the 13th century. Thus various Syriac manuscripts of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, such as Syriac Gospels, Vatican Library, Syr. 559 or Syriac Gospels, British Library, Add. 7170 , were derived from the Byzantine tradition, yet stylistically have a lot in common with Islamic illustrated manuscripts such as
3100-470: The British Isles , where distinctive scripts such as insular majuscule and insular minuscule developed. Stocky, richly textured blackletter was first seen around the 13th century and was particularly popular in the later Middle Ages. Prior to the days of such careful planning, "A typical black-letter page of these Gothic years would show a page in which the lettering was cramped and crowded into
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3200-551: The Early Modern period. Especially after the book of hours became popular, wealthy individuals commissioned works as a sign of status within the community, sometimes including donor portraits or heraldry : "In a scene from the New Testament, Christ would be shown larger than an apostle, who would be bigger than a mere bystander in the picture, while the humble donor of the painting or the artist himself might appear as
3300-626: The Graeco-Arabic translation movement and the creation of scientific and technical treatises often based on Greek scientific knowledge, such as the Arabic versions of The Book of Fixed Stars (965 CE), De materia medica or Book of the Ten Treatises of the Eye . The translators were most often Arab Syriac Christians , such as Hunayn ibn Ishaq or Yahya ibn Adi , and their work is known to have been sponsored by local rulers, such as
3400-623: The Late Middle Ages . The untypically early 11th century Missal of Silos is from Spain, near to Muslim paper manufacturing centres in Al-Andalus . Textual manuscripts on paper become increasingly common, but the more expensive parchment was mostly used for illuminated manuscripts until the end of the period. Very early printed books left spaces for red text, known as rubrics , miniature illustrations and illuminated initials , all of which would have been added later by hand. Drawings in
3500-632: The Low Countries , northern Italy and eastern France. It was named by the art historian Hubert Janitschek after the Ottonian dynasty which ruled Germany and Northern Italy between 919 and 1024 under the kings Henry I , Otto I , Otto II , Otto III and Henry II . With Ottonian architecture , it is a key component of the Ottonian Renaissance (circa 951–1024). However, the style neither began nor ended to neatly coincide with
3600-578: The Palace of Theoderic in Ravenna and reused them in his new cathedral at Magdeburg . The one thing the ruler portraits rarely attempt is a close likeness of the individual features of a ruler; when Otto III died, some manuscript images of him were re-purposed as portraits of Henry II without the need being felt to change the features. In a continuation and intensification of late Carolingian trends, many miniatures contain presentation miniatures depicting
3700-498: The Roman Catholic Church for prayers and liturgical books such as psalters and courtly literature , the practice continued into secular texts from the 13th century onward and typically include proclamations , enrolled bills , laws , charters , inventories, and deeds . The earliest surviving illuminated manuscripts are a small number from late antiquity , and date from between 400 and 600. Examples include
3800-681: The Vergilius Romanus , Vergilius Vaticanus , and the Rossano Gospels . The majority of extant manuscripts are from the Middle Ages , although many survive from the Renaissance . While Islamic manuscripts can also be called illuminated and use essentially the same techniques, comparable Far Eastern and Mesoamerican works are described as painted . Most manuscripts, illuminated or not, were written on parchment until
3900-465: The 12th century, most manuscripts were produced in monasteries in order to add to the library or after receiving a commission from a wealthy patron. Larger monasteries often contained separate areas for the monks who specialized in the production of manuscripts called a scriptorium . Within the walls of a scriptorium were individualized areas where a monk could sit and work on a manuscript without being disturbed by his fellow brethren. If no scriptorium
4000-525: The 1330s, is a very early manuscript of one of the most common works for grand illustrated books in Persian courts. Illumination was a complex and costly process, and was therefore usually reserved for special books such as altar bibles, or books for royalty. Heavily illuminated manuscripts are often called "luxury manuscripts" for this reason. In the early Middle Ages, most books were produced in monasteries, whether for their own use, for presentation, or for
4100-417: The 14th century there were secular workshops producing manuscripts, and by the beginning of the 15th century these were producing most of the best work, and were commissioned even by monasteries. When the text was complete, the illustrator set to work. Complex designs were planned out beforehand, probably on wax tablets, the sketch pad of the era. The design was then traced or drawn onto the vellum (possibly with
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4200-444: The 2nd century BCE, when a more refined material called vellum , made from stretched calf skin, was supposedly introduced by King Eumenes II of Pergamum . This gradually became the standard for luxury illuminated manuscripts, although modern scholars are often reluctant to distinguish between parchment and vellum, and the skins of various animals might be used. The pages were then normally bound into codices (singular: codex ), that
4300-563: The 960s, when books known as the " Eburnant group " were made, perhaps at Lorsch , as several miniatures in the Gero Codex (now Darmstadt ), the earliest and grandest of the group, copy those in the Carolingian Lorsch Gospels . This is the first stylistic group of the traditional " Reichenau school ". The two other major manuscripts of the group are the sacramentaries named for Hornbach and Petershausen . In
4400-588: The 990s to 1015 or later, and major manuscripts include the Munich Gospels of Otto III , the Bamberg Apocalypse and a volume of biblical commentary there, and the Pericopes of Henry II , the best known and most extreme of the group, where "the figure-style has become more monumental, more rarified and sublime, at the same time thin in density, insubstantial, mere silhouettes of colour against
4500-541: The Church flanking the emperor, with a lengthy imperial iconographical history. As well as the reuse of motifs from older imperial art, the removal of spolia from Late Antique structures in Rome and Ravenna and their incorporation into Ottonian buildings was a device intended to suggest imperial continuity. This was clearly the intention of Otto I when he removed columns, some of porphyry , and other building materials from
4600-732: The Liuthar Gospels, give their name to the third " Liuthar group " of manuscripts, most from the 11th century, in a strongly contrasting style, though still attributed by most scholars to Reichenau, but by Dodwell also to Trier. The outstanding miniaturist of the "Ruodprecht group" was the so-called Master of the Registrum Gregorii , or Gregory Master , whose work looked back in some respects to Late Antique manuscript painting, and whose miniatures are notable for "their delicate sensibility to tonal grades and harmonies, their fine sense of compositional rhythms, their feelings for
4700-588: The Middle Ages, the Muslim world , especially on the Iberian Peninsula, was instrumental in delivering ancient classic works to the growing intellectual circles and universities of Western Europe throughout the 12th century. Books were produced there in large numbers and on paper for the first time in Europe, and with them full treatises on the sciences, especially astrology and medicine where illumination
4800-467: The Munich Gospels of Otto III ; they are therefore usually dated around 980–1000. Indeed, the paintings are one of the foundations of the case for Reichenau Abbey as a major centre of manuscript painting. Very little wood carving has survived from the period, but the monumental painted figure of Christ on the Gero Cross (around 965–970, Cologne Cathedral ) is one of the outstanding masterpieces of
4900-611: The Ottonian age include those at Salzburg , Hildesheim , Corvey , Fulda , and Cologne , where the Hitda Codex was made. This scene was often included in Ottonian cycles of the Life of Christ. Many show Jesus (with crossed halo) twice, once asleep and once calming the storm . Objects for decorating churches such as crosses, reliquaries , altar frontals and treasure bindings for books were all made of or covered by gold, embellished with gems, enamels, crystals, and cameos. This
5000-596: The Romanesque period many more manuscripts had decorated or historiated initials , and manuscripts essentially for study often contained some images, often not in color. This trend intensified in the Gothic period, when most manuscripts had at least decorative flourishes in places, and a much larger proportion had images of some sort. Display books of the Gothic period in particular had very elaborate decorated borders of foliate patterns, often with small drolleries . A Gothic page might contain several areas and types of decoration:
5100-478: The action of burnishing it is vigorous and runs the risk of smudging any painting already around it." Monasteries produced manuscripts for their own use; heavily illuminated ones tended to be reserved for liturgical use in the early period, while the monastery library held plainer texts. In the early period manuscripts were often commissioned by rulers for their own personal use or as diplomatic gifts, and many old manuscripts continued to be given in this way, even into
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#17327979891225200-425: The aid of pinpricks or other markings, as in the case of the Lindisfarne Gospels ). Many incomplete manuscripts survive from most periods, giving us a good idea of working methods. At all times, most manuscripts did not have images in them. In the early Middle Ages, manuscripts tend to either be display books with very full illumination, or manuscripts for study with at most a few decorated initials and flourishes. By
5300-619: The back with a new relief. Many objects mentioned in written sources have completely disappeared, and we probably now only have a tiny fraction of the original production of reliquaries and the like. A number of pieces have major additions or changes made later in the Middle Ages or in later periods. Manuscripts that avoided major library fires have had the best chance of survival; the dangers facing wall-paintings are mentioned above. Most major objects remain in German collections, often still church libraries and treasuries. The term "Ottonian art"
5400-422: The background in gold, was taken from Byzantine mosaics and icons . Aside from adding rich decoration to the text, scribes during the time considered themselves to be praising God with their use of gold. Furthermore, gold was used if a patron who had commissioned a book to be written wished to display the vastness of their riches. Eventually, the addition of gold to manuscripts became so frequent "that its value as
5500-554: The best in equipment and talent available. The range of heavily illuminated texts was very largely restricted (unlike in the Carolingian Renaissance ) to the main liturgical books, with very few secular works being so treated. In contrast to manuscripts of other periods, it is very often possible to say with certainty who commissioned or received a manuscript, but not where it was made. Some manuscripts also include relatively extensive cycles of narrative art, such as
5600-404: The best surviving specimens of medieval painting, and the best preserved. Indeed, for many areas and time periods, they are the only surviving examples of painting. Art historians classify illuminated manuscripts into their historic periods and types, including (but not limited to) Late Antique , Insular , Carolingian , Ottonian , Romanesque , Gothic , and Renaissance manuscripts . There are
5700-421: The book is illustrated, not unworthily represent the multiple grace of heavenly wisdom." The medieval artist's palette was broad: Chemical- and mineral-based colors, including: The color red was often associated with imagery like blood, fire, and godly power. It was the most common and inexpensive color and as such was frequently used for initials, lettering, and borders and well as general imagery. Pink
5800-496: The care of the church which were kept and valued for their connections with either royal or church figures of the period. Very often the jewels in metalwork were pilfered or sold over the centuries, and many pieces now completely lack them, or have modern glass paste replacements. As from other periods, there are many more surviving ivory panels (whose material is usually hard to re-use) for book-covers than complete metalwork covers, and some thicker ivory panels were later re-carved from
5900-648: The crown worn by Otto III as a child, which he presented to the Golden Madonna of Essen after he outgrew it. Examples of crux gemmata or processional crosses include an outstanding group in the Essen Cathedral Treasury ; several abbesses of Essen Abbey were Ottonian princesses. The Cross of Otto and Mathilde , Cross of Mathilde and the Essen cross with large enamels were probably all given by Mathilde, Abbess of Essen (died 1011), and
6000-505: The donors of the manuscripts to a church, including bishops, abbots and abbesses, and also the emperor. In some cases successive miniatures show a kind of relay: in the Hornbach Sacramentary the scribe presents the book to his abbot, who presents it to St Pirmin , founder of Hornbach Abbey, who presents it to St Peter, who presents it to Christ, altogether taking up eight pages (with the facing illuminated tablets) to stress
6100-471: The dynasty's desire to establish visually a link to the Christian rulers of Late Antiquity , such as Constantine , Theoderic , and Justinian as well as to their Carolingian predecessors, particularly Charlemagne . This goal was accomplished in various ways. For example, the many Ottonian ruler portraits typically include elements, such as province personifications, or representatives of the military and
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#17327979891226200-484: The earliest surviving wheel chandeliers from the end of the period, a huge candelabra in Essen, and in particular a spectacular collection of ambitious large bronze works, and smaller silver ones, at Hildesheim Cathedral from the period of Bishop Bernward (died 1022), who was himself an artist, although his biographer was unusually honest in saying that he did not reach "the peaks of perfection". The most famous of these
6300-503: The events of Christ's life in a western European manuscript, were made by two monks from Reichenau, who are named and depicted in one of the miniatures. The style of the "Liuthar group" is very different, and departs further from rather than returning to classical traditions; it "carried transcendentalism to an extreme", with "marked schematization of the forms and colours", "flattened form, conceptualized draperies and expansive gesture". Backgrounds are often composed of bands of colour with
6400-602: The former and unlike the latter, it was very largely a style restricted to a few of the small cities of the period, and important monasteries , as well as the court circles of the emperor and his leading vassals . After the decline of the Carolingian Empire , the Holy Roman Empire was re-established under the Saxon Ottonian dynasty. From this emerged a renewed faith in the idea of Empire and
6500-456: The gems do not merely create an impression of richness, but served both to offer a foretaste of the bejewelled nature of the Celestial city , and particular types of gem were believed to have actual powerful properties in various "scientific", medical and magical respects, as set out in the popular lapidary books . The few surviving pieces of secular jewellery are in similar styles, including
6600-520: The group of four presentation miniatures in the former described above "we can almost follow ... the movement away from the expansive Carolingian idiom to the more sharply defined Ottonian one". A number of important manuscripts produced from this period onwards in a distinctive group of styles are usually attributed to the scriptorium of the island monastery of Reichenau in Lake Constance , despite an admitted lack of evidence connecting them to
6700-630: The human form ... [and] facility in handling the material". A very important group of plaques , now dispersed in several collections, were probably commissioned (perhaps by Otto I) for Magdeburg Cathedral and are called the Magdeburg Ivories , "Magdeburg plaques", the "plaques from the Magdeburg Antependium" or similar names. They were probably made in Milan in about 970, to decorate a large flat surface, though whether this
6800-586: The illuminations of one page of a manuscript: The illumination and decoration was normally planned at the inception of the work, and space reserved for it. However, the text was usually written before illumination began. In the Early Medieval period the text and illumination were often done by the same people, normally monks, but by the High Middle Ages the roles were typically separated, except for routine initials and flourishes, and by at least
6900-691: The manuscripts of Reichenau were in 2003 added to the UNESCO Memory of the World International Register. The most important "Reichenau school" manuscripts are agreed to fall into three distinct groups, all named after scribes whose names are recorded in their books. The "Eburnant group" covered above was followed by the "Ruodprecht group" named after the scribe of the Egbert Psalter ; Dodwell assigns this group to Trier. The Aachen Gospels of Otto III , also known as
7000-452: The margins (known as marginalia ) would also allow scribes to add their own notes, diagrams, translations, and even comic flourishes. The introduction of printing rapidly led to the decline of illumination. Illuminated manuscripts continued to be produced in the early 16th century but in much smaller numbers, mostly for the very wealthy. They are among the most common items to survive from the Middle Ages; many thousands survive. They are also
7100-503: The monastery there. C. R. Dodwell was one of a number of dissident voices here, believing the works to have been produced at Lorsch and Trier instead. Wherever it was located, the "Reichenau school" specialized in gospel books and other liturgical books , many of them, such as the Munich Gospels of Otto III ( c. 1000 ) and the Pericopes of Henry II (Munich, Bayerische Nationalbibl. clm. 4452, c. 1001 –1024), imperial commissions. Due to their exceptional quality,
7200-406: The most popular included mixing the gold with stag's glue and then "pour it into water and dissolve it with your finger." Once the gold was soft and malleable in the water, it was ready to be applied to the page. Illuminators had to be very careful when applying gold leaf to the manuscript because gold leaf is able to "adhere to any pigment which had already been laid, ruining the design, and secondly
7300-422: The most popular secular texts of the time were bestiaries . These books contained illuminated depictions of various animals, both real and fictional, and often focused on their religious symbolism and significance, as it was a widespread belief in post-classical Europe that animals, and all other organisms on Earth, were manifestations of God. These manuscripts served as both devotional guidance and entertainment for
7400-640: The move from monasteries to commercial settings was a radical step. Demand for manuscripts grew to an extent that monastic libraries began to employ secular scribes and illuminators. These individuals often lived close to the monastery and, in instances, dressed as monks whenever they entered the monastery, but were allowed to leave at the end of the day. Illuminators were often well known and acclaimed and many of their identities have survived. The Byzantine world produced manuscripts in its own style, versions of which spread to other Orthodox and Eastern Christian areas. With their traditions of literacy uninterrupted by
7500-648: The north, though there are more examples in Italy, such as the stucco reliefs on the ciborium of Sant' Ambrogio, Milan , and also on that in the Abbey of San Pietro al Monte , Civate , which relate to ivory carving of the same period, the large silver cross of the Abbess Raingarda in the Basilica of San Michele Maggiore in Pavia and some stone sculpture. Surviving Ottonian works are very largely those in
7600-478: The original set. The plaques include background areas fully cut through the ivory, which would presumably originally have been backed with gold. Apart from the spaces left beside buildings, these openwork elements include some that leave chequerboard or foliage patterns. The style of the figures is described by Peter Lasko as "very heavy, stiff, and massive ... with extremely clear and flat treatment of drapery ... in simple but powerful compositions". Although it
7700-415: The outline of the figure had been recessed. The Essen cross with large enamels illustrated above shows both these techniques. Much very fine small-scale sculpture in ivory was made during the Ottonian period, with Milan probably a site if not the main centre, along with Trier and other German and French sites. There are many oblong panels with reliefs which once decorated book-covers, or still do, with
7800-500: The page", giving in the Uta Codex of c. 1020 complex schemes where "bands of gold outline the bold, squares circles, ellipses, and rhombs that enclose the figures", and inscriptions are incorporated in the design explicating its complex theological symbolism. This style was to be very influential on Romanesque art in several media. Echternach Abbey became important under Abbot Humbert, in office from 1028 to 1051, and
7900-534: The pages (as opposed to the cover) of the Codex Aureus of Echternach were produced there, followed by the Golden Gospels of Henry III in 1045–46, which Henry presented to Speyer Cathedral (now Escorial ), the major work of the school. Henry also commissioned the Uppsala Gospels for the cathedral there (now in the university library). Other important monastic scriptoria that flourished during
8000-528: The period, many of the painters were women, especially painting the elaborate border, and perhaps especially in Paris. The type of script depended on local customs and tastes. In England, for example, Textura was widely used from the 12th to 16th centuries, while a cursive hand known as Anglicana emerged around 1260 for business documents. In the Frankish Empire, Carolingian minuscule emerged under
8100-575: The period, they have left less trace than their predecessors in Carolingian times. The manuscripts were both scribed and illuminated by monks with specialized skills, some of whose names are preserved, but there is no evidence as to the artists who worked in metal, enamel and ivory, who are usually assumed to have been laymen, though there were some monastic goldsmiths in the Early Medieval period, and some lay brothers and lay assistants employed by monasteries. While secular jewellery supplied
8200-532: The period. Its traditional dating by the church, long thought to be implausibly early, was finally confirmed by dendrochronology . The Golden Madonna of Essen (about 1000, Essen Cathedral , which was formerly the abbey) is a virtually unique survival of a type of object once found in many major churches. It is a smaller sculpture of the Virgin and Child , which is in wood which was covered with gesso and then thin gold sheet. Monumental sculpture remained rare in
8300-424: The production of manuscripts shifted from monasteries to the public sector during the High Middle Ages , illuminated books began to reflect secular interests. These included short stories, legends of the saints, tales of chivalry, mythological stories, and even accounts of criminal, social or miraculous occurrences. Some of these were also freely used by storytellers and itinerant actors to support their plays. One of
8400-426: The relationship of figures in space, and above all their special touch of reticence and poise". He worked chiefly in Trier in the 970s and 980s, and was responsible for several miniatures in the influential Codex Egberti , a gospel lectionary made for Archbishop Egbert of Trier , probably in the 980s. However, the majority of the 51 images in this book, which represent the first extensive cycle of images depicting
8500-405: The rule of the dynasty. It emerged some decades into their rule and persisted past the Ottonian emperors into the reigns of the early Salian dynasty , which lacks an artistic "style label" of its own. In the traditional scheme of art history, Ottonian art follows Carolingian art and precedes Romanesque art , though the transitions at both ends of the period are gradual rather than sudden. Like
8600-476: The sixteen pages of the Codex Aureus of Echternach devoted to "strips" in three tiers with scenes from the life of Christ and his parables . Heavily illuminated manuscripts were given rich treasure bindings and their pages were probably seen by very few; when they were carried in the grand processions of Ottonian churches it seems to have been with the book closed to display the cover. The Ottonian style did not produce surviving manuscripts from before about
8700-650: The understanding of art media other than manuscript illustrations. The 1950 Munich exhibition Ars Sacra ("sacred art" in Latin) devised this term for religious metalwork and the associated ivories and enamels, which was re-used by Peter Lasko in his book for the Pelican History of Art , the first survey of the subject written in English, as the usual art-historical term, the "minor arts", seemed unsuitable for this period, where they were, with manuscript miniatures,
8800-475: The unity and importance of the "command structure" binding church and state, on earth and in heaven. Byzantine art also remained an influence, especially with the marriage of the Greek princess Theophanu to Otto II, and imported Byzantine elements, especially enamels and ivories, are often incorporated into Ottonian metalwork such as book covers. However, if there were actual Greek artists working in Germany in
8900-412: The vast educational program of Charlemagne . The first step was to send the manuscript to a rubricator , "who added (in red or other colors) the titles, headlines , the initials of chapters and sections, the notes and so on; and then – if the book was to be illustrated – it was sent to the illuminator". These letters and notes would be applied using an ink-pot and either a sharpened quill feather or
9000-486: The working class of the Middle Ages. The Gothic period, which generally saw an increase in the production of illuminated books, also saw more secular works such as chronicles and works of literature illuminated. Wealthy people began to build up personal libraries; Philip the Bold probably had the largest personal library of his time in the mid-15th century, is estimated to have had about 600 illuminated manuscripts, whilst
9100-402: The workshop followed Byzantine developments (of many decades earlier) by using the senkschmelz or "sunk enamel" technique in addition to the vollschmelz one already used. Small plaques with decorative motifs derived from plant forms continued to use vollschmelz , with enamel all over the plaque, while figures were now usually in senkschmelz , surrounded by a plain gold surface into which
9200-525: Was a door, an antependium or altar frontal, the cover of an exceptionally large book, a pulpit, or something else, has been much discussed. Each nearly square plaque measures about 13x12 cm, with a relief scene from the Life of Christ inside a plain flat frame; one plaque in the Metropolitan Museum of Art , New York has a "dedication" scene, where a crowned monarch presents Christ with a model church, usually taken to be Otto I with Magdeburg Cathedral. Altogether seventeen survive, probably fewer than half of
9300-496: Was a much older style, but the Ottonian version has distinctive features, with very busy decoration of surfaces, often gems raised up from the main surface on little gold towers, accompanied by "beehive" projections in gold wire, and figurative reliefs in repoussé gold decorating areas between the bars of enamel and gem decoration. Relics were assuming increasing importance, sometimes political, in this period, and so increasingly rich reliquaries were made to hold them. In such works
9400-430: Was available, then "separate little rooms were assigned to book copying; they were situated in such a way that each scribe had to himself a window open to the cloister walk." By the 14th century, the cloisters of monks writing in the scriptorium had almost fully given way to commercial urban scriptoria, especially in Paris, Rome and the Netherlands. While the process of creating an illuminated manuscript did not change,
9500-427: Was brushed with gold specks. Gold leaf was from the 12th century usually polished, a process known as burnishing . The inclusion of gold alludes to many different possibilities for the text. If the text is of religious nature, lettering in gold is a sign of exalting the text. In the early centuries of Christianity, Gospel manuscripts were sometimes written entirely in gold. The gold ground style, with all or most of
9600-483: Was considered a fashionable color and was often found in clothing depictions of aristocrats and in filigree detail work. It also was used to color illuminated manuscript depictions of walls and lakes. Mineral-based colors, including: Green was often associated with visuals related to the Garden of Eden and symbolized rebirth. Verdigris Green was a specific shade almost exclusively used in cross imagery, and Green Earth
9700-425: Was not coined until 1890, and the following decade saw the first serious studies of the period; for the next several decades the subject was dominated by German art historians mainly dealing with manuscripts, apart from Adolph Goldschmidt 's studies of ivories and sculpture in general. A number of exhibitions held in Germany in the years following World War II helped introduce the subject to a wider public and promote
9800-734: Was possibly from the same workshop. The latest and most lavish is the Aachen example, which is studded with jewels and shows an enthroned Emperor, surrounded by a pope and archbishops. This was probably made in Trier about 1000. Among various stylistic groups and putative workshops that can be detected, that responsible for pieces including the panel from the cover of the Codex Aureus of Echternach and two diptych wings now in Berlin (all illustrated below) produced particularly fine and distinctive work, perhaps in Trier, with "an astonishing perception of
9900-399: Was required to have profuse and accurate representations with the text. The origins of the pictorial tradition of Arabic illustrated manuscripts are uncertain. The first known decorated manuscripts are some Qur'ans from the 9th century. They were not illustrated, but were "illuminated" with decorations of the frontispieces or headings. The tradition of illustrated manuscripts started with
10000-557: Was used under other pigments in order to create depth to skin tones. Chemical- and mineral-based colors, including: Blue, especially the pigment ultramarine, was a valuable and rare color and was commonly used in depictions of the Virgin Mary. It was also commonly used for initials, lettering, and borders. On the strictest definition, a manuscript is not considered "illuminated" unless one or many illuminations contained metal, normally gold leaf or shell gold paint, or at least
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