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Gothic Art
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PAINTING
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see also Exploration:
Revelations
(Art of the Apocalypse)
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Illuminated Manuscript
Matthew Paris
Illuminated Manuscript
Handwritten book that has been decorated with gold or silver, brilliant colours, or elaborate designs or miniature pictures. Though various Islamic societies also practiced this art, Europe had the longest and probably the most highly developed tradition of illuminating manuscripts.
(Encyclopaedia Britannica)
The term "illumination" originally denoted the embellishment of the textof handwritten books with gold or, more rarely, silver, giving the impression that the page had been literally illuminated. In medieval times, when the art was at its height, specialization within scriptoria or workshops called for differentiation between those who "historiated'" (i.e., illustrated texts by relevant paintings) and those who "illuminated" (i.e., supplied the decorative work that embellished initial capital letters and often spilled into margins and borders and that almost invariably introduced gold in either leaf or powdered form). The two functions sometimes overlapped, particularly when drolleries and other irrelevancies began to populate initials and borders, and even in medieval times the distinction was often blurred. In modern times the term denotes the illustration and decoration of early manuscripts in general,whether or not with gold.
In the great era of the illuminated manuscript, the art of the illuminator often played an important role in the development of art. The portability of the manuscript made ita simple means for the transmission of ideas from one region to another, and even from one period to another. On the whole, the development of painting in manuscripts paralleled the development of monumental painting. After the development of printing in Europe in the second half of the 15th century, illumination was superseded by printed illustrations.
Miniature painting
Also called (16th-17th century) Limning, small, finely wrought portrait executed on vellum, prepared card, copper, or ivory. The name is derived from the minium, or red lead, used by the medieval illuminators. Arising from a fusion of the separate traditions of the illuminated manuscript and the medal, miniature painting flourished from the beginningof the 16th century down to the mid-19th century.
(Encyclopaedia Britannica)
The portrait miniature, as a separate portrait enclosed in either a locket or a covered "portrait box," is most plausibly traced to Flemish illuminators such as those of the Horenbout family. The earliest datable portrait miniatures, however, are not Flemish but French, and are all believed to have been painted by Jean Clouet at the court of Francis I. Under the patronage of King Henry VIII, Lukas Horenbout painted the first portrait miniatures recorded in England. He taught the technique to Hans Holbein the Younger, who was able to put into this small-scale work all the intensity of vision and fineness of touch apparent in his easel paintings and drawings, creating masterpieces of the then-new art form that remain unsurpassed.
Holbein inspired a long tradition of miniature painting in England. One of his pupils, Nicholas Hilliard, became the firstnative-born master of miniature painting in that country. He adopted the oval form, which had recently become fashionable on the continent of Europe in preference to the circular form and which remained the most popular shape until the early 19th century. Hilliard served as miniature painter to Queen Elizabeth I for more than 30 years. His chiefpupil, Isaac Oliver, was a more technically sophisticated artist who became the chief miniaturist during the reign of King James I (1603–25). Oliver's pupil, Samuel Cooper, earneda preeminent reputation in Europe by his presentation of character and tight, effective brushwork.
Early miniaturists had painted in watercolour and gouache (opaque watercolour) on vellum or prepared paper. The technique of painting miniatures in enamel on a metal surface was introduced in France in the 17th century and perfected by Jean Petitot. About 1700 the Italian painter Rosalba Carriera introduced the use of ivory as a ground thatcould provide a luminous, glowing surface for transparent pigments and heighten their effect.
This technical innovationstimulated a great revival of miniature painting in the second half of the 18th century. The chief European miniaturists of the period were Peter Adolf Hall and Niclas Lafrensen in France and Jeremiah Meyer, Richard Cosway, Ozias Humphrey, and John Smart in England.
In the early 19th century, French miniaturists such as J.B. Isabey were influenced by the easel portraits of Jacques-Louis David. Miniature portraits continued to be painted in the following decades, but they remained an expensive luxury. Inexpensive black-and-white portraits in the new medium of photography made painted miniatures obsolete in the second half of the century.
Matthew Paris
(b c. 1200; d 1259).
English chronicler and manuscript illuminator. In 1217 he became a Benedictine monk at St Albans and in 1236 succeeded Roger of Wendover as the abbey’s chronicler. Although his surname, which he usually wrote Parisiensis, could suggest French origins, he was most probably an Englishman characteristically trained in both Latin and Anglo-Norman. References in his works to the University of Paris, however, raise the possibility that he had studied at one of the schools in Paris. Paris maintained a wide range of contacts with the outside world through the steady flow of documents to St Albans and through the abbey’s many visitors, including Henry III and his brother, Richard of Cornwall. He attended many important royal celebrations at Westminster, Canterbury, Winchester and York, and in 1248 he was sent to Norway to reform the monastery of St Benet Holm.
Matthew Paris
Execution of St Alban
c.1250
