Ici crie Dex ciel et terre, soleil et lune et toz elemenz Here God creates heaven and earth, the sun and moon and all the elements.
Blanche de Castile
Saint Louis
Allegories and Paradox Literature
However, all four Bibles show an anachronistic and allegorical God.
Northrop Frye discussed what he termed a “continuum of allegory”, a spectrum that ranges from what he termed the “naive allegory” of the likes of The Faerie Queene, to the more private allegories of modern paradox literature.
As I wrote on 19 February, the image I showed awakes in me a feeling I cannot describe adequately, but this discrepancy has a name: paradox literature. The name does not make a God using a compass less mysterious. However, it lifts a veil on the mine of our Medieval ancestors.
In literature, the paradox is an anomalous juxtaposition of incongruous ideas for the sake of striking exposition or unexpected insight. It functions as a method of literary composition and analysis that involves examining apparently contradictory statements and drawing conclusions either to reconcile them or to explain their presence.[1]
Happy New Year to all of you.
I wish you good health and glorious days.
The year 2016 was somewhat bumpy. It brought Brexit and Donald Trump. Mr Trump may not be a duly-elected President of the United States because Russian President Vladimir Putin meddled in an American election.
Let us hope Mr Trump does not change what has been put into place radically. He does not have a clear mandate and countries need stability and continuity. Moreover, what happens in the United States affects the entire world.
A New Year is a beginning and I hope 2017 will bring us joy and peace.
I am inserting Mozart’s Laudate Dominum. It is one of the finest compositions ever. (SeeVesperæ sollenes de confessore,K.339, Wikipedia)
January, Les Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry(Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Wishing all of you a very Happy New Year♥
Illuminated Manuscripts
Illuminated manuscripts are the ancestors of our illustrated books. Famous examples are the Book of Kells, Les Très Riches Heures de Jean de France, Duc de Berry, and Medieval Bestiaries.
During the Middle Ages, le livre d’images (the picture book) was very popular. If one couldn’t read, the image must have been a delight. The most popular book of the Middle Ages was the Légende dorée (The Golden Legend), by Jacobus de Voragine. It was a hagiography, lives of saints and martyrs, but it outsold the Bible. The first printed Bible is the Gutenberg Bible, which I have not discussed yet.
Japonismeis a French term. It was first used by Jules Claretie(3 December 1840 – 23December 1913) in L’Art français en 1872(French Art in 1872) 1913) in L’Art français en 1872 (French Art in 1872). I chose it to describe, in part, the Golden Age of illustration in Britain. The art work that was flooding Europe after Japan’s Sakoku (locked country) period were mere wood-block prints, or ukiyo-e, but no one questioned their beauty. They were in fact not only genuine art, but in many cases, masterpieces.
the Writer and the Illustrator
In Britain, Japonisme ushered in the Golden Age of illustrations. Both word and art could be reproduced very quickly. An author retained the services of an artist, John Tenniel, who, for his part, retained the services of an engraver or engravers. The engravers of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and Through the Looking-Glass (1871) are the Brothers Daziel.
Although some artists could illustrate their text, which was the case with Beatrix Potter (28 July 1866 – 22 December 1943), the author of The Tale of Peter Rabbit, in most cases, illustrating a book successfully required the collaboration and compatibility of a writer and an artist. The illustrations were then engraved, unless the illustrator was also an engraver.
The Tale of Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Therefore, when JohnTenniel accepted to illustrate Lewis Carroll‘s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and its sequel, Through the Looking-Glass (1871), he and Lewis Carroll had long discussions. John Tenniel was accepting his first commission as the illustrator of children’s literature. Until he agreed to illustrate Lewis Carroll’s Alice, John Tenniel had been working as a political cartoonist for Punchmagazine. He could draw, but the subject matter was brand new. Consequently, if successful, illustrating Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass could make history. Besides given that Lewis Carroll was a pioneer in the area of official literary nonsense, his task was all the more challenging. What was John Tenniel to do each time the text grew “curiouser and couriouser”?
Literary nonsense
Edward Lear (12 or 13 May 1812 – 29 January 1888) had published his Book of Nonsense, in 1846, a few decades before the Golden Age of Illustration. In particular, he had popularized limericks, a literary genre, poetry to be precise. Witty literature was not new. It found a rich expression in the Salons of the first half of the 17th century in France and it was, to a certain extent, related to the conceit(la pointe), the witty and ingenious metaphors of the metaphysical poets of 17th-century England. Literary nonsense would become a feature of children’s literature.
The flowers are beginning their masquerade as people. Sir Jonquil begins the fun by Walter Crane, 1899 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass were very successful and all the more so because children had gained importance. Although the mortality rate among children had not abated drastically, advances in medicine allowed parents to expect their children to survive childhood. Queen Victoria married her first cousin, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, a Prince consort, and gave birth to nine healthy children who married royals.
Gutenberg continued: the Instantaneous, yet…
Moreover the success of LewisCarroll‘s and Tenniel’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass, word and art, did make history. Johannes Gutenberg‘s invention of the printing-press in the middle of the 15th century had been major revolution, one of the most significant in European history. Well, a book had been produced that included fine reproductions of beautiful images. Printed books containing printed illustrations had been produced between 1500 and 1865 but Japonisme had eased the task.
The Calligrapher & the Artist
Compared to the labour of monks who copied books one at a time, Gutenberg’s invention made printing a text seem instantaneous, hence the revolutionary character of the invention of the printing-press. Let us also consider that the printing-press led to the growth of literacy which, in 19th-century Britain, was being extended to children as children’s literature was popular. However, if an illustrated book were to be a commercial success, producing the book demanded that word and art match in an almost inextricable manner.
What comes to mind is the collaboration between the calligrapher and the artist who illuminated such books as Books of Hours, laicity’s Liber Usualis. The printing-press had been invented but, as noted above, a good relationship between the author and the illustrator was crucial:
“There was a physical relation of the illustrations to the text, intended to subtly mesh illustrations with certain points of the text.” (See John Tenniel, Wikipedia.)
Japonisme
Printing illustrations, however, constituted a more challenging task than printing a text, a challenge that was eased by Japonisme.First, Japonisme allowed the rapid printing of illustrations. Second, it validated the work of illustrators. But third, it also simplified the duplication of illustrations.
Typically, the art of Japan featured:
a diagonal line crossing a vertical or horizontal line;
flat or lightly shaded colours;
a stark outline;
&c
Composition did not ease a printer’s labour, but flat colours and a stark outline, i.e. the linearity of Japanese wood-block prints, did help the illustrator and the printer. So did the use of flat colours.
Rackham’s work is often described as a fusion of a northern European ‘Nordic’ style strongly influenced by the Japanese woodblock tradition of the early 19th century. (See Arthur Rackham, Wikipedia.)
Rackham’s “Mad Tea-Party”, featured above, exhibits a diagonal line and it is a linear work of art. The colours are poured inside lines, which reminds me of colouring books for children. But note that there are few shadows. The cups and saucer do not cast a shadow, nor does the teapot. As for dimensionality, it is expressed through the use of lines rather than a juxtaposition of shades of the same colour or the juxtaposition of different colours. Wood-block printing allowed for a measure of dimensionality through the use of lighter or darker tones of a colour or colours. However, by and large, Japanese wood-block prints do not show the shadow of the objects they depict.
With respect to linearity, one need only compare Katsushika Hokusai‘s (c. 31 October 1760 – 10 May 1849) “Self-Portrait” and Rackham’s illustration of the “Town mouse and Country mouse”, shown in a previous post. Moreover, draping or dimensionality is achieved by using less lines (pale: close) or more lines (dark: distant).
Self-Portrait by Hokusai (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Town Mouse and Country Mouse by Arthur Rackham (Photo credit: Wikimedia.org)
Conclusion
Arthur Rackham’s illustrations are close to ukiyo-e(“pictures of the floatingworld”).Walter Crane, however, is the most prolific among Japoniste illustrators of children’s books. He illustrated a very large number of literary works. We are acquainted with his Baby’s Own Æsop (Gutenberg [EBook #25433]), but he also illustrated The Baby’s Own Opera (Gutenberg [EBook #25418]), songs for children. Folklorists, however, had collected and classified a very large number of folk tales.
Illustrators had countless tales to illustrate: those produced by the Brothers Grimm, Hans Christian Andersen, Perrault, Madame d’Aulnoy. Anyone can rewrite the “Little Red Riding Hood” and illustrate it. Carl Larsson illustrated the “Little Red Riding Hood” in 1881. The Arts and Crafts movement was international. (to be cont’d)
I apologize for the delay. My computer is nearly dead and life has a way of making demands.
With my kindest regards. ♥
The Little Red Riding Hood by Carl Larsson (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Livre d’images de madame Marie Hainaut, vers 1285-1290 Paris, BnF, Naf 16251, fol. 22v. La naissance du Christ est annoncée aux bergers, aux humbles. “Et voici qu’un ange du seigneur leur apparut [.]. Ils furent saisis d’une grande frayeur. Mais l’ange leur dit : “Ne craignez point, car je vous annonce une bonne nouvelle [.]” (The Birth of Christ announced to the Shepherds) (Photo credit: the National Library of France [BnF])
—ooo—
Introduction
I am providing you with a list of natural historians. There are other historians than those I have listed. Moreover, some of the authors of Medieval Bestiaries were historians. My sources are the Medieval Bestiary and Wikipedia.
The Contents of Natural Histories
Nature included not only animals, plants, flowers, but “the moon, stars, and the zodiac, the sun, the planets, the seasons and the calendar[.]” (Vincent de Beauvais). I have already noted that our humble calendars were cultural monuments. Jean de France’s Livre d’heures (Book of Hours) is probably the chief example of humanity’s need to chronicle its hours and the labours of the months. Les Très Riches Heures de Jean de France, Duc de Berry and the Book of Kells are genuine treasures. The beauty of the Book of Kells never ceases to amaze me. It is always new. As for Jean de France, Duc de Berry’s Livre d’heures, it is also an extremely beautiful book and it features the zodiac, thereby attesting to the continuity between “paganism” and Christianity.
The Testimonial of Explorers: Marco Polo
The authors of the Natural Histories relied to a large extent on the testimonial of earlier natural historians, which did not make for accuracy, but was acceptable in the Middle Ages. Predecessors were masters one strove to equal. Marco Polo‘s (15 September 1254 – 8–9 January 1324) Book of the Marvels of the World (Le Livre des merveilles du monde), c. 1300,was also a source for natural historians who lived during Marco Polo’s lifetime and afterwards.
Marco Polo, however, did not have a camera and it would appear that few artists accompanied him. His descriptions could therefore be edited. Discovering trade routes, the silk road, was a more important mission for him than cataloguing animals. Last September (2014),it was suggested that Marco Polo discovered America. (See The Telegraph.)
The Bestseller of the Middle Ages: The Golden Legend
Although Natural Histories listed mythical animals and much lore, I would not dismiss the accounts of the natural historians of Greece, Rome, early Christianity, and the Christian Middle Ages. Their books reveal various steps in our history. For instance, the bestseller of the Middle Ages was Jacobus de Voragine’s (c. 1230 – 13 or 16 July 1298) Golden Legend, which contained mostly inaccurate hagiographies (lives of saints). Although it was rather fanciful, it served as mythology and humans need mythologies. They need to trace their roots.
Claudius Alienus’ On the Characteristics of Animals is available in print: Book 1, Book 2. But it may be read online at Internet Archive (Book 1, Book 2, Book 3). So are other books. For my purposes, On the Characteristics of Animals (EN) was extremely useful. It is the natural history I used when I prepared my course on Beast Literature.
Beatus de Saint-Sever. Manuscrit copié à Saint-Sever, XIe siècle, avant 1072 BnF, Manuscrits, Latin 8878 fol. 14 (An “historiated” letter: note the “eternal” knots andRenart standing on its back legs.) (Photo credit: the National Library of France [BnF]) Guillaume de Machaut, Rondeaux. Manuscrit copié à Reims, vers 1373-1377. BnF, Manuscrits, Français 1584 fol. 478 (Renart sits inside an historiated initial.) (Photo credit: BnF)
Hrabanus Maurus (c. 780-856), Archbishop of Mainz, De rerum naturis (On the Nature of Things), or De universo, an encyclopedia in 22 books, written between 842 and 847);
Lambert of Saint-Omer (c. 1061 – 1250), Liber floridus (“book of flowers”), Le Livre fleurissant en fleurs;
Lucan (3 November 39 CE – 20 April 65 CE), Roman, Pharsalia (unfinished);
Jacob van Maerlant (c. 1235 – 1291), greatest Flemish poet of the Middle Ages, Der Naturen Bloeme, a translation in Middle Dutch of Thomas of Cantimpré’s Liber de Natura Rerum;
Konrad von Megenberg (early 14th century), Bavaria, studied in Paris, Das Buch der Natur, his source was Thomas of Cantimpré;
Pliny the Elder (23 CE – 24 or 25 August 79 CE), Naturalis Historia (mentioned below);
Strabo (63/64 BCE – c. 24 CE), Greek, Geographica;
Theophrastus (c. 370 – 285 BCE), Enquiry into Plants (9 books), On the Causes of Plants (six books) (Theophrastus will be discussed separately);
Thomas of Cantimpré (early 13th century, Brussels), Liber de Natura Rerum (19 books in 1228, 20 books in 1244);
Vincent of Beauvais (c. 1190 – 1264?), a French Dominican friar, Speculum [mirror] naturale. His Speculum Maius was the main encyclopedia used in the Middle Ages.
My list is the Medieval Bestiary‘s list. It can be found by clicking on Bestiary.ca. The following authors are fascinating:
Pliny the Elder (23 CE – 79 CE) wrote a Naturalis Historia, a History of Nature. Pliny died in the eruption of Vesuvius, on 24 August 79 CE. Accounts differ. Pliny the Elder may have been studying the eruption, but he was also trying to rescue friends. Pliny the Younger, Pliny the Elder’s nephew, wrote two letters on the eruption of Vesuvius that he sent to Tacitus. Pliny the Younger was a witness to the eruption of Vesuvius, but survived. (See Pliny the Elder, Pliny the Younger, and Tacitus, Wikipedia – the free encyclopedia.)
Claudius Alienus (c. 175 – c. 235 CE) known as Aelian, is the author of On the Characteristics of Animals. Aelian, however, used written sources, one of which was Pliny the Elder’s Naturalis Historia. Aelian told how beavers castrate themselves to escape hunters. As mentioned above, Aelian’s On the Characteristics of Animals is an Internet Archive publication Book 1, Book 2, Book 3. (See Claudius Alienus, Wikipedia – the free encyclopedia.)
Three elegant dogs stand ready. F 25r (folio 25 recto)
Bestiaries
A bestiary is a compendium of beasts most of which have identical characteristics from bestiary to bestiary. In Europe, bestiaries are mostly a product of the Middle Ages, the 12th and 13th centuries in particular. Exceptionally beautiful are the Aberdeen Bestiary MS 24) and the Ashmole Bestiary (MS 1462 & MS 1511), both dating back to the late 12th and 13th century.
They are illuminated manuscripts and, in this regard, resemble books of hours. They therefore contain images complemented by superb calligraphy that could vary from bestiary to bestiary, some of which are ancestors to our “fonts.”
Bestiaries were usually transcribed by monks in a scriptorium, a recess in a wall, and were executed on vellum (calfskin) or parchment (calfskin, sheepskin or goatskin). Both the Aberdeen Bestiary (MS 24) and the Ashmole BestiaryMS 1462 (Bodleian Library, Oxford) were written and illuminated on parchment. However, the Ashmole BestiaryMS 1511 (Bodleian Library) was executed on vellum.
Real and Legendary Animals
Not all animals described in bestiaries are real animals. The authors of natural histories often relied on information obtained from individuals who had travelled to the Orient or elsewhere. Thus was born the unicorn. The rhinoceros is a real animal that has one horn, but the unicorn, the monocerus in Greece, is a both an anthropomorphic and zoomorphic animal.
Zoomorphic animals combine the features of several beasts and may be part human and part beast. Such is the case with centaurs and the minotaur. The lower half of a centaur is a horse, the upper, a man. The minotaur’s body is human, but its head is that of a bull.
The Physiologus: the main Source
The best-known “natural history” is the Physiologus (“The Naturalist”), written in Greek in the 2nd century BCE. Authorship of the Physiologus has not been determined, but it was translated into Latin in about 700 CE, our era. It was the main source of information for persons who wrote and illuminated bestiaries.
The Physiologus described an animal, told an anecdote about that animal and then gave the animal moral attributes (See Physiologus, Wikipedia). In the Medieval Bestiary, the anecdote for dogs was “The Dog and Its Reflection.” Natural histories, however, made animals allegorical rather than humans in disguise. The Physiologus is allegorical and emblematic, but in structure, it resembles the fable.
fable consists of a narrative with a moral, Physiologus of nature observation with moralization.
The most famous copy of the Physiologus is the Bern Physiologus.
Dogs
In the case of dogs, the Medieval Bestiary (http://bestiary.ca/) describes the animal, tells an anecdote, the “Dog and Its Reflection,” and then informs readers that the dog is the most loyal of animals. The dog may be able to kill but, as the lore goes, it is man’s best friends and therefore emblematic of loyalty. We learn as well that the dog licks wounds.
According to Pliny the Elder (23 BC – 25 August 79 BCE), one of many authors of natural histories, “[t]he domestic animal that is most faithful to man is the dog.” The iconography, images, tells a similar story, but also shows us many greyhounds, as do 20th-century fashion illustrators.
The Gallery
So here are some pictures of faithful dogs who lived in the Middle Ages. The dog featured at the very bottom of this post is about to avenge his master’s murder, but is also a healer. The bestiary in which it is depicted is housed at the Royal Library in Copenhagen. It is an illumination (enluminures) executed on the front page, the folio, of a Bestiary. The front of the folio (the page) is called recto vs verso, the back.
Koninklijke Bibliotheek, KB, KA 16, Folio 48v
Koninklijke Bibliotheek, KB, KA 16, Folio 49r
A pair of dogs, possibly greyhounds? F 48v (verso: back)
Two dogs, possibly greyhounds or other hunting dogs. F 49r (recto: front)
Bibliothèque nationale de France, lat. 6838B, Folio 12v
British Library, Royal MS 12 F. xiii, Folio 30v
Morgan Library, MS M.81, Folio 28r
Bibliothèque nationale de France, lat. 6838B, Folio 12r
A dog refuses to leave the side of its dead master. F 12v
King Garamantes, captured by his enemies, is rescued by has pack of dogs. f 30v
At the top, a dog attacks the man who killed his master, thus pointing out the guilty. At the bottom, the faithful dog refuses to leave the body of its dead master. f 28R
King Garametes, captured by his enemies, is rescued by his dogs. f 12r
“Dogs are unable to live without men. There are several kinds of dogs: those that guard their master’s property; those that are useful for hunting wild animals or birds; and those that watch over sheep. A dog cures its own wounds by licking, and a young dog bound to a patient cures internal wounds. A dog will always return to its vomit. When a dog is swimming across a river while holding meat in its mouth, if it sees its own reflection it will drop the meat it is carrying while trying to get the meat it sees in the reflection.
Several stories are told about the actions of dogs. King Garamantes, captured by his enemies, was rescued by his dogs. When a man was murdered and there were no witnesses to say who did it, the man’s dog pointed out the slayer in the crowd. Jason‘s dog was said to have refused to eat and died of hunger after his master’s death. A Roman dog accompanied his master to prison, and when the man was executed and his body thrown into the Tiber River, the dog tried to hold up the corpse.
A dog that crosses a hyena‘s shadow will lose its voice.
However, if the Duc de Berry’s name still lingers in our memory, it is because he commissioned Books of Hours from the Limbourg brothersor Gebroeders van Limburg: Herman, Pol and Johan (fl. 1385 – 1416), the most famous of which is LesTrès Riches Heures du Duc de Berry. The Limbourg brothers also contributed miniatures to a
Bible moralisée (1402-1404: 184 miniatures and 124 margins) as well as miniatures, to
We will concentrate on the Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry, commissioned by Jean Ier de France in 1410 and currently housed at the Musée Condé, in Chantilly, France. All three Limbourg brothers, Herman, Pol (Paul) and Johan (Jean), born in Nijmegen, now in Gelderland, in the Netherlands, worked on Jean de France’s famous Très Riches Heures, but all three died in 1416, aged 28 to 31, probably of the plague, which, in all likelihood, also took the life of their patron, the Duc de Berry.
Photo credit: Wikipedia (all images)(Please click on each picture to enlarge it.)
Completing the Manuscript
The Limbourg brothers had nearly completed their assignment before their death, but not quite. Later in the fifteenth century, an anonymous artist worked on the manuscript. It would appear this anonymous artist was Barthélemy d’Eyck, or van Eyck (FR) (c. 1420 – after 1470), called the Master of the Shadows. If indeed Barthélemy d’Eyck, or van Eyck (FR), worked on the Très Riches Heures, he did so after 1444.[i] His extremely generous patron was Renéd’Anjou (16 January 1409 – 10 July 1480).
However, completion of the manuscript is attributed to Jean Colombe (b. Bourges c. 1430; d. c. 1493) who was commissioned to complete Jean de France’s book by Charles Ier, Duc de Savoie. He worked between 1485 and 1489. The Très Riches Heures was imitated by Flemish artists in the 16th century and then disappeared for three centuries until it was found by Spinola of Genoa and later bought, in 1856, by the Condé Museum in Chantilly, France, where it is held.[ii]
The Très Riches Heures: a Calendar
However, Jean de France, duc de Berry’s Très Riches Heures differs from other Books of Hours because of the prominence of its calendar, a lay calendar. Each month of the year is depicted on a full page and these depictions constitute a remarkable record of the monthly labour of men and women, from shearing lamb to cutting wood and the brothers depicted them in minute details and astonishing accuracy. In the background, of each monthly, page we can see one of Jean de France’s many castles and hôtels. For instance, the image inserted at the top of this post shows the Château de Vincennes. In the front, dogs are eating a boar. The Limburg brothers
were among the first illuminators to render specific landscape scenes (such as the environs and appearance of their patron’s castles) with great accuracy and sensitivity.[iii]
The Limbourg Brothers: Biographical notes
The Limbourg brothers were born to artistic parents. Their grandfather had lived in Limburg, hence their name. But he had moved to Nigmegen. His son Arnold (1355-1360 – 1395-1399) was a wood-carver. Their mother, Mchtel Maelwael (Malouel) belonged to a family of heraldic painters. However, the most prominent artist in the brothers’ family was their uncle Jean Malouel, or Jan Maelwael in Dutch, who was court painter for Philip the Bold, Duke of Burgundy. It should be noted that between 1032 and 1477, Burgundy was an enlarged Duchy of Burgundy, also called the Franco-Flemish lands.
As for the brothers themselves, Herman and Johan were sent to Paris to learn the craft of goldsmithing and upon the death of Philip the Bold, in 1604, they were hired by his brother, Jean de France. They worked in a style called International Gothic. As Jean de France, Duc de Berry’s artists, the Limbourg brothers were first assigned a long project, a Book of Hours entitled Belles Heures du Duc de Berry, containing 158 miniatures, currently housed in the Cloisters at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in New York.
Jean de France was obviously very pleased with his Belles Heures du Duc de Berry. He showered the Limbourg brothers with gifts, the most substantial being a very large house for Paul in Bourges, France, where the three brothers resided. Johan seems to have combined a career as goldsmith and painter, at least temporarily, but he was definitely one of the three miniaturists who worked on the miniatures comprised in Jean de France’s Très Riches Heures, commissioned in 1410 or 1411. There have been attempts to attribute certain pages to a particular brother, but uncertainty lingers. I should think that Wikipedia’s list is probably mostly accurate.[iv]
A Wider Symbolism
You will notice that Les Très Riches Heures contains paintings above which there is a semicircle, the folio for each month shows the twelve Zodiac signs, the ecclesiastical lunar calendar as well as heraldic emblems and other relevant elements. Many Books of Hours are also characterized by the mille-fleurs motif borrowed from Oriental rugs brought to Europe by returning Crusaders. In Books of Hours, artists drew from elements preceding Christianity as well as Christian ones, not to mention personal elements. “Their range includes coats of arms, initials, monograms, mottoes, and personal emblems, which are used singly or in all combinations possible.”[v]
Artistic Elements
Painted in gouache on parchment (vellum), the Tr[è]s Riches Heures includes
416 pages, 131 of which have large miniatures, while many more are decorated
with border illustrations or large historiated initials, as well as 300 ornamented capital letters [also called “historiated” letters].”[vi]
As for the colors, fine pigments were used and blended by the brothers themselves into a form of gouache and, at times, they crushed lapis lazuli, a semi-precious stone into a “liant,” a binding agent. They also used gold leaf. It was a delicate process done step by step on a relatively small piece of vellum (vélin), the skin of a calf (veau).
Conclusion
The Limburg brothers and Jean de France died before the age of thirty. Yet, their legacy is an exceptional depiction of their life and times. I am certain Jean de France marvelled at the consummate artistry of the Limburg brothers. They worked at a moment in history when perspective had not yet entered their world, except simple linear perspective.[vii] Yet their folios show the degree of dimensionality that could be achieved in the Burgundian 15th century. Therefore, their art has its own finality and it is love for what it is.
I especially like the serenity of the folios constituting the twelve months of the Calendar. The Labours of the Months do not seem an imposition but the natural activity of simple human beings reaping food and comfort from a rich land and hoping in an age were an epidemic could be devastating. Their faces and gestures do not show fear. On the contrary, they show faith. They are working so that months will grow into seasons and seasons into years that will return until they enter peacefully into the timelessness of life eternal.
To view the pages corresponding to each month of the year, click on Très Riches Heures.
N.B. Several illuminations painted for Berry’s Book of Hours inspired some of the backdrops to sets used by Laurence Olivier in his film of Shakespeare’s play Henry V which he made in 1944 on the eve of the Normandy invasion.
The yale (F16v ). The yale is as large as a horse, is black, has an elephant’s tail and the jaws of a wild boar. Its horns are long and mobile: one can fold backwards while the other fights.
Photo credit: Aberdeen Bestiary Project
Part of text can be read online at Aberdeen Bestiary (Oxford, Bodleian)
The Aberdeen Bestiary (Aberdeen University Library, Univ Lib. MS 24) can be read online. Just click on the link. It is an illuminated (with pictures) bestiary. The Aberdeen Bestiary is related to other bestiaries of the Middle Ages and especially the Ashmole Bestiary. According to Wikipedia,
[s]ome argue that the Aberdeen Bestiary might be the older of the two.
Among other animals, it features a Satyr, a Monoceros or Monocerus, and a pelican.
Other than The Physiologus, sources include:
Gaius Julius SolinusDe mirabilibus mundi (The Wonders of the World) also known as Collectanea rerum memorabilium (Collection of Curiosities) and Polyhistor. Solinus was a Latin grammarian who lived in the 4th century AD.
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