Are you Illuminating?

We just finished our monthly meeting and this time the topic to be covered was Illumination.  With the help of Brigitte and Sandie we were presented with some ideas and techniques to consider.

Sandie started us off with a excersize we call JOLTZ.  It's purpose is to jolt us out of our comfort zone and get us thinking and or working outside the box.  The exercise involved rolling dice and then drawing a portion of a "Picaso-esque" face  with each roll of the dice.  The results were amazing.

After giving credit to Wikipedia for help with research, Brigitte presented what she had discovered about  illumination.  What follows is some of what she presented.  After the presentation, the group was challenged to produce a fiber art piece illuminating their impression of what they had learned.  The results will be shown in a later post.

There are many ways to define the term illumination.  Very basically it refers to the falling of light onto objects and making them visible as they are illuminated.  But there are other definitions that we might consider in our study.

Wikipedia states that Illumination, an observable property and effect of light, may also refer to:

• the use of light sources - Lighting
• the use of light and shadow in art - Illumination (image)
• The artistic decoration of hand-written texts - Illuminated manuscript.

In the study of physics there is an additional definition, but that is not our study here.  To narrow our study of this term, we shall focus on lighting and the art of decorating a text, or initial letter.

Lighting

The illumination of the subject of a drawing or painting is a key element in creating an artistic piece, and the interplay of light and shadow is a valuable method in the artist's toolbox.  The placement of the light sources can make a considerable difference in the type of message that is being presented.  Multiple light sources can wash out any wrinkles in a person's face, for instance, and give a more youthful appearance.  In contrast, a single light source, such as harsh daylight, can serve to highlight any texture or interesting features.

By using light/dark contrast one can illuminate an object so as to give it form or shape making it look more realistic.  The use of dark subjects dramatically lit by a shaft of light from a single constricted and often unseen source was a compositional device developed by Ugo da Carpi in the mid-15th century.

Developed during the Renaissance, chiaroscuro (light-dark) is an oil painting technique that uses strong contrasts between light and dark to create a dramatic effect.  Artists known for developing the technique include Leonardo da Vinci, Caravaggio and Rembrandt.

Chiaroscuro originated as drawing on coloured paper, where the artist worked fromt he paper's base tone toward light using white gouache, and toward dark using ink or watercolour.  These in trun drew on traditions in illuminated manuscripts.  Such works used to be called "chiaroscuro drawings".  The term broadened in meaning early on to cover all strong contrasts in illumination between light and dark areas in art, which is now the primary meaning.

It is a mainstay of black and white and low-key photography.

Illuminated Manuscripts

An illuminated manuscript is a manuscript in which the text is supplemented with such decoration as initials, borders (marginalia) and miniature illustrations.  In the strictest definition, the term refers only to manuscripts decorated with gold or silver.  However the common usage today refers to any decorated or illustrated manuscript from Western traditions.

The earliest surviving illuminated manuscripts are from the period 400 to 600, produced in the Kingdom of the Ostrogoths and the Eastern Roman Empire.  Illumination of manuscripts was a way of aggrandizing ancient documents, aided their preservation and informative value in an era when new ruling classes were no longer literate, at least in the language used in the manuscripts.

The majority of surviving manuscripts are from the Middle Ages, although many survive from the Renaissance.  The majority of these manuscripts are of a religious nature.  However especially from the 13th century onward, an increasing number of illuminated manuscripts were secular texts.  Most medieval manuscripts important enough to illuminate were written on the best quality of parchment, call vellum.

Illuminated manuscripts continued to be produced in the early 16th century, but in much smaller numbers, mostly for the very wealthy.  Manuscripts are among the most common items to survive from the Middle Ages as also the best surviving specimens of medieval painting.

Art historians classify illuminated manuscripts into their historic periods and types, including (but not limited to Late Antique, Insular, Carolingian manuscripts, Ottonian manuscripts, Romanesque manuscripts, Gothic manuscripts and Renaissance manuscripts.

The type of book that was most often heavily and richly illuminated, sometimes known as a "display book" varied between periods.  In the first millennium, these were most likely to be Gospel Books, such as Lindisfarne Gospels and the Book of Kells.

Folio 27r from the Lindisfarne Gospels contains the incipit from the Gospel of Matthew.

The Book of Kells, (folio 292r), circa 800, showing the lavishly decorated text that opens the Gospel of John

The romanesque period saw the creation of many huge illuminated complete Bibles - one in Sweden requires three librarians to lift it.

Finally the Book of Hours, very commonly the personal devotional book of a wealthy lay person, was often richly illuminated in the Gothic period.  They Byzantine world also continued to produce manuscripts in its own style, versions of which spread to other Orthodox and Eastern Christian areas.

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; it is estimated to have had about 600 illuminated manuscripts, whilst a number of his friends and relations had several dozen.